Welcome to Litsy!

“The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing — desire.“

Remembering Willa Cather on her birthday.

This is an American classic, written by an American author, but is the story of a girl of Swedish descent. She has a gift for music and works hard all her life on mastering her piano playing and later singing. She is rewarded for her efforts with success. She never forgets her beginnings though and her family back home. #2 #BS 8 #BookSpinBingo #BFC22 #JUMPSTART2022 #AClassicAMonth #LiterALLyBOOKish #Pantone2022ColourChallenge #Wintercosy

Thanks @Lizpixie for tagging me..late to the party as always!!

Dr Howard Archie had just come up from a game of pool with the Jewish clothier and two travelling men who happened to be staying overnight in Moonstone.

I love Willa Cather‘s writing ❤️
I would not have found her if not for @CarolynM !!!
I am reading The Prairie Trilogy at the moment and loving this glimpse at early days in America 🇺🇸

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

@Graywacke @Lcsmcat I read this in three days because I simply could not put it down. Seeing the Sand Hills, the Cliff Dwellings, Chicago, and The Met while watching Thea with her faults and fissures, grow into her artistic passions, was such a joy. So different from Wharton‘s Odo. With many more Cather to go, this, Death Comes and My Mortal Enemy are my favorites so far. I have found all your comments from the buddy read. Thank you

#bookreport Didn't get much finished this week, but am glad to be through with TSotL - just did not ever grab my interest, and the story itself was not satisfying.

Cardboard Kingdom, however, was a delight - recommended to me by my 10 year old.

@Cinfhen

#weeklyforecast Up next for me this week, my ebook, audio, and physical copies. I'm going to be pushing hard on TSotL - I've been "reading" it for way too long now!

@Cinfhen

#Booked2020 @Cinfhen @4thhouseontheleft @BarbaraTheBibliophage

Red, white, or blue letters - Death in Berlin
Eccentric MC - 1Q84
YA Novel by POC - Wildcard
#WINEORWHINE - Frederica
Banned Book - Unwomanly Face of War
Armchair Travel - Song of the Lark

I am posting one book per day from my extensive to-be-read collection. No description and providing no reason for wanting to read it, I just do. Some will be old, some will be new. Don‘t judge me - I have a lot of books. Join the fun if you want.
This is day 159 #bookstoread #tbrpile #bookstagram

This novel has not aged well. It casual sexism and racism is hard to take.

Thea struggled to achieve her dream, which was to become an opera singer, but I didn't like her character as much as I did Alexandra in Oh Pioneers and Antonia. They struggled with the land and had humility. I didn't sense humility with Thea.

I cannot say enough about the descriptive writing of the environment. Just gorgeous.
#classicschallenge2020 @Reviewsbylola #Booked2020 #ArmchairTravel
#PopSugar20 - passes the Bechdel test.

She could become a mere receptacle of heat, or become a colour, like the bright lizards that darted about on the hot stones outside her door; or she could become a continuous repetition of sound, like the cicadas.

Panther Cañon was like a thousand others_ one of those abrupt fissures with which the earth in the Southwest is riddled...lightly fringed with piñons and dwarf cedars...In this hollow the Ancient People had built their houses of yellowish stone and mortar... The dead city had thus two streets, one set in either cliff, facing each other across the ravine, with a river of blue air between them.

Cather was brilliant with her description.

Here were the sand hills, the grasshoppers and locusts, all the things that wakened and chirped in the early morning; the reaching and reaching of high plains, the immeasurable yearning of all flat lands.

This darling shop is everything my sister says it is! All manner of books and gifts, though the children‘s section is the sweetest. Our mom—aka the one who raised us rabid readers—was with us. I had a bad case of the “wants.” It‘s probably good that it‘s 900 miles away for me.

Gorgeously-written portrait of an artist as a woman and her devotion to a life of #music , inspired by the opera singer Olive Fremstad.

So far, out of the Willa Cather novels I've read, this ranks as one of my favourites.

#MOvember @Cinfhen

Ideas as friends - such lovely writing from Willa Cather

⭐️⭐️⭐️: This started out strong and then got a little dry and boring in parts. The ending was solid, just needed to up the excitement for the middle chunk.

Finally finishing this rather belatedly for the #catherbuddyread. Sorry, friends. What an interesting exploration of the nurturing and development of talent. I really enjoyed the musings on what exactly it is that distinguishes the great artists from the also fans. It is interesting to consider how Thea's journey might have been different if fate had dealt differently with the various men in her life - Fred in particular.👇

I‘ve developed into a big fan of Cather. I love her prose, her characters and the landscape through her eyes. Enjoyed our #catherbuddyread Looking forward to My Antiona.

