Willa Cather's Lucy Gayheart gropes a wistful way back to the time of the horse and buggy, when some men and some women loved deeply and truly and make themselves miserable and hugged their misery. Small towns, no less than Vienna and the Paris Left Bank and a Greenwich Village as dirty and noisy then as it is now.
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Willa Cather's Lucy Gayheart gropes a wistful way back to the time of the horse and buggy, when some men and some women loved deeply and truly and make themselves miserable and hugged their misery. Small towns, no less than Vienna and the Paris Left Bank and a Greenwich Village as dirty and noisy then as it is now.
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Good. There is handwriting and/or underlining and or highlighting in the book Item has stickers or notes attached to cover and/or pages that have not been removed to prevent further damage Cover/ Case does NOT match photos; some content may vary from version shown Cover/Case has some rubbing and edgewear. Access codes, CD's, slipcovers and other accessories may not be included.
Willa Cather's short, poignant 1935 novel "Lucy Gayheart" is a story of music and dashed dreams. The story takes place in the early twentieth century and contrasts the American plains, in Haverford, Nebraska, with large urban America, with its promise and perils, in Chicago.
The heroine of the book, Lucy Gayheart, has great pianistic talent. She leaves Haverford at the age of 18 to study piano, and to give music lessons, in Chicago. She meets a great but disillusioned and world-weary singer, Clement Sebastian, and has the opportunity to work with him as an accompanist. Cather loves and beautifully describes in the novel Schubert's wonderful song-cycles "Die Winterreise" and "Die Schone Mullerein". Both the winter cold and the lovely maiden of Schubert's two cycles are mirrored in the book. Lucy ultimately is seemingly faced with the choice between Sebastian and her hometown sweetheart.
Faced with tragedy in Chicago from both Sebastian and her former love, Lucy returns home. She gears herself to begin life anew but tragedy again intervenes.
Cather offers a great deal of description of the snow and the cold in both Chicago and Haverford. The book gives a sense of the tragic sense of life, with a hint of the power of art and religious faith to overcome it. The opposition between city life and provincial town life is similar to Sinclair Lewis's Main Street but with more depth and craft in the writing. The author's love for music, the human voice and the piano receives eloquently expression in the novel.
"Lucy Gayheart" is a beautifully wrought book which deserves to be better known.
