#willa cather

[deviika]

Willa Cather // Franz Kafka

[petaltexturedskies]

Willa Cather, from "Dedicatory" in The Complete Works of Willa Cather

[waiting-eyez]

On the farm the weather was the great fact, and men’s affairs went on underneath it, as the streams creep under the ice.

(Willa Cather)

[derangedrhythms]

The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one's own.

Willa Cather, from ‘The Professor's House’

[helenewate]

“the pale, cold light of the winter sunset did not beautify—it was like the light of truth itself…as if it said: “this is reality, whether you like it or not. all those frivolities of summer, the light and shadow, the living mask of green that trembles over everything, they were lies, and this is what was underneath. this is the truth.” it was as if we were being punished for loving the loveliness of summer.”

— my ántonia, willa cather

[embeccy]

"She wanted flowers and music and enchantment and love..."

- Willa Cather

[the-forest-library]

Willa Cather's only known letter to her partner Edith Lewis, written October 4, 1936, is in the Willa Cather Foundation Collections & Archives at the National Willa Cather Center and arguably one of our more precious pieces of her correspondence. It is also an exquisite love letter—not only to Lewis, who was working in New York when Cather was at the Shattuck Inn in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, but to all of the stars and heavens from Cather's window—specifically to Jupiter and Venus. [Bolding mine for emphasis.]

Sunday 4:30 p.m.

My Darling Edith;

I am sitting in your room, looking out on the woods you know so well. So far everything delights me. I am ashamed of my appetite for food, and as for sleep—I had forgotten that sleeping can be an active and very strong physical pleasure. It can! It has been for all of three nights. I wake up now and then, saturated with the pleasure of breathing clear mountain air (not cold, just chill air) of being up high with all the woods below me sleeping, too; in still white moonlight. It’s a grand feeling.

One hour from now, out of your window, I shall see a sight unparalleled—Jupiter and Venus both shining in the golden-rosy sky and both in the West; she not very far above the horizon, and he about mid-way between the zenith and the silvery lady planet. From 5:30 to 6:30 they are of a superb splendor—deepening in color every second, in a still-daylight-sky guiltless of other stars, and the moon not up and the sun gone down behind Gap-mountain; those two above in the whole vault of heaven. It lasts so about an hour (did last night). Then the Lady, so silvery still, slips down into the clear rose colored glow to be near the departed sun, and imperial Jupiter hangs there alone. He goes down about 8:30. Surely it reminds one of Dante's "eternal wheels”. I can’t but believe that all that majesty and all that beauty, those fated and unfailing appearances and exits, are something more than mathematics and horrible temperatures. If they are not, then we are the only wonderful things—because we can wonder.

I have worn my white silk suit almost constantly with no white hat, which is very awkward. By next week it will probably be colder. Everything you packed carried wonderfully—not a wrinkle.

And now I must dress to receive the Planets, dear, as I won’t wish to take the time after they appear—and they will not wait for anybody.

Lovingly,

W.

I don’t know when I have enjoyed Jupiter so much as this summer.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

James Martin, SJ :: @JamesMartinSJ

All those who worked on the restoration of Notre Dame. Bon travail!

+

Paris Willa Cather, 1873 - 1947

Behind the arch of glory sets the day; The river lies in curves of silver light, The Fields Elysian glitter in a spray Of golden dust; the gilded dome is bright, The towers of Notre Dame cut clean and gray The evening sky, and pale from left to right A hundred bridges leap from either quay. Pillared with pride, the city of delight Sits like an empress by her silver Seine, Heavy with jewels, all her splendid dower Flashing upon her, won from shore and main By shock of combat, sacked from town and tower. Wherever men have builded hall or fane Red war hath gleaned for her and men have slain To deck her loveliness. I feel again That joy which brings her art to faultless flower, That passion of her kings, who, reign on reign, Arrayed her star by star with pride and power.

[gayiconwaluigi]

The thing that caught me after watching Saltburn a second time is when we see Oliver’s father. It all falls into place. Oliver has his father’s eyes, his father’s glasses, his father’s clothes. He sees his future staring back at him when he sees his dad, and it’s rubbed in his face when Farleigh tells him this is all a dream he’ll tell to his fat children someday. Oliver can see how his entire life will go and he can’t take it. Reminds me a little bit of the short story Paul’s Case by Willa Cather.

[philosophors]

“The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one's own.”

— Willa Cather

[newyorkthegoldenage]

On May 20, 1944, the American Academy of Arts & Letters and the National Institute of Arts & Letters honored four distinguished Americans: editor and publisher Samuel S. McClure (McClure's magazine), novelists Willa Cather and Theodore Dreiser, and actor, singer, and social activist Paul Robeson.

Photo: NY Times via Getty Images

[petaltexturedskies]

Willa Cather, from My Antonia

[waiting-eyez]

When the eyes of the flesh are shut, the eyes of the spirit are open

(Willa Cather)

[arylleth]

𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐜 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞,—

𝘞𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘢 𝘊𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳, 𝘓𝘶𝘤𝘺 𝘎𝘢𝘺𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵 (1935)

[julesofnature]

We come and we go, but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it for a little while. ~Willa Cather (1873 – 1947)

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

Listen I’m enjoying East of Eden for all the Biblical allusion and its meditation on trauma, grief, and the impact trauma has on communities

But I think Steinbeck’s misogyny and racism is so overwhelming that it’s almost impossible to take his other comments on society seriously

Because if he’s so blind to his own internal prejudice- how much can I possibly trust his judgment on biblical interpretation and the truth of American community consciousness during the 19th-20th century?

Anyway, for commentary on the life in the American West, and the impact war, famine, and diversity had on creating the collective identity of the American people, during the 19th and 20th centuries, seek authors like:

Gertrude Stein, Willa Cather, Edith Warton, Zora Neel Hurston, Rebecca Harding Davis, Alice Walker, Susan Glaspell, Marianne Moore, Sandra Cisneros, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, Joy Harjo, N. Scott Momaday, Lanston Hughes,

(and SO MANY MORE)

All of these authors deal with the subjects (to various degrees) of class vs individualism, American emergent Identity issues, industrialism, tradition vs modernism, and multiculturalism in the West in ways that are much more nuanced than anything Steinbeck ever wrote.

Some of them wrote with clear Christian overtones- some with indigenous religiosity and recrimination of internalize colonialist attitude existing within pop-christian thought, and some of them are pure modernist empiricists. And I love the diversity of thought extant within these works- much more interesting than painting with broad generalization and assuming all of American history to revolve around the same conceptual points modern evangelist's decree.

We are a nation built on diversity- of people, of thought, and of place. I'll accept no other definition of what it means to be USamerican.

At this point, I'm pretty sure Steinbeck was just projecting his own hatred of women, and processing his divorce, throughout the entirety of East of Eden- like the book gets so close to interesting biblical allusion overlay onto familial interdependent dynamic and mediation on the nature of evil - but then his work devolves into racism and misogyny diminishing the impact of these really interesting themes.

BOOO!

Why do I have to read this. I hate the so-called Literary Canon.

So sick of the fact that I have to read the work of every white American man ever- for the purpose of my degree program's culminative exam- yet many of the women authors, indigenous authors, or multiethnic authors will not be on my exam.

IDK bro- I'm feeling a type of way about it today.