The Song of the Lark (Great Plains Trilogy #2), Willa Cather The Song of the Lark is a novel by American author Willa Cather, written in 1915. It is her third novel to be published.The book tells the story of a talented artist born in a small town in Colorado who discovers and develops her singing voice. Her story is told against the backdrop of the burgeoning American West in which she was born in a town along the rail line, of fast-growing Chicago near the turn of the twentieth century, and of...

In this second of Willa Cather’s Great Plains Trilogy, we are taken on an adventure of a different kind. For those who are interested in how the creative process grows within a person from young childhood through to adulthood, this book is perfect.Thea Kronborg is born in Moonstone, Colorado and is part of a large Swedish family of seven children and an Aunt who helps their mother maintain some semblance of order in their tiny, over-crowded home. It is her Aunt Tillie who first declares Thea to

Even though The Song of the Lark is the second installment in “The Prairie Trilogy”, I consider Thea, its strong minded protagonist, the culminating embodiment of the rest of Cather’s feisty heroines, the point where they end up converging to glow in full radiance.(view spoiler)[As much as Ántonia warmed my wistful heart in My Ántonia, her development as an independent human being was finally curtailed by the solemn aura of her femininity because it ended trapping her in the role of ultimate inc...

4.5 stars"She used to drag her mattress beside her low window and lie awake for a long while, vibrating with excitement, as a machine vibrates from speed. Life rushed in upon her through that window - or so it seemed. In reality, of course, life rushes from within, not from without. There is no work of art so big or so beautiful that it was not once all contained in some youthful body, like this one which lay on the floor in the moonlight, pulsing with ardour and anticipation."With exquisite pro...

Most mornings I wake to the songs of larks, so when Christmas Eve found us stuck inside of our home because of flooding (my front and back yards were pines in ponds), I chose to hear The Song of the Lark in words. This is my third Cather book this year and after having been introduced to her works intimately, I can now safely say that curling up with a Cather book will always be a good choice.However, this book is not about the song of birds. It is a book that celebrates finding one's muse; in f...

Thea Kronborg, daughter of a minister in a small Colorado town, is discovered by the music teacher, a drunken German fellow, to have a rare gift. Sponsored by Archie, the town doctor and family friend, and Ray, a railroad man who intends to marry her but is killed, she travels to Chicago, then New Mexico, meeting more and more cosmopolitan people, until, at last, she is a star of the opera stage, and like a star radiant and very distant.I found this book, at 420+ pages, quite a chore to get thro...

Nothing is far and nothing is near, if one desires. The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing--desire. And before it, when it is big, all is little. Have you ever thought about true artists, like Vincent Van Gogh, who pay such a high price for their art? Men and women who have devoted half of their waking hours to the practice and perfection of their musical talents so that they can perform in an opera or become a concert pianist? Too often we t

We first meet Thea Kronborg through Dr Archie, the young doctor of Moonstone, Colorado. He would become the first of many to have hopes for Thea, Thea the outsider, who just didn't fit somehow in this small town or in the family of a pastor. Sometimes she didn't feel she fit in her own body.The story of The Song of the Lark is Thea's growth from child to teen to young adult to adult and we, the readers, share in the saga along with those who are her champions. Cather provides such a beautiful, i...

“Nothing is far and nothing is near, if one desires. The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing - desire. And before it, when it is big, all is little." – Willa Cather“The Song of the Lark” by Willa Cather is a novel after my own heart. When I stumbled on Dolors' beautifully crafted review of this book by an author I have never read, I felt that knowing tug that signaled pleasure and promise. I was right.Thea Kronborg, known as “Little Swede”, was t...

