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LEON EDEL
'The time will come when she will be ranked above Hemingway'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
HELEN DUNMORE
'Willa Cather makes a world which is burningly alive, sometimes lovely, often tragic'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
THIRTY OR FORTY years ago, in one of those grey towns along the Burlington railroad, which are so much greyer today than they were then, there was a house well known from Omaha to Denver for its hospitality and for a certain charm of atmosphere. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
THIRTY OR FORTY years ago, in one of those grey towns along the Burlington railroad, which are so much greyer today than they were then, there was a house well known from Omaha to Denver for its hospitality and for a certain charm of atmosphere. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The author clearly adores her heroine and wants us to love her as well- she was based on a woman Cather knew and admired as a child and something of that 'stardust' comes across. It is difficult for a modern reader to find her equally engaging though, but as the novel progresses we come to associate her with the loss of a way of life and an entire value system: the old, genteel, europe-loving west, that is being eroded by a brash new generation of entrepreneurs. This generation is represented by Ivy (poison) who replaces the heroines aged husband, Col. Forrester (who built the railroads) and loved the virgin landscapes of the west, seeing them as intrinsically valuable for their beauty and not, as Ivy does for their real-estate value. So the novel is both a lament and a hymn of praise to a disappearing way of life and Cather succeeds in making the reader regret it too, which is an achievement. Read the book for atmosphere and a certain nostalgia rather than for a challenging look at women's role is 19th century America.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a simply written but thematically complex, metaphoric story, replete with subtle nuances. The events that transpire are seen primarily through the eyes of a boy who comes of age, a contrivance that the author successfully employed in her best selling classic, "My Antonia". Here, it is no less successful. Through the eyes of Neil Herbert, who lives in Sweet Water, a prospective railroad hub on the Western plains in one of the prairie states, the reader gets to know Marian Forrester. She is the much younger, envied wife of one of the town's more prominent and wealthier citizens, Captain Daniel Forrester, a former railroad contractor.
As Neil grows into a man, his adoration of the lovely Mrs. Forrester undergoes a change. He sees her fall from the pedestal from where he and all the townspeople have placed her and sees her, really sees her, warts and all, for the first time, when he discovers her involvement in an unexpected peccadillo. It comes as a shock to him that she may not be all that she seems to be. Still, his life is closely entwined with hers, as his uncle, with whom he lives, is Captain Forrester's personal attorney and of the same social standing in this socially circumscribed backwater.
Just as Neil's perception of Mrs. Forrester begins to change in his eyes, so do the fortunes of the town and that of Captain Forrester. As Mrs. Forrester physically deteriorates under the strain of the vicissitudes of fate, so do the town and its surrounding environs. As she revives, leaving behind her old values and adopting new ones that are anathema to those who respect the traditional ones, her revival parallels changes in the town itself, as the old makes way for the new. These changes also parallel the shifts occurring on the American frontier, as social mores and personal values undergo a change, and those stalwart pioneer values give way to new ones.
Beautifully descriptive of a bygone era and laconic in its pace, this is most certainly a novel to be savored. Fans of the author will especially enjoy it.
2 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is the first of Willa Cather's books that I've read and I was slightly disappointed, although I shall try more of her books to see if they live up to A.S. Byatt's 'hype'. The beginning of this little work is rather like an American 'Lady Chatterly' - but not so explicit. It ends with a bit of a whimper. What it's trying to show is the decline of the old order in the wake of a vulgar new one, but it is rather too slight to carry the feeling fully. Mrs. Forrester comes over as a rather vacuous Zuleika Dobson. I wanted to like this book but it didn't have enough substance, and wasn't good enough to be ethereal.....
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