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Great Plains Trilogy #2
The Song of the Lark
A moving tale of a woman's devotion to her art--one of Willa Cather's most autobiographical novels
Conflating her own childhood experiences with those of a celebrated Wagnerian soprano of her day, Willa Cather here introduces Thea Kronborg,a Scandinavian-American singer who rises from a one-story Colorado town to the Metropolitan Opera House. Along the way she learns her own capacity for the rigorous demands of artistic excellence, and how few of her colleagues are willing to sacrifice ordinary vanities for exacting professional standards. Exhausted and depressed by the mediocrity around her, she seeks respite in the southwestern desert, where she has the epiphany that will transform her vision and art. Characteristically, Cather uses the western landscape in The Song of the Lark both to reflect her heroine's inner live and to fire her imagination.
The Song of the Lark, first published in 1915, evokes Cather's paradoxical fondness for and impatience with the small-town midwestern milieu of her childhood and illuminates her personal yearning for aesthetic transcendence.
"Cather makes a great romance of the loneliness of the artist's vocation."--Vivian Gornick
434 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1915
1161 people are currently reading
14633 people want to read
About the author
Willa Cather
873 books2,760 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 - 30 of 1,461 reviews
May 21, 2024
From obscurity to world prominence an overused plot which should be just another rags to riches story but in the hands of a remarkable writer like Willa Cather, it shines in the darkness and gives a bright light to an otherwise ordinary book. The Great Plains trilogy though loose in narrative in fact not actually one yet similar in its desire to tell the struggles of poor people trying and succeeding to survive the harsh land, freeze in the frigid winter and boil during the torrid summer. Simple but a great author shows the fictional Moonstone, Colorado on the eastern slopes of the lethal but magnificent Rocky Mountains. The inhabitants however in that town are not much different from any other in the 1890s except for Thea Kronborg a young girl from a large Swedish family. Seven children with a Methodist preacher the Reverend Peter Kronborg the rather distant father and a loving mother, last and least Aunt Tillie who is helping her brother raise the five boys and two girls, she is quite indispensable regardless. Thea, the main character is like many in novels, lonely, strangely remote from the big family of hers, even as she tries to have a little privacy in the crowded house. Finally given an unheated sparse room , she however likes the attic, less noise . Doctor Howard Archie saves the sick child Thea at seven and becomes quite close during her childhood, he is a competent yet unhappy medical man more interested in finding a silver mine and becoming rich. Ray Kennedy a railroad worker presents the little girl to the beauty of the peaceful sand hills nearby, driving there ( in a buggy, no cars around then). Intelligent and more comfortable with adults, all her friends are. Thea sings well in church and visits Mexican Town... strange behavior to others, still enjoys the atmosphere there, meeting Spanish Johnny not stuffy but fun with a little drinking problem . Her great voice is still... what good is it for, yet takes singing lessons from a destitute German teacher Professor Wunsch, imbibes too, for medicinal purposes only...maybe, but another good friend. Willa Cather is superb at forming characters that make them human. I guess the reason this book was written is to imply dreams can come true. A very autobiographical story obviously...All three novels are worth reading ...and I did with pleasure.
February 11, 2018
In this second of Willa Cather’s Great Plains Trilogy, we are taken on an adventure of a different kind. For those who are interested in how the creative process grows within a person from young childhood through to adulthood, this book is perfect.
Thea Kronborg is born in Moonstone, Colorado and is part of a large Swedish family of seven children and an Aunt who helps their mother maintain some semblance of order in their tiny, over-crowded home. It is her Aunt Tillie who first declares Thea to be something special. Thea’s mother also senses this daughter’s higher destiny but has six other children she must also encourage toward fulfillment.
Dr. Howard Archie is young and trapped in a bad marriage where he struggles to maintain dignity and the respect of the townspeople by putting the best face on it. Dr. Archie is one of Thea’s first friends outside of the family who can also see something interesting in young Thea, although he cannot put a name to it.
Thea’s calling and her inner torments in achieving what she feels driven to achieve are central to this marvelous story. Along the way, there is a sojourn in New Mexico where she goes to recover herself at one point, and the descriptions and writing soar into and throughout the canyons like birds catching a thermal. Sunrises, sunsets, storms, hot days, cool nights, the cliffs with deserted homes built along both sides of the canyons like long, suspended city streets – all are so vividly painted, they are palatable to the senses.
Eventually, when Thea recovers her equilibrium and her renewed strong will and determination drive her onward once more, Thea goes to Germany to hone her craft. One of her teachers says to her,’When people, serious people, believe in you, they give you some of their best, so – take care of it, Miss Kronborg.’
Thea takes this to heart and although she continues to meet people who do have that belief in her, she struggles with letting go of the people who could only hold her back, even without meaning to. There is one internal engine, however, that keeps pushing her toward her goals, and only those who recognize it for what it is will continue to share her journey.
You may or may not be surprised to learn what it is that ensures her success where so many others fail, and there are also some surprises in discovering which people will always be part of her life and lifestyle.
I enjoyed this book a great deal as I could relate to so much of it personally, even though I know very little about the world of Opera. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys music on any level and/or is interested in – or curious about – the nurturing and development of the creative process within.
Thea Kronborg is born in Moonstone, Colorado and is part of a large Swedish family of seven children and an Aunt who helps their mother maintain some semblance of order in their tiny, over-crowded home. It is her Aunt Tillie who first declares Thea to be something special. Thea’s mother also senses this daughter’s higher destiny but has six other children she must also encourage toward fulfillment.
Dr. Howard Archie is young and trapped in a bad marriage where he struggles to maintain dignity and the respect of the townspeople by putting the best face on it. Dr. Archie is one of Thea’s first friends outside of the family who can also see something interesting in young Thea, although he cannot put a name to it.
Thea’s calling and her inner torments in achieving what she feels driven to achieve are central to this marvelous story. Along the way, there is a sojourn in New Mexico where she goes to recover herself at one point, and the descriptions and writing soar into and throughout the canyons like birds catching a thermal. Sunrises, sunsets, storms, hot days, cool nights, the cliffs with deserted homes built along both sides of the canyons like long, suspended city streets – all are so vividly painted, they are palatable to the senses.
Eventually, when Thea recovers her equilibrium and her renewed strong will and determination drive her onward once more, Thea goes to Germany to hone her craft. One of her teachers says to her,’When people, serious people, believe in you, they give you some of their best, so – take care of it, Miss Kronborg.’
Thea takes this to heart and although she continues to meet people who do have that belief in her, she struggles with letting go of the people who could only hold her back, even without meaning to. There is one internal engine, however, that keeps pushing her toward her goals, and only those who recognize it for what it is will continue to share her journey.
You may or may not be surprised to learn what it is that ensures her success where so many others fail, and there are also some surprises in discovering which people will always be part of her life and lifestyle.
I enjoyed this book a great deal as I could relate to so much of it personally, even though I know very little about the world of Opera. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys music on any level and/or is interested in – or curious about – the nurturing and development of the creative process within.
February 13, 2016
Even though The Song of the Lark is the second installment in “The Prairie Trilogy”, I consider Thea, its strong minded protagonist, the culminating embodiment of the rest of Cather’s feisty heroines, the point where they end up converging to glow in full radiance.
Some might perceive Thea’s attitude as self-centered, but it would be contrived to create a believable heroine whose main goal is to succeed in her professional career without leaving sentimental matters aside. Thea’s character embodies a woman confronted against an ascribed duty to her gender, which becomes her biggest enemy, but who, regardless of the spiteful, dismissive attitude of the neighbors of her native town Moonstone, a fictional rural settlement in Colorado, remains faithful to her humble origins and to her ancestral Swedish heritage. That the Mexican community immediately recognizes the rough diamond of Thea’s untrained voice while the sophisticated audience of Chicago or New York fails to appreciate it brings forth Cather’s moral ideals and her glorification of the American dream, in which willpower, the culture of discipline, perseverance and self-sacrifice is a one-way ticket to success.
But what truly spoke to my heart’s wish wasn’t the implacable resolution of its female protagonist or Cather’s polished, sensual style, which reaches moments of powerful emotion bathed with youthful, fresh enthusiasm. Neither did the eerie, lyrical passages describing vast prairies, canyons and sand dunes caressed by predawn morning sunbeams that give the familiar epic dimension to Cather’s stories, as bewitching as they are.
It was the masterful depiction of the growth of an artist, the tortuous journey required to recognize her gift and curse at once, and the inner process that unleashes her talent to its full potential that won me over completely and left me floating to the tessituras of a virtuous soprano performing the role of Sieglinde, whose melody I managed to conjure from written words alone. An illusion? Or the power of a narrative that sprouts out from the intellectual and spiritual development of its creator? Maybe both.
Whatever the reason, in my memory will linger the sensation of hearing the life-altering sound of a voice bringing an idea to life, of a voice becoming the instrument of such idea, an idea that levitates like a soft feather, never falling down on you like a dead weight, but being continually elevated until it is transformed into the shadow of an ancient eagle gliding majestically over the steep precipice of an Arizonian Canyon, summoning a chant to ancient lands and its people and their everlasting commitment to life, to art…to beauty.
Some might perceive Thea’s attitude as self-centered, but it would be contrived to create a believable heroine whose main goal is to succeed in her professional career without leaving sentimental matters aside. Thea’s character embodies a woman confronted against an ascribed duty to her gender, which becomes her biggest enemy, but who, regardless of the spiteful, dismissive attitude of the neighbors of her native town Moonstone, a fictional rural settlement in Colorado, remains faithful to her humble origins and to her ancestral Swedish heritage. That the Mexican community immediately recognizes the rough diamond of Thea’s untrained voice while the sophisticated audience of Chicago or New York fails to appreciate it brings forth Cather’s moral ideals and her glorification of the American dream, in which willpower, the culture of discipline, perseverance and self-sacrifice is a one-way ticket to success.
But what truly spoke to my heart’s wish wasn’t the implacable resolution of its female protagonist or Cather’s polished, sensual style, which reaches moments of powerful emotion bathed with youthful, fresh enthusiasm. Neither did the eerie, lyrical passages describing vast prairies, canyons and sand dunes caressed by predawn morning sunbeams that give the familiar epic dimension to Cather’s stories, as bewitching as they are.
It was the masterful depiction of the growth of an artist, the tortuous journey required to recognize her gift and curse at once, and the inner process that unleashes her talent to its full potential that won me over completely and left me floating to the tessituras of a virtuous soprano performing the role of Sieglinde, whose melody I managed to conjure from written words alone. An illusion? Or the power of a narrative that sprouts out from the intellectual and spiritual development of its creator? Maybe both.
Whatever the reason, in my memory will linger the sensation of hearing the life-altering sound of a voice bringing an idea to life, of a voice becoming the instrument of such idea, an idea that levitates like a soft feather, never falling down on you like a dead weight, but being continually elevated until it is transformed into the shadow of an ancient eagle gliding majestically over the steep precipice of an Arizonian Canyon, summoning a chant to ancient lands and its people and their everlasting commitment to life, to art…to beauty.
January 7, 2016
4.5 stars
"She used to drag her mattress beside her low window and lie awake for a long while, vibrating with excitement, as a machine vibrates from speed. Life rushed in upon her through that window - or so it seemed. In reality, of course, life rushes from within, not from without. There is no work of art so big or so beautiful that it was not once all contained in some youthful body, like this one which lay on the floor in the moonlight, pulsing with ardour and anticipation."
With exquisite prose, Willa Cather conveys what it means to be an artist and the journey one takes to realize a dream. Using the backdrop of the immense plains and the awe-inspiring canyons, Cather likens the power of the artist's progress to the quest of the early pioneers into the awesome vastness of the West. The descriptions of the landscape of Colorado and the Southwest are simply breathtaking. The drive of the artist, the despair, the struggles, the sacrifices, and the triumphs are compelling.