My review doesn‘t fit. Find it here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/306026 (add #6840669 for the exact spot). Or, for goodreaders, here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2819433737

Willa Cather is one of my all time favorite authors. Her genius is in her character sketches, in particular early American settlers, & the beautiful descriptions of the American plains & deserts of the Southwest. These descriptions of nature & insight into the human psyche awakens something elemental inside of me.

I‘m still making my way through this book, but hope to catch up with the group soon!

#catherbuddyread #willacather #thesongofthelark

Song of the Lark - Part 6 and epilogue

Thea has found success, but she‘s a quirky character, focused, but not exactly relaxed and happy. What did everyone think of the end and the novel overall?

#catherbuddyread

On Willa Cather interviewing Olive Fremstad: “What she discerned in the dramatic soprano from Minnesota who had been born in Stockholm were the very qualities she had first seen in the fearless women she admired on the Divide. To Willa, Fremstad was like those pioneers, suspicious, defiant, far-seeing.”

Source: https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/literary-musings/willa-cathers-inspiration-f...

#catherbuddyread

I love Cather‘s ideas of art and artists! #catherbuddyread @Graywacke

Woke with another chronic migraine very early and couldn't do my planned workout (run/walk, weights, stretch class), but at least I finished this book on #SerialReader for the #CatherBuddyRead! 😊 I quite enjoyed it, though I don't think I would reread it. This is book finish 24/12 for the #BookFitnessChallenge #BFC @wanderinglynn .

It seems like every generation feels this way. And yet, as Dr. Archie says, they keep on doing it. #catherbuddyread @Graywacke

Parts 3-5 The Song of the Lark

The Ottenburg section. Interesting that Cather is waxing on German culture as WWI rages. But this is before all that - in Chicago, among the Anasazi cliff dwellings and then to NY city, briefly (via Mexico City). Her spiritual refreshment in AZ is magical and stands out. Where are you at and what are your thoughts? What of Thea‘s guides? How much does she control of herself? #catherbuddyread

#30JuneBooks #CurrentReads

Song of the lark for @Graywacke 's buddy read, Standard Deviation in my handbag for any available moment, Private Charter for light reading at bedtime.

"In the gully below them there was, indeed, a little rabbit with a white spot of a tail, crouching down on the sand, quite motionless. It seemed to be lapping up the moonlight like cream."

This scene between Thea and Dr Archie on a July summer night during the full moon was pretty magical. #TheMoonSong #MayMovieMagic

Thank you for a fabulous month ? @rohit-sawant @Cinfhen

Art: "Two Rabbits", Shoson Ohara (1930s). Woodblock print.

Work has been hindering a lot with my reading, ugh! Caught up on #catherbuddyread late last night. I am loving the whole new phase in Thea's life. She is out by herself, tired–learning, thinking, working–but determined. And, how her talent(s) have evoked her tutor's personality. It's been lovely seeing this young girl's arc from a child to the person she is becoming.

@Graywacke

Thanks @Graywacke for hosting another #catherbuddyread; I found a new Willa book to love. I will never not appreciate her gorgeous, textured descriptions of the landscape, & this time the theme of a young female artist's awakening was so utterly compelling. I found Thea admirable & fearsome & so far from the likeable/relatable artist that women are sometimes pressured to be. This is partly a Künstlerroman, partly a love letter to the Great Plains.

I wish this sentiment was embraced today. #catherbuddyread

@catebutler @crazeedi @Lcsmcat @Tanisha_A @Tamra @CarolynM @batsy @Caterina @Graywacke @TheEnd

Part 2 The Song of the Lark

Above, a book Thea certainly did not consult, since she hardly lifted her head up to look around while in the city. Thea‘s life direction is evolving, and we keep seeing her through everyone else‘s opinions, whether Harsanyi‘s or a train conductors. And, despite her bright eyes on the train, she is quite emotionally beaten down. Where are you at and what are your thoughts? #catherbuddyread

Love the fierceness with which she speaks her mind. Thea! ❤️

Still catching up. #catherbuddyread @Graywacke

Y'all, Mrs. Kronborg just makes me smile. "No use spoiling your Sunday dinner with race prejudices." You tell 'em Mrs. Kronborg! ?? #catherbuddyread @Graywacke

Cottonwood leaves talking about rain.....love this description. They do indeed chatter! 🌿🌨

