Bibliofreakblog

The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather

Margaret Atwood has written much about the influence of landscalpe on Canadian authors, but I think that that is no less true of writers of the Old West, Midwest, and Plains states.  Perhaps whenever you have great swaths of rugged land, the terrain will imprint itself on a writer.

The Song of the Lark, which was first published almost a hundred years ago, is the story of Thea, a musical prodigy from a rural town in Colarado, and her ascent to the echelons of the world operatic ranks.  

Cather doesn’t start the book with grand descriptions of the Colarado landscape, but much later, as Thea returns to her native home after studying music in Chicago, she takes time to detail the canyons and hills.  Growing up these would have been everyday features but after returning from Chicago, Thea sees them anew, through adult eyes.  Cather never says so much, but her genius works itself not through the descriptions themselves, but where she’s placed them–more than halfway through the book.

There are two supporting roles, both men.  Dr. Archie, the doctor in her home town, has mentored her for years.  Fred Ottenburg, from a wealthy family, loves her, and she loves him, though she chooses her career over him.  

What’s really amazing is the friendship that develops between the two men.  In an age before telephones were common, when the two men get together, they discuss news of Thea.

Cather wrote that she wished that she hadn’t written the last part of the book.  What was interesting to her was Thea’s journey to becoming an opera singer, from a small town, to Chicago, to Europe.  And indeed, as the years go on, we seem to hear of her just as Fred and Dr. Archie do–from each other.  

Thea has grown up and left us, but that doesn’t make us less proud.
Buy Song of the Lark on Amazon

If you like this book/author, you might like:

Willa Cather: A Life Saved Up by Hermione Lee
Willa Cather: Queering America by Marilee Lindemann 
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
The Story of Avis by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
A Country Doctor by Sarah Orne Jewett 
Alexander’s Bridge by Sarah Orne Jewett
A woman of genius by Mary Austin
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
The Quality of Life Report by Meghan Daum
Gramercy Park by Paula Cohen
Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Other works by Willa Cather*:

Alexander’s Bridge
Willa Cather in Europe: Her Own Story of the First Journey
O Pioneers!
One of Ours
Willa Cather in Person: Interviews, Speeches, and Letters 
Collected Stories 
My Antonia 
Youth and the Bright Medusa 
A Lost Lady
Great Short Works of Willa Cather
Cather: Stories, Poems, and Other Writings 
The Troll Garden 
The Professor’s House
My Mortal Enemy 
Sapphira and the Slave Girl 
Death Comes for the Archbishop
Willa Cather on Writing: Critical Studies on Writing As an Art
Lucy Gayheart 
Shadows on the Rock 

*NOTE: This list is not exhuastive.  For the most part, it only includes works still in print, though you can still find many of her works used.