Daughter of a minister, Thea Kronborg is born into a large family and from an early age one recognizes her individuality and her spirit. Thea begins her musical journey by taking piano lessons from a down and out musician, Wunsch, who wandered into town on the heels of the local vagrant, Spanish Johnny. She befriends those much older than herself, including the aforementioned eccentrics as well as the resident physician, Doctor Archie, and a railway man, Ray Kennedy. Her talent is steadfastly supported by her mother and admired by her somewhat flighty, spinster aunt. I adored the young Thea - her openness, her freedom, her youthful earnestness, and her vitality. A poignant turn of events gives Thea the opportunity she needs to make the next step in her early career. Traveling to Chicago, she continues her piano training until her voice is eventually discovered to be her true calling.
On the brink of grasping what it really means to be an artist and a singer, Thea travels to Arizona upon the urging of a somewhat self-indulgent and wealthy young man, Fred Ottenburg. Communing with nature and the spirits of the ancient Native Americans, Thea undergoes another transformation.
"Panther Canyon was the home of innumerable swallows. They built nests in the wall far above the hollow groove in which Thea's own rock-chamber lay. They seldom ventured above the rim of the canyon, to the flat, wind-swept tableland. Their world was the blue air-river between the canyon walls. In that blue gulf the arrow-shaped birds swam all day long, with only an occasional movement of the wings. The only sad thing about them was their timidity: the way in which they lived their lives between the echoing cliffs and never dared to rise out of the shadow of the canyon walls. As they swam past her door, Thea often felt how easy it would be to dream one's life out in some cleft in the world."
The way in which Thea evolves as a true artist comes with a price. Leaving behind family and friends - not just physically but also emotionally, and lacking true companionship – must one suffer this to reach the destination, to achieve fame? Can these things be overcome? What will ultimately become of Thea? Must cherished memories be left behind or can one experience the joy of more carefree days when there were endless possibilities? I believe these questions are not exclusive to the artist; perhaps these are questions pertinent to any human being that once had a dream.
What I loved most about this novel were the descriptions of the great outdoors - the plains, the canyons, and the grandeur of the heavens. I did not necessarily like the older Thea, although I continued to root for her. She was thoroughly believable. I cherished those persons that encouraged Thea and gave her the best of their own selves to help her along the way - especially Doctor Archie. Doctor Archie, he really did 'get it'! "It came over him now that the unexpected favours of fortune, no matter how dazzling, do not mean very much to us. They may excite us or divert us for a time, but when we look back, the only things we cherish are those which in some way met our original want; the desire which formed us in early youth, undirected, and of its own accord."
"She used to drag her mattress beside her low window and lie awake for a long while, vibrating with excitement, as a machine vibrates from speed. Life rushed in upon her through that window - or so it seemed. In reality, of course, life rushes from within, not from without. There is no work of art so big or so beautiful that it was not once all contained in some youthful body, like this one which lay on the floor in the moonlight, pulsing with ardour and anticipation."
With exquisite prose, Willa Cather conveys what it means to be an artist and the journey one takes to realize a dream. Using the backdrop of the immense plains and the awe-inspiring canyons, Cather likens the power of the artist's progress to the quest of the early pioneers into the awesome vastness of the West. The descriptions of the landscape of Colorado and the Southwest are simply breathtaking. The drive of the artist, the despair, the struggles, the sacrifices, and the triumphs are compelling.
Daughter of a minister, Thea Kronborg is born into a large family and from an early age one recognizes her individuality and her spirit. Thea begins her musical journey by taking piano lessons from a down and out musician, Wunsch, who wandered into town on the heels of the local vagrant, Spanish Johnny. She befriends those much older than herself, including the aforementioned eccentrics as well as the resident physician, Doctor Archie, and a railway man, Ray Kennedy. Her talent is steadfastly supported by her mother and admired by her somewhat flighty, spinster aunt. I adored the young Thea - her openness, her freedom, her youthful earnestness, and her vitality. A poignant turn of events gives Thea the opportunity she needs to make the next step in her early career. Traveling to Chicago, she continues her piano training until her voice is eventually discovered to be her true calling.
On the brink of grasping what it really means to be an artist and a singer, Thea travels to Arizona upon the urging of a somewhat self-indulgent and wealthy young man, Fred Ottenburg. Communing with nature and the spirits of the ancient Native Americans, Thea undergoes another transformation.
"Panther Canyon was the home of innumerable swallows. They built nests in the wall far above the hollow groove in which Thea's own rock-chamber lay. They seldom ventured above the rim of the canyon, to the flat, wind-swept tableland. Their world was the blue air-river between the canyon walls. In that blue gulf the arrow-shaped birds swam all day long, with only an occasional movement of the wings. The only sad thing about them was their timidity: the way in which they lived their lives between the echoing cliffs and never dared to rise out of the shadow of the canyon walls. As they swam past her door, Thea often felt how easy it would be to dream one's life out in some cleft in the world."
The way in which Thea evolves as a true artist comes with a price. Leaving behind family and friends - not just physically but also emotionally, and lacking true companionship – must one suffer this to reach the destination, to achieve fame? Can these things be overcome? What will ultimately become of Thea? Must cherished memories be left behind or can one experience the joy of more carefree days when there were endless possibilities? I believe these questions are not exclusive to the artist; perhaps these are questions pertinent to any human being that once had a dream.
What I loved most about this novel were the descriptions of the great outdoors - the plains, the canyons, and the grandeur of the heavens. I did not necessarily like the older Thea, although I continued to root for her. She was thoroughly believable. I cherished those persons that encouraged Thea and gave her the best of their own selves to help her along the way - especially Doctor Archie. Doctor Archie, he really did 'get it'! "It came over him now that the unexpected favours of fortune, no matter how dazzling, do not mean very much to us. They may excite us or divert us for a time, but when we look back, the only things we cherish are those which in some way met our original want; the desire which formed us in early youth, undirected, and of its own accord."
October 8, 2010
Thea Kronborg, daughter of a minister in a small Colorado town, is discovered by the music teacher, a drunken German fellow, to have a rare gift. Sponsored by Archie, the town doctor and family friend, and Ray, a railroad man who intends to marry her but is killed, she travels to Chicago, then New Mexico, meeting more and more cosmopolitan people, until, at last, she is a star of the opera stage, and like a star radiant and very distant.
I found this book, at 420+ pages, quite a chore to get through. The character of Thea was utterly unsympathetic; her self-absorption even as a nobody is insufferable, and after she's a star, her melodramatic requirements are equally odious. The prose is tedious, as Cather fawns on her character, making her charismatic in the eyes of everyone except the reader. Actually, Thea is surrounded by sympathetic characters who lead interesting lives and are open, hearty, and engaging, but they all orbit around her, and Cather gives no reason for the reader to like her. Altogether a boring book, full of light and song but signifying nothing.
I found this book, at 420+ pages, quite a chore to get through. The character of Thea was utterly unsympathetic; her self-absorption even as a nobody is insufferable, and after she's a star, her melodramatic requirements are equally odious. The prose is tedious, as Cather fawns on her character, making her charismatic in the eyes of everyone except the reader. Actually, Thea is surrounded by sympathetic characters who lead interesting lives and are open, hearty, and engaging, but they all orbit around her, and Cather gives no reason for the reader to like her. Altogether a boring book, full of light and song but signifying nothing.
February 20, 2015
Most mornings I wake to the songs of larks, so when Christmas Eve found us stuck inside of our home because of flooding (my front and back yards were pines in ponds), I chose to hear The Song of the Lark in words. This is my third Cather book this year and after having been introduced to her works intimately, I can now safely say that curling up with a Cather book will always be a good choice.
However, this book is not about the song of birds. It is a book that celebrates finding one's muse; in fact, the picture on my cover is significant of a French painting in the Chicago Art Museum, "a picture in which a little peasant girl, on her way to work in the fields at early morning, stops and looks up to listen to a lark."
The Song of the Lark seems to signify artistic and creative freedom, the kind of freedom that Thea Kronborg, the main character, seeks.
Thea stretches out from her small town to "drink the sun" in the big city of Chicago, going from a piano teacher to a pianist, and finally, a famous singer. Her relationships with Dr. Archie, the town's doctor who at some point sees her as the daughter he's never had, and with Fred Ottenburg, her married lover, are interesting elements that bind the story, which centers around independence and creativity. Cather chooses a singer to embody creative freedom, but one can't help but think of this book as a celebration of the creative fulfillment that places one outside of 'the box:'
I didn't enjoy this one as much as I did, My Antonia, because the omniscient narration was a distant one and the prose style seemed much unlike the one in that novel. There are also some things about the story that could be easily missed if one doesn't pause to read the epilogue, and an off-putting shift in the main character's personality towards the end (I'm all for awakening and struggle that brings about success, but the arrogance that came after - meh). Yet Cather has such a unique way of encapsulating self realization through story, that I know I can always look forward to her strong-minded and slightly peculiar female characters.
However, this book is not about the song of birds. It is a book that celebrates finding one's muse; in fact, the picture on my cover is significant of a French painting in the Chicago Art Museum, "a picture in which a little peasant girl, on her way to work in the fields at early morning, stops and looks up to listen to a lark."
She liked even the name, "The Song of the Lark." The flat country, the early morning light, the wet fields, the look in the girl's heavy face--well, they were all hers, anyhow, whatever was there. She told herself that that picture was "right." Just what she meant by this, it would take a clever person to explain. But to her the word covered the almost boundless satisfaction she felt when she looked at the picture.
The Song of the Lark seems to signify artistic and creative freedom, the kind of freedom that Thea Kronborg, the main character, seeks.
It was over flat lands like this, stretching out to drink the sun, that the larks sang--and one's heart sang there, too.
Thea stretches out from her small town to "drink the sun" in the big city of Chicago, going from a piano teacher to a pianist, and finally, a famous singer. Her relationships with Dr. Archie, the town's doctor who at some point sees her as the daughter he's never had, and with Fred Ottenburg, her married lover, are interesting elements that bind the story, which centers around independence and creativity. Cather chooses a singer to embody creative freedom, but one can't help but think of this book as a celebration of the creative fulfillment that places one outside of 'the box:'
It's waking up every morning with the feeling that your life is your own, and your strength is your own, and your talent is your own; that you're all there, and there's no sag in you.
I didn't enjoy this one as much as I did, My Antonia, because the omniscient narration was a distant one and the prose style seemed much unlike the one in that novel. There are also some things about the story that could be easily missed if one doesn't pause to read the epilogue, and an off-putting shift in the main character's personality towards the end (I'm all for awakening and struggle that brings about success, but the arrogance that came after - meh). Yet Cather has such a unique way of encapsulating self realization through story, that I know I can always look forward to her strong-minded and slightly peculiar female characters.
October 29, 2024
This is the second book of Willa Cather’s Great Plains trilogy. It is very different than the first O Pioneers as that one focused more on the land. What remains the same is Cather’s fine writing. Her descriptions whether it be of a place, a person or an event are beautiful and poetic.
In this book we meet Thea Kronberg. She is 11 years old when we meet her and living in small town, Moonstone, Colorado. Even at such a young age, those around her know she is destined for greater things. She has no friends her own age- mostly she hangs around with older men (approx 30 years of age), who all seem to adore her and encourage her. Other than one hopes to marry her one day, there are no ulterior motives, FYI.
We follow her rise from a piano prodigy to a world renowned opera singer. Along the way, she seems to meet the right people who believe in her and who are able to help her along.
I fell in love with her character in the first half of the book- she was kind and thoughtful to the people in her life. Once she got to Chicago, she changed- she became selfish and very judgmental. She became a less sympathetic character.
What Willa Cather strongly showed me was that for Thea to be successful, she had to be single minded, ruthless even and to cast attachments aside. She basked in her success. She never seemed to regret what she didn’t have as long as she had her voice and her singing. The few who stuck with her were all she needed.
I definitely enjoyed this novel. I both listened to it on audio- Pam Ward is excellent- and read the book. Next up for me is My Antonia, which I gather is one of her best.