Richly imagined, Cather’s third novel is an exploration of the passion of the artist and the strength of youth. Her main character, Thea Kronborg, child of immigrants from Moonstone, Colorado, has all of the brazen energy and boundless potential of her prairie town. She is the exceptional child in a family of many children, the others quite ordinary, a girl so relentlessly herself that the triumphant arc of her life has a feeling of inevitability, in spite of the many obstacles that she must

Please, take the time to look at this painting by Jules Adolphe Aimé Louis Breton, a 19th-century French Naturalist painter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_B...Scroll down a bit to get to the image of the painting. It inspired both Cather's book and its title. Cather has in word's captured the feel of Breton's paining. Isn't it wonderful?What do you see when you look at the painting? I see a woman with grit and determination. Look at the uplifted jaw line. Look at the tilt of the head. That...

Cather wasn’t supposed to be my theme this year, but here I am finishing a third book and committed to reading more. I always imagined her as a prairie writer, but each book has covered a different kind of atmosphere. Here we begin on the plains, in the sand hills of Eastern Colorado, in a small railroad town where we follow one of the daughters of a local minister. But then we make our way to 1890’s Chicago, the Arizona desert and the opera world of New York City. A young Thea Kronberg stands o...

At some point in this novel, I imagined a subtitle for it: "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman," especially as I'm convinced (without any facts to back it up) that it contains many autobiographical elements. I imagined that Thea's being different from the rest of her family, and from the others in the area she grew up in and loved, to be similar to Cather's experience as a burgeoning writer, also feeling the creative urge when she was a young child in her heart, was it, or under her cheek...

Compelling and thorough, The Song of the Lark is the portrait of the awakening and development of an artist. Cather also brings along all of those who nurture Thea. This is not a "pulled herself up by her bootstraps" tale - but a story of persistence, luck and lots of help. I am ignorant about opera, but that didn't hinder my enjoyment. Written in 1915, I am astonished at how Thea breaks through traditional gender roles. This novel feels timeless. And that is the power of a great classic!

3.5 starsI love how this book portrays an empowered woman who achieves success as a singer though her talent, work ethnic, and independence. This type of coming-of-age story often only occurs with boys and men. Cather, however, follows her protagonist Thea throughout her childhood in eastern Colorado all the way up to her rising fame as an artist in New York. Thea defies the expectations placed on women to act docile and domestic; she prioritizes herself and her ambitions and thus has a happy en...

3.5 stars. Not often for me does a book's main character go from endearing at the beginning, to tiresome by the end of the book. I adored the young Thea Kronberg, even if playing piano and professional singing interest me not one iota. She was a bright, ambitious little thing and you knew she would make something of herself with those wonderful secondary characters to support and encourage her. But her inner drive and work ethic was what she, in the end, credits her success to; and her personali...

This novel is set in the late 19th to early 20th century and tells the story of a girl named Thea Kronborg from a rural town in eastern Colorado who has musical talent that attracts the attention of a series of mentors and sponsors. Through their help and support she's able to advance in the world of Wagnerian opera to become a world renowned diva. Willa Cather's skilled writing portrays Thea's inner ambitious aspirations as she leaves small town life behind and becomes exposed to the cosmopolit...

Thea Kronberg is the girl we all wish we could be. She dreams of a bigger world, of traveling, and befriending all the interesting people she crosses. She develops her musical gift by first starting to play the piano and then continuing to sing. She crosses teachers and develops her craft. This novel follows Thea throughout her life, taking the reader along for the ride.In the beginning, the ride was interesting and thrilling and dreamy. In the middle, it slowed down and started getting bogged d...

I can't say this is my favorite Cather novel; My Antonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop are much better. Thea Kronborg is not the easiest character to live with for 400 pages. Not only is she tough and determined, but often sullen and defeatist. Even the sensitive, understanding man who falls in love with her thinks of her sometimes as "a little cold and empty, like a big room with no people in it." Nor is small-town, small-minded western America a place where I often like to hang out, liter...

My Antonia is one of my favorite books, so I thought I'd revisit Willa Cather since it's been a long time. While I found myself savoring little morsels of prose here and there, overall this novel was too long, and frankly, I just didn't care that much about the main character. I think I would have enjoyed this book more if 200 pages had been edited out so that the story was tighter and there weren't so many descriptive passages that really weren't relevant in the long run.Of course, in those ver...