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The Bohemian Girl: Stories
Uprooted from a well-ordered life in Virginia when she was nine, Willa Cather came of age in the West during the last years of the American frontier. She developed a love for the beauty of the open grassland and an abiding interest in the Old World customs of her neighbors, the dreamers and builders who inhabit her fiction. This collection includes work from the early part of Cather′s career and clearly marks themes and landscapes that she would detail and explore for the remainder of her life. Alongside THE BOHEMIAN GIRL, Harper Perennial will publish the short fiction of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Herman Melville, Stephen Crane, and Oscar Wilde to be packaged in a beautifully designed, boldly colorful boxset in the aim to attract contemporary fans of short fiction to these revered masters of the form. Also, in each of these selections will appear a story from one of the new collections being published in the "Summer of the Short Story." A story from Lydia Peelle′s forthcoming collection, REASONS FOR AND ADVANTAGES OF BREATHING, will be printed at the back of this volume.
192 pages, Paperback
First published April 10, 2001
11 people are currently reading
242 people want to read
About the author
Willa Cather
879 books2,772 followersWilella Sibert Cather was born in Back Creek Valley (Gore), Virginia, in December 7, 1873.
She grew up in Virginia and Nebraska. She then attended the University of Nebraska, initially planning to become a physician, but after writing an article for the Nebraska State Journal, she became a regular contributor to this journal. Because of this, she changed her major and graduated with a bachelor's degree in English.
After graduation in 1894, she worked in Pittsburgh as writer for various publications and as a school teacher for approximately 13 years, thereafter moving to New York City for the remainder of her life.
Her novels on frontier life brought her to national recognition. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, 'One of Ours' (1922), set during World War I. She travelled widely and often spent summers in New Brunswick, Canada. In later life, she experienced much negative criticism for her conservative politics and became reclusive, burning some of her letters and personal papers, including her last manuscript.
She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1943. In 1944, Cather received the gold medal for fiction from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, an award given once a decade for an author's total accomplishments.
She died of a cerebral haemorrhage at the age of 73 in New York City.
She grew up in Virginia and Nebraska. She then attended the University of Nebraska, initially planning to become a physician, but after writing an article for the Nebraska State Journal, she became a regular contributor to this journal. Because of this, she changed her major and graduated with a bachelor's degree in English.
After graduation in 1894, she worked in Pittsburgh as writer for various publications and as a school teacher for approximately 13 years, thereafter moving to New York City for the remainder of her life.
Her novels on frontier life brought her to national recognition. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, 'One of Ours' (1922), set during World War I. She travelled widely and often spent summers in New Brunswick, Canada. In later life, she experienced much negative criticism for her conservative politics and became reclusive, burning some of her letters and personal papers, including her last manuscript.
She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1943. In 1944, Cather received the gold medal for fiction from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, an award given once a decade for an author's total accomplishments.
She died of a cerebral haemorrhage at the age of 73 in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
December 18, 2015
When Willa Cather was writing about the Nebraska prairie and it's early settlers, especially it's emigrant settlers, she was at her very best. That's evident in her novel My Ántonia, which I consider to be her best, and also in this beautifully written short story. Cather makes the reader feel the power of the "place", the pull it has on it's inhabitants, and their loyalty to family. That loyalty of place, family, and the love of a young couple are the heart of this story. It's one of my Cather favorites.
April 20, 2023
oh, those poor North men of the Divide! they are dead many a year before they are put to rest in the little graveyard on the windy hill where exiles of all nations grow akin.
January 8, 2013
"Her teeth were large and square, and set far apart -- teeth that could tear." Folks, this is why I read Willa Cather -- for descriptions like this. Simple, clean, and incisive! Ha! She gives such a great sense of the plains states a hundred years ago. I loved every single one of the stories in this collection.
February 22, 2010
This is one of Willa Cather's short stories. Nils Ericson gets off the train at his hometown after being away for many years.
The reader will see that there is not a lot of emotion or affection in the family. They are quite reserved and distant. Nils is very attached to his little brother Eric who is now in his teens but remains indifferent to his two older brothers.