Published: 1915
In this book we meet Thea Kronberg. She is 11 years old when we meet her and living in small town, Moonstone, Colorado. Even at such a young age, those around her know she is destined for greater things. She has no friends her own age- mostly she hangs around with older men (approx 30 years of age), who all seem to adore her and encourage her. Other than one hopes to marry her one day, there are no ulterior motives, FYI.
We follow her rise from a piano prodigy to a world renowned opera singer. Along the way, she seems to meet the right people who believe in her and who are able to help her along.
I fell in love with her character in the first half of the book- she was kind and thoughtful to the people in her life. Once she got to Chicago, she changed- she became selfish and very judgmental. She became a less sympathetic character.
What Willa Cather strongly showed me was that for Thea to be successful, she had to be single minded, ruthless even and to cast attachments aside. She basked in her success. She never seemed to regret what she didn’t have as long as she had her voice and her singing. The few who stuck with her were all she needed.
I definitely enjoyed this novel. I both listened to it on audio- Pam Ward is excellent- and read the book. Next up for me is My Antonia, which I gather is one of her best.
Published: 1915
September 8, 2020
Please, take the time to look at this painting by Jules Adolphe Aimé Louis Breton, a 19th-century French Naturalist painter:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_B...
Scroll down a bit to get to the image of the painting. It inspired both Cather's book and its title. Cather has in word's captured the feel of Breton's paining. Isn't it wonderful?
What do you see when you look at the painting? I see a woman with grit and determination. Look at the uplifted jaw line. Look at the tilt of the head. That young woman is Thea Kronborg, the central character of the novel. Music is her lifeblood. The book follows her from childhood in rural Colorado to her career as an internationally acclaimed opera singer.
Look again at the painting. The torrid landscape, the orange sun, the bare feet and the simplicity of the woman’s attire mirror Thea’s existence in Moonstone, Colorado. Willa Cather transforms the visual into words. It is the book’s beautifully descriptive prose that attracts me most. Add to this pitch perfect dialogues.
We watch as Thea matures. We watch as she grows from a child to an adult. We observe her transformation. Her thoughts and her manner of speech gradually alter, but she, her essence, her whole way of being, remain the same. The story is said to have autobiographical content.
Thea’s closest childhood friends are kind Doctor Archie who is unhappily married, festive and life loving Mexicans residing in the “Mexican Village” nearby, Spanish Johnny, the Kohlers and Wunsch, Thea’s German piano teacher. Visiting the abodes of ancestral Pueblo cliff dwellers is an essential element of the plot. Look how Cather has chosen to place Thea within a circle of friends of many nationalities. Cather is saying that different cultures are equal in value and that the more one knows of how other people live, the richer is one’s life. The story fluidly interweaves different people’s customs, traditions and ways of being. Thea is of Swedish and Norwegian heritage. Later, in her career, she becomes a cosmopolitan, a woman of the world.
We meet Ray Kennedy, another resident of Moonstone, a railway man of thirty. He has dreams of one day marrying Thea. This is when Thea is still twelve, at the start of the novel. Thea has an individuality that stands out and stood out to those around her. Her vitality enthralls not only her friends but also the heart of readers.
Thea becomes a woman with an immensely strong work ethic. What will be sacrificed to attain her goals? Ultimately, will she be happy? Could she have lived her life any other way? These are the questions one asks. Who she is and who she becomes and how she gets there are realistically drawn. The tale feels genuine and real.
Thea comes to leave Moonstone. She travels to Chicago, New York and abroad, but her ties to the American Southwest remain forever strong.
Barbara Caruso does a fantastic job narrating the audiobook. Her performance definitely deserves five stars. She sings songs, recites poetry, captures different accents and characters of different ages, backgrounds and gender. All is done with flair. In my view, the narration simply could not be done better. It’s perfect. Well no, there is one flaw; she doesn’t accurately pronounce the Swedish name Gunnar, but this isn’t important.
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*My Ántonia 5 stars
*Death Comes for the Archbishop 4 stars
*One of Ours 4 stars
*The Song of the Lark4 stars
*Lucy Gayheart 3 stars
*O Pioneers! 3 stars
*Sapphira and the Slave Girl 2 stars
*A Lost Lady 2 stars
*The Professor's House 2 stars
*Shadows on the Rock TBR
*Alexander's Bridge TBR
*My Mortal Enemy TBR
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_B...
Scroll down a bit to get to the image of the painting. It inspired both Cather's book and its title. Cather has in word's captured the feel of Breton's paining. Isn't it wonderful?
What do you see when you look at the painting? I see a woman with grit and determination. Look at the uplifted jaw line. Look at the tilt of the head. That young woman is Thea Kronborg, the central character of the novel. Music is her lifeblood. The book follows her from childhood in rural Colorado to her career as an internationally acclaimed opera singer.
Look again at the painting. The torrid landscape, the orange sun, the bare feet and the simplicity of the woman’s attire mirror Thea’s existence in Moonstone, Colorado. Willa Cather transforms the visual into words. It is the book’s beautifully descriptive prose that attracts me most. Add to this pitch perfect dialogues.
We watch as Thea matures. We watch as she grows from a child to an adult. We observe her transformation. Her thoughts and her manner of speech gradually alter, but she, her essence, her whole way of being, remain the same. The story is said to have autobiographical content.
Thea’s closest childhood friends are kind Doctor Archie who is unhappily married, festive and life loving Mexicans residing in the “Mexican Village” nearby, Spanish Johnny, the Kohlers and Wunsch, Thea’s German piano teacher. Visiting the abodes of ancestral Pueblo cliff dwellers is an essential element of the plot. Look how Cather has chosen to place Thea within a circle of friends of many nationalities. Cather is saying that different cultures are equal in value and that the more one knows of how other people live, the richer is one’s life. The story fluidly interweaves different people’s customs, traditions and ways of being. Thea is of Swedish and Norwegian heritage. Later, in her career, she becomes a cosmopolitan, a woman of the world.
We meet Ray Kennedy, another resident of Moonstone, a railway man of thirty. He has dreams of one day marrying Thea. This is when Thea is still twelve, at the start of the novel. Thea has an individuality that stands out and stood out to those around her. Her vitality enthralls not only her friends but also the heart of readers.
Thea becomes a woman with an immensely strong work ethic. What will be sacrificed to attain her goals? Ultimately, will she be happy? Could she have lived her life any other way? These are the questions one asks. Who she is and who she becomes and how she gets there are realistically drawn. The tale feels genuine and real.
Thea comes to leave Moonstone. She travels to Chicago, New York and abroad, but her ties to the American Southwest remain forever strong.
Barbara Caruso does a fantastic job narrating the audiobook. Her performance definitely deserves five stars. She sings songs, recites poetry, captures different accents and characters of different ages, backgrounds and gender. All is done with flair. In my view, the narration simply could not be done better. It’s perfect. Well no, there is one flaw; she doesn’t accurately pronounce the Swedish name Gunnar, but this isn’t important.
**********************
**********************
*My Ántonia 5 stars
*Death Comes for the Archbishop 4 stars
*One of Ours 4 stars
*The Song of the Lark4 stars
*Lucy Gayheart 3 stars
*O Pioneers! 3 stars
*Sapphira and the Slave Girl 2 stars
*A Lost Lady 2 stars
*The Professor's House 2 stars
*Shadows on the Rock TBR
*Alexander's Bridge TBR
*My Mortal Enemy TBR
October 22, 2020
Nothing is far and nothing is near, if one desires. The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing--desire. And before it, when it is big, all is little.
Have you ever thought about true artists, like Vincent Van Gogh, who pay such a high price for their art? Men and women who have devoted half of their waking hours to the practice and perfection of their musical talents so that they can perform in an opera or become a concert pianist? Too often we think of this kind of achievement as innate talent, and of course some of it must be, but there are many talented and gifted people who never reach that level because they cannot or will not scale the wall.
In many ways, that is what this novel is about. Thea is a natural talent, and many around her recognize her abilities, but she cannot just step into the world she wants without a lot of sacrifice and loss. We trade things, always, to reach our dreams. I’m not sure Cather questions whether what Thea loses is worth the sacrifice, I think Cather thought it was, in fact, I think Cather thought of herself as being in Thea’s shoes, but I thought about whether it was worth it, and I would have said “no”.
I loved the first half of this novel, the part where Thea was a girl and trying to identify her talent and the thing that spurred her forward. I liked the quirky characters of Moonstone, the people of the country, Ray Johnson, the railroad worker who loves her from afar; Dr. Archie, who sees her as something too fine for the world she occupies; Professor Wunsch, her drunken piano teacher who discovers her talent and nurtures it; and Spanish Johnny, a Mexican musician who shares the music of the soul.
Cather is in her usual form with her writing. She can describe a scene and make you step into it.
Winter was long in coming that year. Throughout October the days were bathed in sunlight and the air was clear as crystal. The town kept its cheerful summer aspect, the desert glistened with light, the sand hills every day went through magical changes of color. The scarlet sage bloomed late in the front yards, the cottonwood leaves were bright gold long before they fell, and it was not until November that the green on the tamarisks began to cloud and fade. There was a flurry of snow about Thanksgiving, and then December came on warm and clear.
These were wonderful aspects of the book, but the second half let me down in some way that is hard to describe. I began to see Thea as rather selfish and self-centered. Although I don’t believe Cather meant her to be seen in this way, I saw her as using her friends and admirers as stepping-stones. She maintained friendships with them, and they all seemed happy to serve her as a talent fully beyond their reach, but it seemed she somehow felt entitled to anything they laid on her altar and owed them nothing in return. No doubt it was the extraordinary talent we were meant to see being worshiped, but I kept seeing Hollywood and someone who believed the talent itself made her “more” than others. I found her cold, and I wondered if she hadn’t lost that little girl somewhere along the way, even though Cather kept telling me she had not.
Finally, there is, at the heart of this book, a desire to make the reader understand and value art itself. Cather explains this to us again and again, almost too often, but I do think she nailed it here:
What was any art but an effort to make a sheath, a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining, elusive element which is life itself,--life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose?
For the most part, this book worked for me, but it was not quite as satisfying as My Ántonia. It landed at 3.5 stars, but after some deliberation, I am rounding down.
Have you ever thought about true artists, like Vincent Van Gogh, who pay such a high price for their art? Men and women who have devoted half of their waking hours to the practice and perfection of their musical talents so that they can perform in an opera or become a concert pianist? Too often we think of this kind of achievement as innate talent, and of course some of it must be, but there are many talented and gifted people who never reach that level because they cannot or will not scale the wall.
In many ways, that is what this novel is about. Thea is a natural talent, and many around her recognize her abilities, but she cannot just step into the world she wants without a lot of sacrifice and loss. We trade things, always, to reach our dreams. I’m not sure Cather questions whether what Thea loses is worth the sacrifice, I think Cather thought it was, in fact, I think Cather thought of herself as being in Thea’s shoes, but I thought about whether it was worth it, and I would have said “no”.
I loved the first half of this novel, the part where Thea was a girl and trying to identify her talent and the thing that spurred her forward. I liked the quirky characters of Moonstone, the people of the country, Ray Johnson, the railroad worker who loves her from afar; Dr. Archie, who sees her as something too fine for the world she occupies; Professor Wunsch, her drunken piano teacher who discovers her talent and nurtures it; and Spanish Johnny, a Mexican musician who shares the music of the soul.
Cather is in her usual form with her writing. She can describe a scene and make you step into it.
Winter was long in coming that year. Throughout October the days were bathed in sunlight and the air was clear as crystal. The town kept its cheerful summer aspect, the desert glistened with light, the sand hills every day went through magical changes of color. The scarlet sage bloomed late in the front yards, the cottonwood leaves were bright gold long before they fell, and it was not until November that the green on the tamarisks began to cloud and fade. There was a flurry of snow about Thanksgiving, and then December came on warm and clear.
