I read and reviewed several Willa Cather novels some years ago. After reading other novels set in the American West together with studies of Great Plains history and of homesteading, I decided it was time to revisit this unusual American writer. I was looking to understand her understanding of the American West and its people in view of the deflationary, ironic accounts that have become common since her time.
I was familiar with Cather's "O Pioneers!" and "My Antonia" but I hadn't read "The Song of the Lark" (1915) which is generally grouped with these two novels as part of a Prairie Trilogy. "The Song of the Lark" is much longer and more challenging than its companions; and it is much more concerned with the world of music and art than are the other two books. The book offers a detailed portrayal of a small fictitious eastern Colorado town called Moonstone at the close of the 19th Century but it includes much more besides, including Chicago, the ancient Indian cliff dwellings in Arizona, and New York City. The book is written in six lengthy parts and follows the life of Thea Kronberg from her time as a child of 11, one of seven children of a Methodist minister and his wife in Moonstone, through her rise to become a great Wagnerian operatic soprano.
The book moves slowly with many characters in each section and extensive descriptive passages. The descriptions of Moonstone and its people are the most extensive, varied, and, for most readers, the most convincing part of the book. The strongest parts show Thea's budding love of the piano and of voice through her studies with an itinerant teacher, Wunsch who recognizes Thea's gifts. The parts of the story in which Wunsch introduces his gifted pupil to Gluck's opera "Orpheus and Euridyce" and special meaning for me. Thea also learns music from Spanish Johnny and other residents of the Mexican section of Moonstone. She is already attractive to men in the persons of the town doctor, Howard Archie, and a railroad worker, Ray Kennedy, who dreams of marrying Thea when she comes of age. When Kennedy dies in a railroad accident, he leaves Thea the proceeds of a small insurance policy which she uses to fund musical studies in Chicago.
The novel proceeds to show Thea's awkwardness in Chicago combined with her passion for music and her overweening ambition. Thea's focus shifts from piano to voice. She becomes involved with a wealthy young man, Fred Ottenberg, heir to a brewery fortune. The novel shows Thea gradually coming to a sense of herself and of her rare musical gift, particularly when she and Ottenberg visit the Indian cliffs in Arizona.
The story moves slowly until, after study in Germany which is not specifically described in the novel, Thea becomes a singer of Wagnerian opera, a diva and a prima donna. Wagnerian opera is not a part of music where I have cared to go but it is central to Thea's art. She has a single-minded focus on her art and on her unique talent. In some ways, to the reader and probably in part to Cather as well, she becomes a less than sympathetic character. The later parts of the novel are less convincing than the earlier sections, as Cather herself realized in the Preface to the book, because the show the primary character at the pinnacle of success rather than as a struggling young woman. Cather wrote that "I should have disregarded conventional design and stopped where my first conception stopped, telling the latter part of the story by suggestion merely. What I cared about, and still care about, was the girl's escape; the play of blind chance, the way in which commonplace occurrences fell together to liberate her from commonness. She seemed wholly at the mercy of accident; but to persons of her vitality and honesty, fortunate accidents will always happen."
"The Song of the Lark" lags in places. The book offers more and something a little different than what prompted my reading. It is a portrayal of the development of a special talent and the escape from what might be viewed as a humdrum life at least as much as it is a portrayal of the American West. However, the book still is for the most part integrated and successful. The book portrays American life both in its routine and its promise while emphasizing the importance of places and of people upon its heroine. The book convinced my that I had done wisely in returning to Cather for insight into the American West, the American character, and the American experience.