I am seeing a pattern with Cather's writing: love sought, love lost or love conquered intermixed with despair and tragedy.
In this story, Nils Ericson runs off with his oldest brother’s wife, the bohemian girl Clara Vavrika and tries to persuade his little brother to leave their mother and join them. Eric has been given money for the journey and makes it as far as Red Oak Iowa when he departs the train and returns home. Thoughts stirring of his mother now alone in the big house he was remembering everything she had done for him.
When he entered the house at night he said, “I don’t care about the farm. I came back because I thought you might be needing me, maybe.” He hung his head and got no further.
“Very well,” said Mrs. Ericson. Her hand went out from her suddenly and rested on his head. Her fingers twined themselves in his soft, pale hair. His tears splashed down on the boards; happiness filled his heart.
The reader will see that there is not a lot of emotion or affection in the family. They are quite reserved and distant. Nils is very attached to his little brother Eric who is now in his teens but remains indifferent to his two older brothers.
I am seeing a pattern with Cather's writing: love sought, love lost or love conquered intermixed with despair and tragedy.
In this story, Nils Ericson runs off with his oldest brother’s wife, the bohemian girl Clara Vavrika and tries to persuade his little brother to leave their mother and join them. Eric has been given money for the journey and makes it as far as Red Oak Iowa when he departs the train and returns home. Thoughts stirring of his mother now alone in the big house he was remembering everything she had done for him.
When he entered the house at night he said, “I don’t care about the farm. I came back because I thought you might be needing me, maybe.” He hung his head and got no further.
“Very well,” said Mrs. Ericson. Her hand went out from her suddenly and rested on his head. Her fingers twined themselves in his soft, pale hair. His tears splashed down on the boards; happiness filled his heart.
November 25, 2016
I enjoyed this far more than I anticipated. I don't have much experience with short stories, but I loved the small scale of Willa Cather's prose. The Bohemian Girl was the best of the stories, though I loved A Wagner Matinee as well.
December 18, 2024
“You remember how we always said the leaves were whispering when they rustled at night? Well, they always whispered to me about the sea. Sometimes they said names out of the geography books. In a high wind they had a desperate sound, like someone trying to tear loose.”
“How funny, Nils,” said Eric dreamily, resting his chin on his hand. “That tree still talks like that, and ‘most always it talks to me about you.”
——————————————————
Willa Cather is the master of capturing Nebraska’s essence, a place I find myself eternally running from even as my thoughts consistently drift back to my time there and all the ways it left a mark. Cather seemed to have a similar struggle, slipping the themes of escape and regret mixed with irreverence for the land and it’s way of life into her work over and over again. Some of the language is antique and too clever for the likes of me. I surely missed a few things. But following along as best I could, my thoughts bounced around and I recorded where they landed. If anything, I appreciate that someone could give my homeland a flourishing life on the page, one that effectively shows the sometimes thick disconnect between it and the metropolitan parts of society, as well as the beauty in its proximity to nature and a simpler time. Here are my notes, story-by-story:
Eric Hermannson’s Soul
- Star-crossed lovers discover, test, and accept the short time they have together. The setting and scenery of the West creates an atmosphere where anything can happen, but even that isn’t always enough to beat the norms and expectations of civilized society. As in Bridges of Madison County, we are left contemplating if finding true love is worth it if we only spend a short time with it, or if it’s better to never have found it at all. If I’m reading Cather’s prose properly, it’s never the latter.
The Sculptor’s Funeral
- Leaving a small-town is a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation for many reasons. You may leave as the pride of those still stuck there, only for them to eventually decide in fact you were wrong to go and that they know better and always did and surely you’ve come to your senses and realized there’s nothing like the quiet and simplicity and safety of home. They find a way to knock what they could never try. But no matter what we go off to do, those small-towns are a part of us, even after death. Not all of us physically return, but something of us does, somehow. Our name in someone’s mouth, our memory in the air or a mark left on the earth discovered anew (in my case, graffiti on a concrete lake wall). I may not grasp every theme or nuance of these stories so far, but that’s where this one took me.