These were wonderful aspects of the book, but the second half let me down in some way that is hard to describe. I began to see Thea as rather selfish and self-centered. Although I don’t believe Cather meant her to be seen in this way, I saw her as using her friends and admirers as stepping-stones. She maintained friendships with them, and they all seemed happy to serve her as a talent fully beyond their reach, but it seemed she somehow felt entitled to anything they laid on her altar and owed them nothing in return. No doubt it was the extraordinary talent we were meant to see being worshiped, but I kept seeing Hollywood and someone who believed the talent itself made her “more” than others. I found her cold, and I wondered if she hadn’t lost that little girl somewhere along the way, even though Cather kept telling me she had not.
Finally, there is, at the heart of this book, a desire to make the reader understand and value art itself. Cather explains this to us again and again, almost too often, but I do think she nailed it here:
What was any art but an effort to make a sheath, a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining, elusive element which is life itself,--life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose?
For the most part, this book worked for me, but it was not quite as satisfying as My Ántonia. It landed at 3.5 stars, but after some deliberation, I am rounding down.
November 5, 2019
Cather wasn’t supposed to be my theme this year, but here I am finishing a third book and committed to reading more. I always imagined her as a prairie writer, but each book has covered a different kind of atmosphere. Here we begin on the plains, in the sand hills of Eastern Colorado, in a small railroad town where we follow one of the daughters of a local minister. But then we make our way to 1890’s Chicago, the Arizona desert and the opera world of New York City. A young Thea Kronberg stands out in Moonstone, Colorado, drawing interest from a series of admirers. She doesn’t get along so well with those of her own age or of the small-town mentality. She seems to have the mindset and determination that can lead something important in her life and seems to draw those who want to help her.
Thea’s life is roughly based on the life of a Swedish-born American Opera singer Olive Fremsted, a quirky genius who grew up Minnesota and trained in Germany. In interviews, Cather was struck by her simplicity and deep focus on her work and saw parallels with the plains character she wanted to capture. So, Cather created her own variety of master opera singer, an artist of shear will and determination and focus, grounded in the plains, led by a variety of well-meaning men who all watch her move on. Not lovers, all of them, but admirers of the arts and of Thea. And then Cather throws in a detour to the Canyons of Arizona and the Anasazi cliff-dwellings. Arizona canyons…sun, sky, desert, mystery, isolation – this personal spiritual detour is the best part of this book and of anything I’ve read by Cather so far.
Cather is a writer of her time in terms of her ideas of art and culture, but she is a timeless prose artist and master at capturing the nature and experience of the landscape, the light and space and the mixture of permanence and change. She is also an especially good character builder and seems to make it her mission to create untraditional strong women characters. In the later, Thea is a classic example. This book is far more sophisticated than O Pioneers or Death Comes for the Archbishop (which are what I’ve read). Here she is trying to capture a stubborn powerful mind becoming an artist, almost always through the eyes of the beholders, her many mentors. She is there to be watched and experienced, and Cather uses a number of tricks to allow the reader to do just this. The result isn’t exactly a happy success story. There is a cost to all this. Her success depends on capricious iffy public taste. And one can feel Thea’s isolation, physical exhaustion, and her inability to bond with anyone who isn’t an admirer, her unwillingness to look around and take in the world. She is focused.
I’ve developed into a big fan of Cather. I love her prose, her characters and the landscape through her eyes. Looking forward to My Antiona. Recommended to anyone interested.
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27. The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather
published: 1915
format: 334 pages within the ebook The Prairie Trilogy: O Pioneers!; The Song of the Lark; My Antoniá
acquired: May
read: May 12 – June 8
time reading: 16 hr 28 min, 3.0 min/page
rating: 4
Thea’s life is roughly based on the life of a Swedish-born American Opera singer Olive Fremsted, a quirky genius who grew up Minnesota and trained in Germany. In interviews, Cather was struck by her simplicity and deep focus on her work and saw parallels with the plains character she wanted to capture. So, Cather created her own variety of master opera singer, an artist of shear will and determination and focus, grounded in the plains, led by a variety of well-meaning men who all watch her move on. Not lovers, all of them, but admirers of the arts and of Thea. And then Cather throws in a detour to the Canyons of Arizona and the Anasazi cliff-dwellings. Arizona canyons…sun, sky, desert, mystery, isolation – this personal spiritual detour is the best part of this book and of anything I’ve read by Cather so far.
Cather is a writer of her time in terms of her ideas of art and culture, but she is a timeless prose artist and master at capturing the nature and experience of the landscape, the light and space and the mixture of permanence and change. She is also an especially good character builder and seems to make it her mission to create untraditional strong women characters. In the later, Thea is a classic example. This book is far more sophisticated than O Pioneers or Death Comes for the Archbishop (which are what I’ve read). Here she is trying to capture a stubborn powerful mind becoming an artist, almost always through the eyes of the beholders, her many mentors. She is there to be watched and experienced, and Cather uses a number of tricks to allow the reader to do just this. The result isn’t exactly a happy success story. There is a cost to all this. Her success depends on capricious iffy public taste. And one can feel Thea’s isolation, physical exhaustion, and her inability to bond with anyone who isn’t an admirer, her unwillingness to look around and take in the world. She is focused.
I’ve developed into a big fan of Cather. I love her prose, her characters and the landscape through her eyes. Looking forward to My Antiona. Recommended to anyone interested.
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27. The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather
published: 1915
format: 334 pages within the ebook The Prairie Trilogy: O Pioneers!; The Song of the Lark; My Antoniá
acquired: May
read: May 12 – June 8
time reading: 16 hr 28 min, 3.0 min/page
rating: 4
November 19, 2024
No one can write about the landscape and the people of the western plains like Willa Cather. Her prose soars to great heights because she puts her heart and soul into it. Move the action to Chicago, New York or Europe and her wings are clipped. No matter that she's writing about the same characters; things get dull, conversations are stilted, and it feels like she's lost focus. For me, that's what happened in this book. About 65% of the way in, Thea Kronborg became a different character, as she left her known world of childhood and friends behind to pursue her passion of music and operatic singing.
This is her story, but also that of the people who loved her, most notably Dr. Archie who had loved her as a child in Moonstone, Colorado and Fred Ottenburg, a rich playboy who discovered her taking singing lessons in Chicago. Both were wonderfully rounded and complex characters. Thea's single-minded determination to be the best is achieved after a lot of hard work and sacrifice on her part. The epilogue returns us to Moonstone some 30 years later and left me in tears. For the people left behind, sometimes the success of a former resident shines a light to bask in that gives hope to their own dreams.
I was late getting around to this second part of her Great Plains Trilogy, but it was a worthwhile novel. O Pioneers and My Antonia were both better loved by me, but anything Cather wrote was far and above almost anything contemporary authors can put out.
This is her story, but also that of the people who loved her, most notably Dr. Archie who had loved her as a child in Moonstone, Colorado and Fred Ottenburg, a rich playboy who discovered her taking singing lessons in Chicago. Both were wonderfully rounded and complex characters. Thea's single-minded determination to be the best is achieved after a lot of hard work and sacrifice on her part. The epilogue returns us to Moonstone some 30 years later and left me in tears. For the people left behind, sometimes the success of a former resident shines a light to bask in that gives hope to their own dreams.
I was late getting around to this second part of her Great Plains Trilogy, but it was a worthwhile novel. O Pioneers and My Antonia were both better loved by me, but anything Cather wrote was far and above almost anything contemporary authors can put out.
June 15, 2014
At some point in this novel, I imagined a subtitle for it: "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman," especially as I'm convinced (without any facts to back it up) that it contains many autobiographical elements. I imagined that Thea's being different from the rest of her family, and from the others in the area she grew up in and loved, to be similar to Cather's experience as a burgeoning writer, also feeling the creative urge when she was a young child in her heart, was it, or under her cheek?... that sturdy little companion with whom she shared a secret.
Cather does a phenomenal job embodying how it might feel for any true artist: growing, despairing, caring deeply and passionately about her craft, succeeding by the world's standards but still reaching for an unachievable ideal. Though Thea's growth as an artist takes her to two major cities, Cather's depiction of the West is what stays with one. Gorgeous prose describes the cliff-dwellings of Arizona where time slows down and heals Thea. It later becomes an ironic contrast to the high-rise apartments of New York City.
I was surprised by the ending that takes us back to Thea's hometown and to one of her relatives. It was so lyrical, especially those last two beautiful sentences, that I forgot my initial reaction of pity for this relative, as that is not at all what Cather wants us to feel.
Cather does a phenomenal job embodying how it might feel for any true artist: growing, despairing, caring deeply and passionately about her craft, succeeding by the world's standards but still reaching for an unachievable ideal. Though Thea's growth as an artist takes her to two major cities, Cather's depiction of the West is what stays with one. Gorgeous prose describes the cliff-dwellings of Arizona where time slows down and heals Thea. It later becomes an ironic contrast to the high-rise apartments of New York City.
I was surprised by the ending that takes us back to Thea's hometown and to one of her relatives. It was so lyrical, especially those last two beautiful sentences, that I forgot my initial reaction of pity for this relative, as that is not at all what Cather wants us to feel.
September 5, 2021
Compelling and thorough, The Song of the Lark is the portrait of the awakening and development of an artist. Cather also brings along all of those who nurture Thea. This is not a "pulled herself up by her bootstraps" tale - but a story of persistence, luck and lots of help. I am ignorant about opera, but that didn't hinder my enjoyment.
Written in 1915, I am astonished at how Thea breaks through traditional gender roles. This novel feels timeless. And that is the power of a great classic!
Written in 1915, I am astonished at how Thea breaks through traditional gender roles. This novel feels timeless. And that is the power of a great classic!
October 12, 2025
“Nothing is far and nothing is near, if one desires. The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing—desire. And before it, when it is big, all is little.”
A sprawling, undisciplined novel, and if someone told me they thought it was all a pile of crap—as a novel, a story, an ethic—I would have little to say in its defense, except that I loved it unaccountably much, this story of the creative education of a Swedish-American opera singer at the turn of the 20th century, from her childhood in the windswept railroad town of Moonstone Colorado to her triumph on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.
“Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.”
Unlike O Pioneers, which is, at least in my memory, perfect on its own terms, The Song of the Lark is too busy being true to be perfect. It is windswept, sun-blessed, somehow bighearted and mean-spirited at once, full of long tangents and absurd little asides.
“She will do nothing common. She is uncommon, in a common, common world.”
The novel is one big contradiction. The world is common and mean, and only a few rare inborn geniuses have the courage, clearsightedness, selfishness, heart to reach their full potential—to do what is great and beautiful or even, in the novel’s meaner moments, merely lovely.
And also—the world is unutterably beautiful, art is merely a reaching back towards childhood, and it is ordinary life in a large family in a small town that lies at the heart of everything monumental and perfect about Thea’s extraordinary art.
“But, of course, it was herself and her own adventure that mattered to her. If youth did not matter so much to itself, it would never have the heart to go on.”
Much of the novel is about the men who obsess over Thea as a small child and young adult. There is something deeply discomfiting about these relationships at the heart of Cather’s novel—most discomfiting at all, that they don’t seem particularly to discomfit Cather. Men—certain men, not ordinary men—are intensely attracted to Thea, because she is a beautiful blond child with the soul of a great artist, and in Cather’s story—perhaps in Cather’s vision of her own life, it’s impossible not to suspect as much—Thea was an artist even as she toddled. And so the entire wellspring of the story is irrevocably, perhaps irredeemably, of another time, world, vision of what is possible and impossible, reasonable and unreasonable, dangerous and safe.
“‘Her secret? It is every artist’s secret,”—he waved his hand—“passion. That is all. It is an open secret, and perfectly safe. Like heroism, it is inimitable in cheap materials.”
Would I have loved this novel so had I not walked into the Metropolitan Opera on a whim one Saturday afternoon when I was still young but not that young and purchased the cheapest ticket available to the opera that was on, Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, with no idea whatsoever that it is the longest opera in the repertoire at four and half hours plus intermissions, that it is exhausting, nationalistic, so very 19th-century—and also transcendentally beautiful, beyond beautiful, somehow beyond what seems humanly possible in art, an experience outside of and above and beyond ordinary life? I don’t know.