Finished Part I, but I‘m fearful I‘ll miss the nature writing. #catherbuddyread

@catebutler @crazeedi @Lcsmcat @Tanisha_A @Tamra @CarolynM @batsy @Caterina @Graywacke

Went for another run/walk at 6:30 am, then weight machines and stretch class at the YMCA. Showered and enjoyed a smoothie on the porch, and now it's nap time after reading a couple issues of The Song of the Lark on #SerialReader in bed. #BookFitnessChallenge #BFC @wanderinglynn #catherbuddyread

"Mrs. Kohler was always getting by mail packages of seeds from Freeport and from the old country. Then the flowers! There were big sunflowers for the canary bird, tiger lilies and phlox and zinnias and lady's slippers and portulaca and hollyhocks,–giant hollyhocks."

Cather's beautiful prose on nature inspired me to paint this. It was a good Sunday!

#catherbuddyread @Graywacke

Song of the Lark, Part 1 Friends of Childhood

Pictured is Swedish-born American sonata Olive Fremstad, the inspiration for Thea Kronborg. Part I has Thea growing up in a railroad town in the sand hills of the northeastern Colorado Prairie. Too much to mention - prose, descriptions of nature and people, American mythology, the unspoken. What were your thoughts? Did it work? What did, what didn‘t?#catherbuddyread

Sitting on the back porch with my morning smoothie (still can only eat very very soft things) and book so that Pippin doesn't scare off the 10 deer munching in the front yard. I'm looking forward to going to church soon, I missed it last week because of the surgery and am longing to go back! 💕 A little sad though that I don't have time for a walk on this lovely morning. #BookFitnessChallenge #bfc @wanderinglynn #catherbuddyread

Finished Part 1 for the #catherbuddyread discussion tomorrow! ? Not without a tear or two. I'm enjoying this book a lot so far, it's hard to put down! And it's fun that Thea is a pastor's kid like me; I'm enjoying some of the commentary on the expectations of pastors' families in small towns. "The fear of the tongue, that terror of little towns, is usually felt more keenly by the minister's family than by other households." Very true. ?

"And it was Summer, beautiful Summer!". Those were the closing words of Thea's favourite fairy tale, and she thought of them as she ran out into the world one Saturday morning in May, her music book under her arm. She was going to the Kohlers' to take her lesson, but she was in no hurry.

On a fine Saturday evening in May, I start reading my second Cather. Happiness!

#catherbuddyread @Graywacke

Thea is almost 13 and there's something about this paasage, as Thea discovers certain intangible truths about her artistic nature, that gives me strong Emily vibes (of L.M. Montgomery's Emily of New Moon series). I love it 💜

#catherbuddyread @Graywacke

Reading the middle chapters of Part 1 sent me to YouTube to listen to Orpheus and Eurydice. #catherbuddyread @Graywacke

“The summer moon hung full in the sky. For the time being, it was the great fact in the world.”

Getting going, discovering things I never knew, like sandsage prairie (Cather calls them sand hills). And all the other things she does. #catherbuddyread

More strong intelligent women. #catherbuddyread

#catherbuddyread reminder.

(Also inviting anyone who wants to join. We‘re on book two.)

Hey #catherbuddyread -ers. I‘m thinking about the scheduling for the Song of the Lark - the next book in the Prairie Trilogy. I‘ll put my idea of the moment in the comments (because it might change). Let me know of you‘re interested and if this works.

My feelings toward this middle book of her Prairie Trilogy were up and down; it didn‘t seem to fit the mold the 1st and 3rd books established. This book is an escape from the sweet grass lands Cather usually focuses on and describes so well. Here she is more personable and intimate; these are human landscapes not wasted by Cather‘s beautiful storytelling.

Once you come to peace with the dated nature of the work- this is a beautiful meditation on the land and the passion it can inspire. Cather pulls her protagonist back from the precipice of unlike-ability, lifting her out of Chicago- with its soul corrupting forces, and drops her into the rejuvenating landscape of the Southwest. Cather‘s writing does best when it too is given natural rather than man made spaces to describe.

This book helped me to complete my Goodreads challenge of 55 books this year, so hurray for that!! I really enjoyed O Pioneers, but didn‘t seem to like this one quite as much. When I was reading it, I‘d get caught up in the story, but I had a difficult time picking it back up after putting it down. In other news, the kittos really missed me while I was in MI for the holiday and I‘m loving every minute of it. #catsoflitsy #bowie #lennox #goodreads