A Wagner Matinee
- So far, the most gorgeous prose with a subtle judgment about homestead living and the plains. This one left a forlorn feeling for the aunt character and her long ago decision to husk off the city life she relished so well. The differences between Boston and Nebraska are still fairly drastic nowadays, but back then I can imagine living in the west was akin to being three worlds away and two steps into the past.
Paul’s Case
- I’m noticing common themes of wanting to escape the prison-like monotony of the small-town and the power that theatre and spectacle have over people. There are so many passages of beautiful descriptions about emotions and cities and the release of a life lived as a lie. Paul puts on the performance of a cleverly emotive and rambunctious teenager for his whole short life, not realizing he’s performing for himself, too, until he leaves behind the thing he truly dreads: being like every one else. I really liked this one.
The Enchanted Bluff
- An ode to folktales and the dreams boys make when the world is still wide open and lives mostly within stories and rumor. Everything seems so simple then; traveling farther than you ever have before, farther than you have any real mind to, and proving a myth right or wrong with your own eyes, and maybe becoming a legend yourself. These are the things we cling to as we watch our childhood friends grow older, knowing what it means for us, too. This story also includes the most poetic and accurate descriptions of the Nebraska waterways, all of them an adventurous staple for anyone growing up in those parts. When I think of home, I think of the Platte rivers that surrounded the town and all the times I drove over them or walked through them or watched their waters recede to expose new isles or flood to drown parts of my favorite golf course. I’ve separated from them as I’ve moved away, but they are always there waiting when I return.
The Bohemian Girl
- So many feelings stirring. Layers of characters dealing with the choice to leave home and escape the prairie, tied together with a timeless romance. Instead of watching the grand decision to stay play out, we see the agony of a long-passed decision fester. We get so attached to the things that drive us crazy and stand in our way, that consume us from within, that it almost feels like removing a piece of ourselves when we let them go. But there’s no denying when it has to be done. You learn these things with time, but they never get easier. You also learn that whatever the thing in the way is, it’s never too late to choose yourself.
“How funny, Nils,” said Eric dreamily, resting his chin on his hand. “That tree still talks like that, and ‘most always it talks to me about you.”
——————————————————
Willa Cather is the master of capturing Nebraska’s essence, a place I find myself eternally running from even as my thoughts consistently drift back to my time there and all the ways it left a mark. Cather seemed to have a similar struggle, slipping the themes of escape and regret mixed with irreverence for the land and it’s way of life into her work over and over again. Some of the language is antique and too clever for the likes of me. I surely missed a few things. But following along as best I could, my thoughts bounced around and I recorded where they landed. If anything, I appreciate that someone could give my homeland a flourishing life on the page, one that effectively shows the sometimes thick disconnect between it and the metropolitan parts of society, as well as the beauty in its proximity to nature and a simpler time. Here are my notes, story-by-story:
Eric Hermannson’s Soul
- Star-crossed lovers discover, test, and accept the short time they have together. The setting and scenery of the West creates an atmosphere where anything can happen, but even that isn’t always enough to beat the norms and expectations of civilized society. As in Bridges of Madison County, we are left contemplating if finding true love is worth it if we only spend a short time with it, or if it’s better to never have found it at all. If I’m reading Cather’s prose properly, it’s never the latter.
The Sculptor’s Funeral
- Leaving a small-town is a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation for many reasons. You may leave as the pride of those still stuck there, only for them to eventually decide in fact you were wrong to go and that they know better and always did and surely you’ve come to your senses and realized there’s nothing like the quiet and simplicity and safety of home. They find a way to knock what they could never try. But no matter what we go off to do, those small-towns are a part of us, even after death. Not all of us physically return, but something of us does, somehow. Our name in someone’s mouth, our memory in the air or a mark left on the earth discovered anew (in my case, graffiti on a concrete lake wall). I may not grasp every theme or nuance of these stories so far, but that’s where this one took me.
A Wagner Matinee
- So far, the most gorgeous prose with a subtle judgment about homestead living and the plains. This one left a forlorn feeling for the aunt character and her long ago decision to husk off the city life she relished so well. The differences between Boston and Nebraska are still fairly drastic nowadays, but back then I can imagine living in the west was akin to being three worlds away and two steps into the past.