A sprawling, undisciplined novel, and if someone told me they thought it was all a pile of crap—as a novel, a story, an ethic—I would have little to say in its defense, except that I loved it unaccountably much, this story of the creative education of a Swedish-American opera singer at the turn of the 20th century, from her childhood in the windswept railroad town of Moonstone Colorado to her triumph on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.
“Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.”
Unlike O Pioneers, which is, at least in my memory, perfect on its own terms, The Song of the Lark is too busy being true to be perfect. It is windswept, sun-blessed, somehow bighearted and mean-spirited at once, full of long tangents and absurd little asides.
“She will do nothing common. She is uncommon, in a common, common world.”
The novel is one big contradiction. The world is common and mean, and only a few rare inborn geniuses have the courage, clearsightedness, selfishness, heart to reach their full potential—to do what is great and beautiful or even, in the novel’s meaner moments, merely lovely.
And also—the world is unutterably beautiful, art is merely a reaching back towards childhood, and it is ordinary life in a large family in a small town that lies at the heart of everything monumental and perfect about Thea’s extraordinary art.
“But, of course, it was herself and her own adventure that mattered to her. If youth did not matter so much to itself, it would never have the heart to go on.”
Much of the novel is about the men who obsess over Thea as a small child and young adult. There is something deeply discomfiting about these relationships at the heart of Cather’s novel—most discomfiting at all, that they don’t seem particularly to discomfit Cather. Men—certain men, not ordinary men—are intensely attracted to Thea, because she is a beautiful blond child with the soul of a great artist, and in Cather’s story—perhaps in Cather’s vision of her own life, it’s impossible not to suspect as much—Thea was an artist even as she toddled. And so the entire wellspring of the story is irrevocably, perhaps irredeemably, of another time, world, vision of what is possible and impossible, reasonable and unreasonable, dangerous and safe.
“‘Her secret? It is every artist’s secret,”—he waved his hand—“passion. That is all. It is an open secret, and perfectly safe. Like heroism, it is inimitable in cheap materials.”
Would I have loved this novel so had I not walked into the Metropolitan Opera on a whim one Saturday afternoon when I was still young but not that young and purchased the cheapest ticket available to the opera that was on, Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, with no idea whatsoever that it is the longest opera in the repertoire at four and half hours plus intermissions, that it is exhausting, nationalistic, so very 19th-century—and also transcendentally beautiful, beyond beautiful, somehow beyond what seems humanly possible in art, an experience outside of and above and beyond ordinary life? I don’t know.
March 5, 2023
“The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing — desire.”
“It came over him now that the unexpected favors of fortune, no matter how dazzling, do not mean very much to us. They may exercise or divert us for a time, but when we look back, the only things we cherish are those which in some way met our original want; the desire which formed in us in early youth, undirected, and of its own accord.”
The second in the Great Plains trilogy, and for me this was stronger than O Pioneers. It is said to have some autobiographical elements, although it is also loosely based on the opera singer Olive Fremstad. It is the story of Thea Kronberg, born in a remote Colorado town. It follows her life from the age of six to about thirty and revolves around her musical talent and her passion for music. At the start of the journey she is a talented pianist potentially to concert standard, but does not love the piano. It is discovered that her real talent is her voice and we follow her development towards the heights of the opera world. This is very much a story of the struggle to harness and use a talent from humble origins and the sacrifices involved.
Again Cather’s descriptions of the natural world have power:
“Winter was long in coming that year. Throughout October the days were bathed in sunlight and the air was clear as crystal. The town kept its cheerful summer aspect, the desert glistened with light, the sand hills every day went through magical changes of color. The scarlet sage bloomed late in the front yards, the cottonwood leaves were bright gold long before they fell, and it was not until November that the green on the tamarisks began to cloud and fade. There was a flurry of snow about Thanksgiving, and then December came on warm and clear.”
One strand of the novel is Thea’s determination to succeed. She has her usual share of admirers, but none of them get in the way of her ambition. Cather seems to be debating whether the sacrifices necessary to fulfil ambition are worth it. There’s no sentimentality and it’s an honest account of the development of talent. The admirers remain devoted, but at arm’s length.
There is a quibble. Native Americans are referred to as pretty much a dead race of only archaeological interest, which of course they were not. This is odd because Cather has been rightly praised for documenting cultures that were dying away and being subsumed into a greater whole, but these tend to be European cultures. The other native (non-white?) cultures seem to be inconsequential.
The exploration of the creative process is fascinating and Cather does create some memorable and nuanced characters, even the admirers hold up and aren’t two dimensional. On to the third in the trilogy.
“It came over him now that the unexpected favors of fortune, no matter how dazzling, do not mean very much to us. They may exercise or divert us for a time, but when we look back, the only things we cherish are those which in some way met our original want; the desire which formed in us in early youth, undirected, and of its own accord.”
The second in the Great Plains trilogy, and for me this was stronger than O Pioneers. It is said to have some autobiographical elements, although it is also loosely based on the opera singer Olive Fremstad. It is the story of Thea Kronberg, born in a remote Colorado town. It follows her life from the age of six to about thirty and revolves around her musical talent and her passion for music. At the start of the journey she is a talented pianist potentially to concert standard, but does not love the piano. It is discovered that her real talent is her voice and we follow her development towards the heights of the opera world. This is very much a story of the struggle to harness and use a talent from humble origins and the sacrifices involved.
Again Cather’s descriptions of the natural world have power:
“Winter was long in coming that year. Throughout October the days were bathed in sunlight and the air was clear as crystal. The town kept its cheerful summer aspect, the desert glistened with light, the sand hills every day went through magical changes of color. The scarlet sage bloomed late in the front yards, the cottonwood leaves were bright gold long before they fell, and it was not until November that the green on the tamarisks began to cloud and fade. There was a flurry of snow about Thanksgiving, and then December came on warm and clear.”
One strand of the novel is Thea’s determination to succeed. She has her usual share of admirers, but none of them get in the way of her ambition. Cather seems to be debating whether the sacrifices necessary to fulfil ambition are worth it. There’s no sentimentality and it’s an honest account of the development of talent. The admirers remain devoted, but at arm’s length.
There is a quibble. Native Americans are referred to as pretty much a dead race of only archaeological interest, which of course they were not. This is odd because Cather has been rightly praised for documenting cultures that were dying away and being subsumed into a greater whole, but these tend to be European cultures. The other native (non-white?) cultures seem to be inconsequential.
The exploration of the creative process is fascinating and Cather does create some memorable and nuanced characters, even the admirers hold up and aren’t two dimensional. On to the third in the trilogy.
August 20, 2017
3.5 stars.
Not often for me does a book's main character go from endearing at the beginning, to tiresome by the end of the book. I adored the young Thea Kronberg, even if playing piano and professional singing interest me not one iota. She was a bright, ambitious little thing and you knew she would make something of herself with those wonderful secondary characters to support and encourage her. But her inner drive and work ethic was what she, in the end, credits her success to; and her personality becomes almost diva-like. I still liked this book a lot, but it was slow in many parts. It did keep me guessing if she'd ever find love and true happiness. Not everyone or every woman, specifically, requires the same things to be happy. Not everyone is capable of the give and take of a relationship -- some can only take.
Not often for me does a book's main character go from endearing at the beginning, to tiresome by the end of the book. I adored the young Thea Kronberg, even if playing piano and professional singing interest me not one iota. She was a bright, ambitious little thing and you knew she would make something of herself with those wonderful secondary characters to support and encourage her. But her inner drive and work ethic was what she, in the end, credits her success to; and her personality becomes almost diva-like. I still liked this book a lot, but it was slow in many parts. It did keep me guessing if she'd ever find love and true happiness. Not everyone or every woman, specifically, requires the same things to be happy. Not everyone is capable of the give and take of a relationship -- some can only take.
June 18, 2014
We first meet Thea Kronborg through Dr Archie, the young doctor of Moonstone, Colorado. He would become the first of many to have hopes for Thea, Thea the outsider, who just didn't fit somehow in this small town or in the family of a pastor. Sometimes she didn't feel she fit in her own body.
The story of The Song of the Lark is Thea's growth from child to teen to young adult to adult and we, the readers, share in the saga along with those who are her champions. Cather provides such a beautiful, insightful picture of the costs and glories of the search for that "something", the thing that will make life worth living.
The stream and the broken pottery: what was any art but
an effort to make a sheath, a mould in which to imprison
for a moment the shining, elusive element which is life
itself,---life hurrying past us and running away, too strong
to stop, too sweet to lose?...In singing, one made a vessel
of one"s throat and nostrils and held it on one's breath,
caught the stream in a scale of natural intervals. (p 227)
It is tempting to see Cather herself in this, Cather discovering how to harness her words into form.
Another character in this story is the Southwest itself, whether the sand hills of Colorado. the cliff houses of New Mexico or Thea's remembered weekend away with her father to Wyoming and the high mountains.
The road they followed was a wild and beautiful one.
It led up and up, by granite rocks and stunted pines, around
deep ravines and echoing gorges. The top of the ridge...was
a great flat plain, strewn with white boulders, with the
wind howling over it. There was not one trail, as Thea had
expected; There were a score; deep furrows, cut in the earth
by heavy wagon wheels, and now grown over with dry. whitish
grass. The furrows ran side by side; when one trail had
been worn too deep, the next party had abandoned it and made
a new trail to the right or left. They were, indeed, only old
wagon ruts, running east and west, and grown over with grass.
But as Thea ran about among the white stones, her skirts
blowing this way and that, the wind brought to her eyes tears
that might have come anyway....To the west one could see
range after range of blue mountains, and at last the snowy
range, with its white, windy peaks, the clouds caught here
and there on their spurs. The wind never slept on this plain....
Every little while eagles flew over. (p 46)
Here is Cather, with her love of history, love of the land, looking forward to progress as did those who came in the wagon trains. While it may not be an easy time, it is worth the struggle. And this is what, ultimately, Thea finds.
The story of The Song of the Lark is Thea's growth from child to teen to young adult to adult and we, the readers, share in the saga along with those who are her champions. Cather provides such a beautiful, insightful picture of the costs and glories of the search for that "something", the thing that will make life worth living.
The stream and the broken pottery: what was any art but
an effort to make a sheath, a mould in which to imprison
for a moment the shining, elusive element which is life
itself,---life hurrying past us and running away, too strong
to stop, too sweet to lose?...In singing, one made a vessel
of one"s throat and nostrils and held it on one's breath,
caught the stream in a scale of natural intervals. (p 227)
It is tempting to see Cather herself in this, Cather discovering how to harness her words into form.
Another character in this story is the Southwest itself, whether the sand hills of Colorado. the cliff houses of New Mexico or Thea's remembered weekend away with her father to Wyoming and the high mountains.
The road they followed was a wild and beautiful one.
It led up and up, by granite rocks and stunted pines, around
deep ravines and echoing gorges. The top of the ridge...was
a great flat plain, strewn with white boulders, with the
wind howling over it. There was not one trail, as Thea had
expected; There were a score; deep furrows, cut in the earth
by heavy wagon wheels, and now grown over with dry. whitish
grass. The furrows ran side by side; when one trail had
been worn too deep, the next party had abandoned it and made
a new trail to the right or left. They were, indeed, only old
wagon ruts, running east and west, and grown over with grass.
But as Thea ran about among the white stones, her skirts
blowing this way and that, the wind brought to her eyes tears
that might have come anyway....To the west one could see
range after range of blue mountains, and at last the snowy
range, with its white, windy peaks, the clouds caught here
and there on their spurs. The wind never slept on this plain....
Every little while eagles flew over. (p 46)
Here is Cather, with her love of history, love of the land, looking forward to progress as did those who came in the wagon trains. While it may not be an easy time, it is worth the struggle. And this is what, ultimately, Thea finds.
May 18, 2017
3.5 stars
I love how this book portrays an empowered woman who achieves success as a singer though her talent, work ethnic, and independence. This type of coming-of-age story often only occurs with boys and men. Cather, however, follows her protagonist Thea throughout her childhood in eastern Colorado all the way up to her rising fame as an artist in New York. Thea defies the expectations placed on women to act docile and domestic; she prioritizes herself and her ambitions and thus has a happy ending. While some may accuse Thea of selfishness or ungratefulness, I would ask these readers: why do we not penalize men as much when they leave behind their loved ones for their work?
I enjoyed dissecting so many themes in The Song of the Lark: the trappings of heteronormativity, the price we so often pay to succeed as artists, and how to integrate autonomy with the gift of amazing mentorship. While the writing style of the book sometimes bored me, Thea's ascent made the whole experience worth it. Recommended if you want a book about a girl who grows into a woman after overcoming challenges and displaying a courageous faith in herself.
I love how this book portrays an empowered woman who achieves success as a singer though her talent, work ethnic, and independence. This type of coming-of-age story often only occurs with boys and men. Cather, however, follows her protagonist Thea throughout her childhood in eastern Colorado all the way up to her rising fame as an artist in New York. Thea defies the expectations placed on women to act docile and domestic; she prioritizes herself and her ambitions and thus has a happy ending. While some may accuse Thea of selfishness or ungratefulness, I would ask these readers: why do we not penalize men as much when they leave behind their loved ones for their work?
I enjoyed dissecting so many themes in The Song of the Lark: the trappings of heteronormativity, the price we so often pay to succeed as artists, and how to integrate autonomy with the gift of amazing mentorship. While the writing style of the book sometimes bored me, Thea's ascent made the whole experience worth it. Recommended if you want a book about a girl who grows into a woman after overcoming challenges and displaying a courageous faith in herself.
September 19, 2018
This novel is set in the late 19th to early 20th century and tells the story of a girl named Thea Kronborg from a rural town in eastern Colorado who has musical talent that attracts the attention of a series of mentors and sponsors. Through their help and support she's able to advance in the world of Wagnerian opera to become a world renowned diva.
Willa Cather's skilled writing portrays Thea's inner ambitious aspirations as she leaves small town life behind and becomes exposed to the cosmopolitan influences of Chicago. Cather devises a detour in the narrative that takes Thea to Arizona where she emerges from a canyon flash flood probably symbolizing rebirth into a new life.
The narrative then jumps forward ten years, and Thea has returned to New York from a circuit of European opera singing. She is on the cusp to breaking through from "new young voice" to recognized "top tier voice" when she receives the chance of a life-time. She receives a telephone call asking if she can come to the Metropolitan Opera immediately and finish a performance where the lead soprano has become ill after the first act and can't finish. Of course Thea performs magnificently and brings the house down with applause. (This is based on an actual occurrence in the life of Olive Fremstad.)
The book is filled with extensive ruminations by Thea and others on subjects such as the struggle to release the potential that's hiding inside one's self. They are thoughts that most readers can relate to if they are able to recall the feeling of being young with all possibilities for the future open. Every step and decision along the path of life narrows the range of future possibilities. In Thea's case she senses a destiny for something special but isn't certain what it will be. At first she studies piano until her instructor discovers that she has a voice. She is told that she's a good pianist, but she has the potential to be a world-class singer.
Normally, I as a reader would be completely engrossed in a rags to riches story and would be cheering for the success of the main character. But Thea as portrayed in the story isn't totally likable. She is a perfectionist who's insensitive to the feelings to others who are less talented. Her focused attention on her own skills deprives her of friendship of others her own age. But perhaps these personality flaws provide a realistic representation of the personal cost of being goal oriented on a career that requires total devotion. The following is a quotation toward the end of the book of Thea reflecting on her career:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/a...
Willa Cather's skilled writing portrays Thea's inner ambitious aspirations as she leaves small town life behind and becomes exposed to the cosmopolitan influences of Chicago. Cather devises a detour in the narrative that takes Thea to Arizona where she emerges from a canyon flash flood probably symbolizing rebirth into a new life.
The narrative then jumps forward ten years, and Thea has returned to New York from a circuit of European opera singing. She is on the cusp to breaking through from "new young voice" to recognized "top tier voice" when she receives the chance of a life-time. She receives a telephone call asking if she can come to the Metropolitan Opera immediately and finish a performance where the lead soprano has become ill after the first act and can't finish. Of course Thea performs magnificently and brings the house down with applause. (This is based on an actual occurrence in the life of Olive Fremstad.)
The book is filled with extensive ruminations by Thea and others on subjects such as the struggle to release the potential that's hiding inside one's self. They are thoughts that most readers can relate to if they are able to recall the feeling of being young with all possibilities for the future open. Every step and decision along the path of life narrows the range of future possibilities. In Thea's case she senses a destiny for something special but isn't certain what it will be. At first she studies piano until her instructor discovers that she has a voice. She is told that she's a good pianist, but she has the potential to be a world-class singer.
Normally, I as a reader would be completely engrossed in a rags to riches story and would be cheering for the success of the main character. But Thea as portrayed in the story isn't totally likable. She is a perfectionist who's insensitive to the feelings to others who are less talented. Her focused attention on her own skills deprives her of friendship of others her own age. But perhaps these personality flaws provide a realistic representation of the personal cost of being goal oriented on a career that requires total devotion. The following is a quotation toward the end of the book of Thea reflecting on her career:
Your work becomes your personal life. You are not much good until it does. Its like being woven into a big web. You can't pull away, because all your little tendrils are woven into the picture.The following link is to an essay by Richard Maurer that describes the friendship between Willa Cather and the famous opera singer Olive Fremstad who greatly influenced the content of this book:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/a...
November 27, 2023
This is a story about an artist, a relatively poor young woman from the small town of Moonstone, Colorado, who grows up at the end of the 19th century with a passion for music and an idea that she has a special gift.
I enjoyed the parts about the small town, the frontier aspects, the description of the plains, the beautiful Arizona canyons, and the characters that made her family, especially her lovely mother.
“Thea was glad that this was her country, even if one did not learn to speak elegantly there. It was, somehow, an honest country, and there was a new song in that blue air which had never been sung in the world before. It was hard to tell about it, for it had nothing to do with words; it was like the light of the desert at noon, or the smell of the sagebrush after the rain; intangible but powerful.”
But as Thea grew up, I felt increasingly separated from her and uninterested. It felt like, in trying to portray a driven artist, Cather created someone above everyone else, someone detached, and it’s hard to stay interested in someone detached.
Willa Cather has a sort of expansive style. The story seemed to go on and on, but not because it was drawn out. Cather told a big story with tons of characters. It’s just that she went on what felt to me to be tangents: lots of details about characters before I had any reason to care about them.
I liked this better than O Pioneers!. But I had so much trouble getting through it, and was so glad when it was over. So it’s probably a four star book that I had a two star experience with, so settling for three. As usual, it’s difficult and often unsatisfying to write a negative review. I just think Willa Cather is not for me. This is my second of her novels, and I don’t think I’ll try any more.
I enjoyed the parts about the small town, the frontier aspects, the description of the plains, the beautiful Arizona canyons, and the characters that made her family, especially her lovely mother.
“Thea was glad that this was her country, even if one did not learn to speak elegantly there. It was, somehow, an honest country, and there was a new song in that blue air which had never been sung in the world before. It was hard to tell about it, for it had nothing to do with words; it was like the light of the desert at noon, or the smell of the sagebrush after the rain; intangible but powerful.”
But as Thea grew up, I felt increasingly separated from her and uninterested. It felt like, in trying to portray a driven artist, Cather created someone above everyone else, someone detached, and it’s hard to stay interested in someone detached.
Willa Cather has a sort of expansive style. The story seemed to go on and on, but not because it was drawn out. Cather told a big story with tons of characters. It’s just that she went on what felt to me to be tangents: lots of details about characters before I had any reason to care about them.
I liked this better than O Pioneers!. But I had so much trouble getting through it, and was so glad when it was over. So it’s probably a four star book that I had a two star experience with, so settling for three. As usual, it’s difficult and often unsatisfying to write a negative review. I just think Willa Cather is not for me. This is my second of her novels, and I don’t think I’ll try any more.
November 14, 2025
Pubblicato nel 1915, questo romanzo rappresenta il secondo volume di quella che viene denominata la “Trilogia delle Grandi Pianure” della scrittrice americana Willa Cather [1873-1947] iniziata con “Pionieri” e che termina con “Mia Antonia”: protagonista del racconto è la giovane Thea Kronborg figlia di svedesi emigrati negli USA che fin da giovanissima manifesta una potente inclinazione verso la musica e grazie alla caparbietà della madre che crede nel talento musicale della figlia, ella potrà avviarsi lentamente ma inesorabilmente verso il compimento del suo destino. Accanto alla splendida figura della protagonista raccontata con maestria e partecipazione ma senza facili sentimentalismi, si ergono le figure maschili del dottor Archie, del giovane macchinista Ray Kennedy e del milionario Fred Ottenburg, ciascuno dei quali, a suo modo, avrà un ruolo tutt’altro che marginale nella vita e nella formazione della protagonista, permettendole di comprendersi appieno e spingerla alla realizzazione dei suoi sogni. Un romanzo affascinante capace di raccontare con un linguaggio semplice le profondità dell’animo umano e tratteggiare una figura di donna indimenticabile.
June 14, 2019
Thea Kronberg is the girl we all wish we could be.
She dreams of a bigger world, of traveling, and befriending all the interesting people she crosses. She develops her musical gift by first starting to play the piano and then continuing to sing. She crosses teachers and develops her craft. This novel follows Thea throughout her life, taking the reader along for the ride.
In the beginning, the ride was interesting and thrilling and dreamy. In the middle, it slowed down and started getting bogged down in tedious details. The end helped bring this story full circle, but I was ready for this story to end when I reached the final page. Thea starts so bright and full of life, and ends up talented, but is this everything she thought it would be? Is she truly happy to put everything else to the side? Living a life devoted to her craft and music.
I really enjoyed parts of this and there were other sections that were utterly droll and boring. I'm landing right down the middle and may need to think more on this one. I think it's one that needs to settle in for awhile.
She dreams of a bigger world, of traveling, and befriending all the interesting people she crosses. She develops her musical gift by first starting to play the piano and then continuing to sing. She crosses teachers and develops her craft. This novel follows Thea throughout her life, taking the reader along for the ride.
In the beginning, the ride was interesting and thrilling and dreamy. In the middle, it slowed down and started getting bogged down in tedious details. The end helped bring this story full circle, but I was ready for this story to end when I reached the final page. Thea starts so bright and full of life, and ends up talented, but is this everything she thought it would be? Is she truly happy to put everything else to the side? Living a life devoted to her craft and music.
I really enjoyed parts of this and there were other sections that were utterly droll and boring. I'm landing right down the middle and may need to think more on this one. I think it's one that needs to settle in for awhile.
October 22, 2020
“Nothing is far and nothing is near, if one desires. The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing - desire. And before it, when it is big, all is little." – Willa Cather
“The Song of the Lark” by Willa Cather is a novel after my own heart. When I stumbled on Dolors' beautifully crafted review of this book by an author I have never read, I felt that knowing tug that signaled pleasure and promise. I was right.
Thea Kronborg, known as “Little Swede”, was the daughter of a humble preacher who had seven children. Thea had an extraordinary gift of music. Living in the obscure (fictional) town of Moonstone, Colorado, and given her family’s limited financial resources, Thea did not have early access to fine musical training. She took piano lessons from Professor Wunsch, a wandering musician who drank. Wunsch recognised Thea's talent - her "power of application, her rugged will". It was Wunsch who first introduced Thea to classical songs and a tiny window opened that fired in Thea a love of singing. Because I was a voice student, it brought back reminders of songs I’d learnt (e.g., “Eurydice” in Gluck’s Orpheus) and sent me looking up songs such as “Come Ye, Disconsolate” that Thea sang at her father’s church services.
“The Song of the Lark” traced Thea’s arduous journey to become a professional singer. The roadblocks to realizing a dream seemed insurmountable because a gift, like a plant, cannot flourish except in the right soil. Even though Thea was intelligent and talented, her restricted opportunities for early training meant she was uncultivated and ignorant. Her first concert pianist teacher in Chicago (Andor Harsanyi) observed that Thea came to him “like a fine young savage, a book with nothing written in it." What were her chances of succeeding? I was swept up in Thea’s quest to become the best she can be as a musician.
I was impressed by Thea’s tenacity, fighting spirit, discipline, and industry. Her strengths were her "unusual power of work", "her way of charging at difficulties as if they were foes she had long been seeking,.. as if they were destined for her and she for them." I enjoyed reading about her music lessons and reflected on how the student’s relationship with his/her mentor was all important in shaping both the gift and the professional attitude. (I am grateful for the nurturing and encouraging teachers I had; only one encounter with a critical diva at a Master's class was unpleasant.) It was Harsanyi who said, "When people, serious people, believe in you, they give you some of their best, so - take care of it, Miss Kronborg." With Madison Bowers, the best voice teacher in Chicago, who lacked warmth and generosity, Thea took on the grouchiness, skepticism, and contempt that Bowers modelled.
I envied Thea her band of ardent supporters: her aunt Tillie, and the men - Ray Kennedy, Dr. Archie, Fred Ottenburg - who were all half smitten or head over heels in love with her. These, together with her teachers such as Wunsch, Harsanyi and Bowers, recognized and stretched her musical knowledge and skills. A few provided financial support that enabled her to hone her gift. Much as I admired her many fine qualities, Thea became less and less likeable as she matured.
I felt elated when Thea was finally given the opportunity to sing the lead roles at the Metropolitan Opera House because the feted professionals were unavailable due to illness. Then I felt her panic when she had to rehearse in double quick time and hoped she would nail the role(s)so well she could secure future contracts and gain the recognition she deserved. Of course, there was overwhelming joy when she finally delivered a song that allowed her to shine or a performance where everything came together and bore distinctly her signature brilliance.
Music aside, Cather wrote beautifully about the natural landscape. At Panther Canyon, Arizona, restoration of spirit could be found among the "yellow rocks baking in sunlight" and the cleansing solitude. The language in this novel (published in 1915) belonged to an earlier era and was genteelly elegant. Cather also painted character sketches that were vivid even for minor ones that were met in passing such as the Rev Larsen in Chicago.
This is a novel that will resonate with music lovers, particularly individuals who understood from direct experience the challenges of singing to an audience. Music aside, there’s something in this book for everyone. Because like Thea Kronborg, many of us have dreams and understand the struggles toward actualization that are common to all and yet unique to our own experience.
“The Song of the Lark” by Willa Cather is a novel after my own heart. When I stumbled on Dolors' beautifully crafted review of this book by an author I have never read, I felt that knowing tug that signaled pleasure and promise. I was right.
Thea Kronborg, known as “Little Swede”, was the daughter of a humble preacher who had seven children. Thea had an extraordinary gift of music. Living in the obscure (fictional) town of Moonstone, Colorado, and given her family’s limited financial resources, Thea did not have early access to fine musical training. She took piano lessons from Professor Wunsch, a wandering musician who drank. Wunsch recognised Thea's talent - her "power of application, her rugged will". It was Wunsch who first introduced Thea to classical songs and a tiny window opened that fired in Thea a love of singing. Because I was a voice student, it brought back reminders of songs I’d learnt (e.g., “Eurydice” in Gluck’s Orpheus) and sent me looking up songs such as “Come Ye, Disconsolate” that Thea sang at her father’s church services.
“The Song of the Lark” traced Thea’s arduous journey to become a professional singer. The roadblocks to realizing a dream seemed insurmountable because a gift, like a plant, cannot flourish except in the right soil. Even though Thea was intelligent and talented, her restricted opportunities for early training meant she was uncultivated and ignorant. Her first concert pianist teacher in Chicago (Andor Harsanyi) observed that Thea came to him “like a fine young savage, a book with nothing written in it." What were her chances of succeeding? I was swept up in Thea’s quest to become the best she can be as a musician.
I was impressed by Thea’s tenacity, fighting spirit, discipline, and industry. Her strengths were her "unusual power of work", "her way of charging at difficulties as if they were foes she had long been seeking,.. as if they were destined for her and she for them." I enjoyed reading about her music lessons and reflected on how the student’s relationship with his/her mentor was all important in shaping both the gift and the professional attitude. (I am grateful for the nurturing and encouraging teachers I had; only one encounter with a critical diva at a Master's class was unpleasant.) It was Harsanyi who said, "When people, serious people, believe in you, they give you some of their best, so - take care of it, Miss Kronborg." With Madison Bowers, the best voice teacher in Chicago, who lacked warmth and generosity, Thea took on the grouchiness, skepticism, and contempt that Bowers modelled.
I envied Thea her band of ardent supporters: her aunt Tillie, and the men - Ray Kennedy, Dr. Archie, Fred Ottenburg - who were all half smitten or head over heels in love with her. These, together with her teachers such as Wunsch, Harsanyi and Bowers, recognized and stretched her musical knowledge and skills. A few provided financial support that enabled her to hone her gift. Much as I admired her many fine qualities, Thea became less and less likeable as she matured.
I felt elated when Thea was finally given the opportunity to sing the lead roles at the Metropolitan Opera House because the feted professionals were unavailable due to illness. Then I felt her panic when she had to rehearse in double quick time and hoped she would nail the role(s)so well she could secure future contracts and gain the recognition she deserved. Of course, there was overwhelming joy when she finally delivered a song that allowed her to shine or a performance where everything came together and bore distinctly her signature brilliance.
Music aside, Cather wrote beautifully about the natural landscape. At Panther Canyon, Arizona, restoration of spirit could be found among the "yellow rocks baking in sunlight" and the cleansing solitude. The language in this novel (published in 1915) belonged to an earlier era and was genteelly elegant. Cather also painted character sketches that were vivid even for minor ones that were met in passing such as the Rev Larsen in Chicago.
This is a novel that will resonate with music lovers, particularly individuals who understood from direct experience the challenges of singing to an audience. Music aside, there’s something in this book for everyone. Because like Thea Kronborg, many of us have dreams and understand the struggles toward actualization that are common to all and yet unique to our own experience.
August 4, 2017
I can't say this is my favorite Cather novel; My Antonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop are much better. Thea Kronborg is not the easiest character to live with for 400 pages. Not only is she tough and determined, but often sullen and defeatist. Even the sensitive, understanding man who falls in love with her thinks of her sometimes as "a little cold and empty, like a big room with no people in it." Nor is small-town, small-minded western America a place where I often like to hang out, literarily speaking. Thea's mother and the town doctor are among several who recognize Thea as different and push her to be bigger than the limits provincial Colorado places on nearly everyone, but her minister father is indifferent: "She had seen it when she was at home last summer - the hostility of comfortable, self-satisfied people toward any serious effort. Even to her father it seemed indecorous. Whenever she spoke seriously, he looked apologetic."
What I thought Cather did very well here was limn the artistic mind. Andor Harsanyi, Thea's piano teacher in Chicago, was particularly eloquent in his thoughts on music and what musical knowledge, musical giftedness, means. "He did not often go to the opera, because the stupid things that singers did vexed him, and it always put him in a rage if the conductor held the beat or in any way accommodated the score to the singer." After a wonderful performance Thea gives at the Metropolitan Opera, an admirer asks Harsanyi what Thea's secret is. "Her secret? It is every artist's secret" - he waved his hand - "passion. That is all. It is an open secret, and perfectly safe. Like heroism, it is inimitable in cheap materials."
Then Cather's authorial voice says:
Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is. That afternoon nothing new came to Thea Kronborg, no enlightenment, no inspiration. She merely came into full possession of things she had been refining and perfecting for so long. Her inhibitions chanced to be fewer than usual, and, within herself, she entered into the inheritance that she herself had laid up, into the fullness of the faith she had kept before she knew its name or its meaning.
Often when she sang, the best she had was unavailable; she could not break through to it, and every sort of distraction and mischance came between it and her. But this afternoon the closed roads opened, the gates dropped. What she had so often tried to reach, lay under her hand. She had only to touch an idea to make it live.
While she was on the stage she was conscious that every movement was the right movement, that her body was absolutely the instrument of her idea. ...
There's the loveliness (or maybe truth is a better word) Cather is capable of, in sentences like: "There is no work of art so big or so beautiful that it was not once all contained in some youthful body, like this one which lay on the floor in the moonlight, pulsing with ardour and anticipation." The wonderful characterizations: "On the whole, the Reverend Larsen was not an insincere man; he merely spent his life resting and playing, to make up for the time his forebears had wasted grubbing in the earth. He was simple-hearted and kind; he enjoyed his candy and his children and his sacred cantatas. He could work energetically at almost any form of play."
Perhaps this the only novel where someone dies in an explosion after trying to clean their upholstery with gasoline. Given that so much of it is autobiographical, you wonder if Cather knew a person this happened to...
There are three references to nigger (as there occasionally are in older books). Two are to the "niggerhead cactus", more politely known as Echinocactus polycephalus, common to the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts. And after Thea has achieved a big operatic career, she's staying in a hotel and her laundry goes missing. She is irked, thinking how she's going to lose sleep: "I'll go down there tomorrow and make a fool of myself. If I'd let that laundry alone with whatever nigger has stolen it - Why did I undertake to reform the management of this hotel tonight?"
This Signet Classic edition misspells Thea Kronburg's name on the back cover as Kronberg. Honestly...you would think a major book publisher would have copyeditors for stuff like that....
February 1, 2022
“Si, era como una flor ahíta de sol, pero no las blandas flores alemanas de su infancia. Wunsch la había encontrado, esa comparación que antes había buscado sin darse cuenta: era como la flor amarilla de la chumbera que se abre en medio del desierto; más espinosa y más dura que las flores femeninas que él recordaba; menos dulce, pero maravillosa.”
"El Canto de la Alondra" es la segunda novela de Willa Cather que forma parte de su Trilogía de la Pradera. Escrita en 1915 entre Pioneros y Mi Antonia, se sitúa en Colorado, en un pequeño pueblo ferroviario llamado Moonstone, aislado y rodeado de dunas donde transcurre la infancia y primera adolescencia de la protagonsta, Thea Kronborg, un escenario fundamental a lo largo de toda la novela. Hacia mucho que me moría por leer esta novela y realmente ha valido la pena, tanto que se ha convertido en mi favorita de la trilogía. Willa Cather que pasó toda su infancia en Nebraska (el estado vecino de Colorado) en la época de la inmigración escandinava, vuelve a volcar sus experiencias en El Canto de la Alondra, sembrando la novela de toda una serie de personajes secundarios resultado de esa colonización ( no solo escandinava, sino mejicana, checa…), que se quedan ya grabados: convirtiéndose en momentos en una historia coral y global, porque Willa Cather no se corta un pelo a la hora de narrarnos estos roces sociales y raciales entre los diferentes grupos y digamos que de alguna forma la autora cuestiona esta exclusión por razones sociales que sufrían mejicanos o españoles.
Lo que nos viene a contar Willa Cather en El Canto de la Alondra, es la historia de transición desde su infancia hasta su vida adulta de Thea Kronborg, una niña con un enorme talento para la música, que desde muy temprana edad se liberará de las ataduras provincianas para hacer una carrera en la música. Hija de un pastor metodista de ascendencia sueca y criada entre siete hermanos, Thea fue desde su nacimiento una niña de una individualidad muy marcada, en una época en este detalle llamaba poderosamente la atención, más tratándose de una mujer.
"¿Acaso no sabes que la mayoría de las personas del mundo no tienen nada de individuos? Nunca tienen una idea o una experiencia individual. Muchas chicas van al mismo internado, debutan en la misma temporada, bailan en las mismas fiestas, se casan en grupos, tienen hijos al mismo tiempo, envian a sus hijos a la escuela juntos y así va renovándose la cosecha humana. Esas mujeres no saben más sobre la realidad de esas formas de vida que sobre las guerras cuyas fechas aprenden. Extraen sus experiencias más personales de novelas y de obras de teatro; todo es de segunda mano en ellas. Pues bien, tu no podrías vivir así".
Esta primera parte de la novela, la más extensa en la que se nos cuenta la infancia y adolescencia de Thea en Moonstone, es para mí la más fascinante porque Willa Cather la siembra de personajes, paisajes desérticos, momentos que marcarán a Thea no solo por el resto de su vida sino para el resto de la novela. Por mucho que Thea abandone en su adolescencia Moonstone para afincarse en Chicago y más tarde en Nueva York, Moonstone siempre estará presente durante toda la novela. La evolución personal del personaje de Thea me ha parecido prodigioso porque asistimos a la creación de una artista con sus luces y sus sombras, sus dudas y sus momentos de bajada a los infiernos, así que a lo largo de sus más de 500 páginas asistimos a varios retratos del mismo personaje a medida que va evolucionando y desarrollandose su personalidad. Una novela de profunda carga psicológica, porque no solo somos testigos del crecimiento personal de Thea, sino de varios de los personajes a lo largo de toda la novela, es quizás por esto, que se ha convertido en mi novela favorita de Willa Cather, sin ninguna duda.
"Pero algún día podré mirarla a la cara y reír porque hice por ella todo lo que pude. Creo en ella. No hará nada vulgar. Es una persona extraordinaria en un mundo muy, muy ordinario".
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2020...
"El Canto de la Alondra" es la segunda novela de Willa Cather que forma parte de su Trilogía de la Pradera. Escrita en 1915 entre Pioneros y Mi Antonia, se sitúa en Colorado, en un pequeño pueblo ferroviario llamado Moonstone, aislado y rodeado de dunas donde transcurre la infancia y primera adolescencia de la protagonsta, Thea Kronborg, un escenario fundamental a lo largo de toda la novela. Hacia mucho que me moría por leer esta novela y realmente ha valido la pena, tanto que se ha convertido en mi favorita de la trilogía. Willa Cather que pasó toda su infancia en Nebraska (el estado vecino de Colorado) en la época de la inmigración escandinava, vuelve a volcar sus experiencias en El Canto de la Alondra, sembrando la novela de toda una serie de personajes secundarios resultado de esa colonización ( no solo escandinava, sino mejicana, checa…), que se quedan ya grabados: convirtiéndose en momentos en una historia coral y global, porque Willa Cather no se corta un pelo a la hora de narrarnos estos roces sociales y raciales entre los diferentes grupos y digamos que de alguna forma la autora cuestiona esta exclusión por razones sociales que sufrían mejicanos o españoles.
Lo que nos viene a contar Willa Cather en El Canto de la Alondra, es la historia de transición desde su infancia hasta su vida adulta de Thea Kronborg, una niña con un enorme talento para la música, que desde muy temprana edad se liberará de las ataduras provincianas para hacer una carrera en la música. Hija de un pastor metodista de ascendencia sueca y criada entre siete hermanos, Thea fue desde su nacimiento una niña de una individualidad muy marcada, en una época en este detalle llamaba poderosamente la atención, más tratándose de una mujer.
"¿Acaso no sabes que la mayoría de las personas del mundo no tienen nada de individuos? Nunca tienen una idea o una experiencia individual. Muchas chicas van al mismo internado, debutan en la misma temporada, bailan en las mismas fiestas, se casan en grupos, tienen hijos al mismo tiempo, envian a sus hijos a la escuela juntos y así va renovándose la cosecha humana. Esas mujeres no saben más sobre la realidad de esas formas de vida que sobre las guerras cuyas fechas aprenden. Extraen sus experiencias más personales de novelas y de obras de teatro; todo es de segunda mano en ellas. Pues bien, tu no podrías vivir así".
Esta primera parte de la novela, la más extensa en la que se nos cuenta la infancia y adolescencia de Thea en Moonstone, es para mí la más fascinante porque Willa Cather la siembra de personajes, paisajes desérticos, momentos que marcarán a Thea no solo por el resto de su vida sino para el resto de la novela. Por mucho que Thea abandone en su adolescencia Moonstone para afincarse en Chicago y más tarde en Nueva York, Moonstone siempre estará presente durante toda la novela. La evolución personal del personaje de Thea me ha parecido prodigioso porque asistimos a la creación de una artista con sus luces y sus sombras, sus dudas y sus momentos de bajada a los infiernos, así que a lo largo de sus más de 500 páginas asistimos a varios retratos del mismo personaje a medida que va evolucionando y desarrollandose su personalidad. Una novela de profunda carga psicológica, porque no solo somos testigos del crecimiento personal de Thea, sino de varios de los personajes a lo largo de toda la novela, es quizás por esto, que se ha convertido en mi novela favorita de Willa Cather, sin ninguna duda.
"Pero algún día podré mirarla a la cara y reír porque hice por ella todo lo que pude. Creo en ella. No hará nada vulgar. Es una persona extraordinaria en un mundo muy, muy ordinario".
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2020...
January 26, 2012
Well, I know I'll be called a heretic for giving Willa Cather two stars, but I can't help it. I almost gave this book one star but just.couldn't.do.it.
The book started off in fantastic Cather style which included some strong, likeable, flawed characters and a shining protagonist intertwined with beautiful imagery and phrases. Unfortunately these qualities expired by the latter half of the book, where I found myself just willing it all to end. Thea became self absorbed and boring, the male characters confused me, and I didn't want to read another word about vocal capacity. With all the drama of Wagner's music, I hoped for some kind of drama in the plot; instead, the same three people just droned on chapter after chapter. The final closing paragraphs went back to minor character Aunt Tillie, why? I understand that Cather may have wanted us all to comprehend the struggle of the artist, but she didn't have to make us struggle to read it.
If you are looking for high quality Willa Cather, stick with My Antonia, O Pioneers, or Death Comes for the Archbishop.
The book started off in fantastic Cather style which included some strong, likeable, flawed characters and a shining protagonist intertwined with beautiful imagery and phrases. Unfortunately these qualities expired by the latter half of the book, where I found myself just willing it all to end. Thea became self absorbed and boring, the male characters confused me, and I didn't want to read another word about vocal capacity. With all the drama of Wagner's music, I hoped for some kind of drama in the plot; instead, the same three people just droned on chapter after chapter. The final closing paragraphs went back to minor character Aunt Tillie, why? I understand that Cather may have wanted us all to comprehend the struggle of the artist, but she didn't have to make us struggle to read it.
If you are looking for high quality Willa Cather, stick with My Antonia, O Pioneers, or Death Comes for the Archbishop.
January 13, 2015
My Antonia is one of my favorite books, so I thought I'd revisit Willa Cather since it's been a long time. While I found myself savoring little morsels of prose here and there, overall this novel was too long, and frankly, I just didn't care that much about the main character. I think I would have enjoyed this book more if 200 pages had been edited out so that the story was tighter and there weren't so many descriptive passages that really weren't relevant in the long run.
Of course, in those very details that I would chop, Cather is painting (beautifully, as always) realistic and detailed pictures of Scandanavian immigrant families. I guess you can't have it all. But if you want to read Cather at her best, I'd try My Antonia or O Pioneers! instead.
Of course, in those very details that I would chop, Cather is painting (beautifully, as always) realistic and detailed pictures of Scandanavian immigrant families. I guess you can't have it all. But if you want to read Cather at her best, I'd try My Antonia or O Pioneers! instead.
January 31, 2025
"The Song of the Lark" is my least favorite of the three novels that have been labeled Cather's "Prairie Trilogy." The other two, "My Antonia" and "O Pioneers!," are five star reads for me, while this one receives only 3.
One reason for that rating is that only the first half of the book is set in the prairie while the second half takes place in Chicago and New York. It is the story of a young woman who is dissatisfied with her life in southern Colorado (much of which is prairie country) and moves to Chicago to take lessons as a pianist of classical music. Her teacher convinces her that she is a better singer than pianist and so she, through dedication and hard work, becomes an opera singer.
There are long passages of dialogue in which characters discuss and explain the trials and tribulations, which include the mental and physical requirements, of singers pursuing such a career. I was convinced early on that devotion and self-discipline and talent were required and I didn't need to hear it in the detail that Cather (attempted) used to educate me on the matter and truthfully, I didn't understand much of what I wasskimming reading on the subject.
I apologize to opera aficionados, but in the culturally deprived regions in which I grew up, I was exposed to much more Grand Ole Opry than grand opera, therefore the second half of the book was a chore for me to finish.
The three stars are for the first half of the book.
One reason for that rating is that only the first half of the book is set in the prairie while the second half takes place in Chicago and New York. It is the story of a young woman who is dissatisfied with her life in southern Colorado (much of which is prairie country) and moves to Chicago to take lessons as a pianist of classical music. Her teacher convinces her that she is a better singer than pianist and so she, through dedication and hard work, becomes an opera singer.
There are long passages of dialogue in which characters discuss and explain the trials and tribulations, which include the mental and physical requirements, of singers pursuing such a career. I was convinced early on that devotion and self-discipline and talent were required and I didn't need to hear it in the detail that Cather (attempted) used to educate me on the matter and truthfully, I didn't understand much of what I was
I apologize to opera aficionados, but in the culturally deprived regions in which I grew up, I was exposed to much more Grand Ole Opry than grand opera, therefore the second half of the book was a chore for me to finish.
The three stars are for the first half of the book.
May 7, 2023
I’m not sure how to rate my latest Willa Cather because it started at 5 stars and unfortunately went downhill to 3.5.
We follow Thea Kronberg’s development from her childhood in a little settlement called Moonstone in the Colorado outback, through to her adulthood and accomplishment as an opera star.
The first half of the novel was near perfect for me, Cather transported me to the environment with her vivid, poetic prose and I lived alongside Thea and a host of individuals, each with their own fascinating back stories. But the more the novel developed the more I felt it lost it’s way and the end seemed rather flat. In any novel, I may not have been so disappointed, but I think I was expecting something really special to develop, and it never happened. I ended up resenting Thea and her self absorbed mindset. Yes, she achieved her dreams but at a cost, including failing her mothers’ wish to visit her before she died.
I felt rather like Dr Archie when he was reminiscing about Thea as a child, they were the magical moments for me. However, I will certainly read more of Cather’s works in the future as My Antonia is one of my all time favourites.
We follow Thea Kronberg’s development from her childhood in a little settlement called Moonstone in the Colorado outback, through to her adulthood and accomplishment as an opera star.
The first half of the novel was near perfect for me, Cather transported me to the environment with her vivid, poetic prose and I lived alongside Thea and a host of individuals, each with their own fascinating back stories. But the more the novel developed the more I felt it lost it’s way and the end seemed rather flat. In any novel, I may not have been so disappointed, but I think I was expecting something really special to develop, and it never happened. I ended up resenting Thea and her self absorbed mindset. Yes, she achieved her dreams but at a cost, including failing her mothers’ wish to visit her before she died.
I felt rather like Dr Archie when he was reminiscing about Thea as a child, they were the magical moments for me. However, I will certainly read more of Cather’s works in the future as My Antonia is one of my all time favourites.
July 31, 2023
I loved the other books in Cather's Plains trilogy, but this didn't work for me, on several levels. I thought it too long, and I came to dislike Thea quite a lot, so while I did finish, it was tedious in places. I understand Thea to be a conflicted character, true to her natural talent, but not always getting to the point where she was satisfied or content. I did enjoy the beautiful descriptions of Moonstone and the Southwest, especially the Panther Canyon part. I actually liked the satellite characters of Aunt Tillie, Spanish Johnny, Dr. Howard Archie, Ray Kennedy, and Fred Ottenburg much better than Thea.
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