Paul’s Case
- I’m noticing common themes of wanting to escape the prison-like monotony of the small-town and the power that theatre and spectacle have over people. There are so many passages of beautiful descriptions about emotions and cities and the release of a life lived as a lie. Paul puts on the performance of a cleverly emotive and rambunctious teenager for his whole short life, not realizing he’s performing for himself, too, until he leaves behind the thing he truly dreads: being like every one else. I really liked this one.
The Enchanted Bluff
- An ode to folktales and the dreams boys make when the world is still wide open and lives mostly within stories and rumor. Everything seems so simple then; traveling farther than you ever have before, farther than you have any real mind to, and proving a myth right or wrong with your own eyes, and maybe becoming a legend yourself. These are the things we cling to as we watch our childhood friends grow older, knowing what it means for us, too. This story also includes the most poetic and accurate descriptions of the Nebraska waterways, all of them an adventurous staple for anyone growing up in those parts. When I think of home, I think of the Platte rivers that surrounded the town and all the times I drove over them or walked through them or watched their waters recede to expose new isles or flood to drown parts of my favorite golf course. I’ve separated from them as I’ve moved away, but they are always there waiting when I return.
The Bohemian Girl
- So many feelings stirring. Layers of characters dealing with the choice to leave home and escape the prairie, tied together with a timeless romance. Instead of watching the grand decision to stay play out, we see the agony of a long-passed decision fester. We get so attached to the things that drive us crazy and stand in our way, that consume us from within, that it almost feels like removing a piece of ourselves when we let them go. But there’s no denying when it has to be done. You learn these things with time, but they never get easier. You also learn that whatever the thing in the way is, it’s never too late to choose yourself.
Want to read
October 25, 2010so far, so good
November 27, 2018
A fine set of early stories by Willa Cather, they show glimpses of the fiction she would be famous for.
August 14, 2022
"You can't tame a wild thing; you can only chain it."
Finishing this while I have just gotten out of a long, loving but painful relationship fills me with thoughts: thoughts of freedom, and loss. Is it worth it to leave a place, or a person that you love, when you know it stifles you? Am I willing to risk the loss of comfort and familiarity, for the eventual happiness of the novel experience, of the road, of an escape? Will I always be able to make the difficult, but right choice?
Finishing this while I have just gotten out of a long, loving but painful relationship fills me with thoughts: thoughts of freedom, and loss. Is it worth it to leave a place, or a person that you love, when you know it stifles you? Am I willing to risk the loss of comfort and familiarity, for the eventual happiness of the novel experience, of the road, of an escape? Will I always be able to make the difficult, but right choice?
October 20, 2024
Niels Erickson is returning after 8 years to his mother’s farm to win back his sweetheart - a bohemian girl Clara Vavrika, who is now married to Niels’ oldest brother Olaf - a successful farmer and the state deputy. Clara follows her heart and runs with Niels who has a successful business back in Norway. Niels call his youngest brother Eric to join them. Eric departs but changes his mind halfway through and returns back to the mother’s farm.
April 8, 2020
I love Willa so much, and this is a delightful volume of work I hadn't encountered of hers before. In the time of COVID, it's sitting by my door, waiting to be returned to the library.
April 25, 2023
lowkey hated this book at first but the ending was good
January 28, 2025
4 stars for excellent writing, 3 stars for the stories themselves.
February 18, 2017
I prefer Willa Cather's full-length novels.
March 15, 2010
This was my first Willa Cather read and I found it interesting that she describe the land with such beauty and passion but the people of the story were very bland. I was very surprised to find that I did enjoy reading the story inspite of the fact that the people were so dispassionate.
March 9, 2014
I really enjoyed the last, and title, story in the book, "The Bohemian Girl." I started a few others but got bored with them, so I didn't really read any others.
April 10, 2021
Some of the stories were a hoot to read.
Some of the stories dragged. Those stories had on-the-nose themes and predictable plot points.
Some of the stories dragged. Those stories had on-the-nose themes and predictable plot points.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews