Willa Cather Lecture

Last night Richard and I took Grandma Mary to hear Marilyn Arnold, a Willa Cather expert, speak at Barnes & Noble here in St. George about Death Comes For The Arch Bishop.  Since we have just finished reading Cather's My Antonia I thought you might enjoy reading some of the things we learned from Marilyn about Cather herself.

• Her real name was Wilella. 
  
• She was the oldest of seven children.
  
• At the age of 14 she wrote in an album/diary that she wanted to be a doctor; her favorite color – sea green; favorite flower  – “cauliflower”; favorite writer – Shakespeare; favorite season  – when the roses bloom again; favorite music – the bawling of babies; favorite trait in others – an original mind; trait she was most tolerant of in others  –  passion; trait she was least tolerant of in others  –  lack of nerve; and qualtiy she most desired in a spouse  –  lamb-like meekness.
  
• Later in life she had at least one sweetheart, Julio, but maybe he wasn't meek enough as she never married.
  
• She was a poor speller and had very bad handwriting, but was highly educated, cultured, and spoke several languages.
• She loved the desert and said something to the effect that people are the only interesting things in the world, but you have to come to the desert to find that out.
  
• Most of the central towns in her books are based on her home town, Red Cloud, Nebraska.
  
• When you read Cather you must read EVERY word.
  
• She was extremely experimental in her writing, and every book’s style is different.
  
• She felt the mood and spirit of her books were what was most important.
  
• Her books are morality based, so they have gone in and out of fashion.
  
• She felt Death Comes For The Arch Bishop was her best work.
  
• It was her will that her letters never be published, and that her books would not be made into movies, or published in paperback.  (The intellectual property rights that protected her will regarding her books have expired, so they are available in paperback and several have been made into movies, but her letters have not yet been published. It is interesting to note that most of this information was taken from her unpublished letters that are part of collections in various university libraries. )

Cather felt that novels which celebrate nobility of character are the novels that are finally loved. We have certainly loved My Antonia!

This is our friend and lecturer Marilyn Arnold.....author of some of Grandma Mary's favorite books!

The Hunger Games & The Hiding Place

It's time to get our young adult readers involved in the book club. I think they will enjoy reading The Hunger Games, as well as The Hiding Place, and gain a greater appreciation of the freedoms they have always known and have perhaps taken for granted.

THE HUNGER GAMES

Jennifer recommends The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins as her most recent favorite young adult book. She feels it would generate some good discussion as it really makes you think. It is a quick read so we will plan to read it during the month of September. Jennifer, we look forward to hearing anything and everything you feel makes this a book you would recommend.

For those of you who are not at all familiar with this popular book, the following is a super condensed version of a review found on the internet.  

"After society’s collapse from environmental chaos and a subsequent failed rebellion, what’s left of humanity is organized into 12 districts. Kept in poverty by a totalitarian government, the populace is forced to labor to keep The Capitol in sumptuous splendor. Katniss and her mother and sister live in District 12. Every year, a boy and a girl are chosen via lottery to “represent” their district in The Hunger Games...a blood sport in which the 24 teens are dumped, gladiator-style, into a locked arena and left to fight it out in front of cameras. The last one alive wins freedom and a lifetime of riches. Collins largely avoids graphic descriptions of violence, but a couple of the players’ deaths are emotionally disturbing. The book is considered suitable for readers 12 and up, but that would depend on the 12- (or even 13-) year-old."

Something I didn't know until I went to buy the book is that it's part of a trilogy.  Has anyone read all three?  

THE HIDING PLACE

The book for October is The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. 

The following plot summary was taken from the internet for those who haven't read it before.

"Published in 1976, a bestseller, and still in print, this is the famous autobiography of Corrie Ten Boom who lived through the Nazi occupation of Holland in WWII and formed part of the Dutch resistance in Haarlem. It tells how the Ten Booms smuggled Jews, and others sought by the soldiers, out into the countryside and abroad. Eventually Corrie and her sister Betsie were caught and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp. Corrie miraculously survived to tell the tale and help in the post-war reconstruction of Holland and work tirelessly for reconciliation in Europe." 

I've read it before, and saw the movie years ago in Vegas......but like so many other things it is no longer fresh in my mind.  I look forward to re-reading it and marveling once again at this woman's incredible ability to forgive!  *Grandma will have some comments on it shortly, but for me it ranks right up there with The Diary of Anne Frank.  

Love, Aunt Louise 

PS  It's not too late to comment on My Antonia!  I'll be commenting as soon as I've finished the book.  Don't know why it's taking me so long this time!  Just a slow reader I guess.

*GRANDMA MARY'S THOUGHTS ON "THE HIDING PLACE" (Added September 2, 2010)

I haven't read the The Hiding Place for years.  I just remember the impression it left me with.  I knew I wanted to read it again, to realize what some of the Jewish people went through and to read about a truly great lady.  There is so much wickedness and selfishness in the world, but there is also true greatness and goodness.

Hunger Games?

Is everyone through with My Antonia?  Thanks for all your comments.  And for those of you who may be still reading, like me, G-ma and I would love to read your comments as well.

Jennifer has agreed to suggest our book for September.  She is considering Hunger Games, but is concerned that many of you may have read it already.  Let us know if you would like to read it as a book club, and we will place more info about it here on the blog asap.

Looking ahead to October, Grandma Mary would like us to read The Hiding Place.  More on that later as well.

Keep reading!

My Antonia

What a great time we've had with Pride & Prejudice!  I finally saw the movie (shorter, newer version) and I'm still looking forward to seeing it at the Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City. Grandma and I both have enjoyed your comments! I've become aware that while some of you ARE reading you're not commenting. Please share you thoughts with us. They don't have to be intellectual or deep, while we love those......a simple "I loved it" or "Hated it" or "Not my favorite" would do. We just love hearing from you.

Some of you have already finished reading My Antonia, but some of us are just getting started. It's been a very busy month for me so far so I'm just getting started myself, and just barely got Grandma Mary to contribute her feelings about the book.

She wrote:  "Willa Cather has certainly created a style of her own in this novel.  I didn't really appreciate it until about the third reading.  You'll wonder why all the little stories.  Nebraska is a more interesting state to me after reading some of her fabulous descriptions of places.  It's just a different novel and I know you will enjoy reading it."

I know I'm already loving it and based on comments from some of you on facebook, which I will share, it seems everyone has enjoyed/or is enjoying it.

FACEBOOK COMMENTS:

Natalie Crosby: I had an interesting experience at the library a few days ago. I asked the librarian to check on the computer to see if they had My Antonia at their location (and I pronounced it An-to-nee-a). She checked her computer and responded that “no we don’t have that book, but we do have ‘My An-tone-ia’ here.” I said, “sure, I’ll take that one” and chuckled to myself.

August 15 at 3:40pm

Rachel Crosby Garner: I’m still fuzzy on how to pronounce it. Every time I read it in the book I had to go back and forth between ways to pronounce it! I loved the book regardless. It was a great read for me.

August 15 at 4:45pm

Louise Crosby:  I called Marilyn Arnold, who knows EVERYTHING about Willa Cather.....taught her at BYU and has written about her and her work extensively. She told me that the proper pronunciation is ANN-tuhn-EE-uh, with the heavier emphasis on the first syllable. (The phonetic spelling is mine after listening to Marilyn say it.) 

For anyone near enough, Marilyn will be talking about Death Comes for the Archbishop, another of Cather’s works, at the Barnes & Noble Book Store here in St. George on Monday the 30th in the evening. We might see if we can get Grandma to go with us for a special FHE.

 

Natalie Crosby: I am about 250 pages into it, and I really like the vivid descriptions that the author uses. However, I am still waiting for something to happen. This book feels more like a commentary on life in the midwest then on an actual event, mystery, or adventure with a beginning, middle, and end to it. This seems like a book that I will like the more I think about it.

August 15 at 10:54pm

Natalie Crosby:  I finished My Antonia that other day, and I really liked it. The edition that I got from the library has pictures of the actual people that the characters are based on, as well as the homes that the characters lived in, and some very interesting facts about Willa Cather. I am looking forward to a discussion soon.

14 hours ago

About FACEBOOK:

In case you didn't get the message, Natalie felt, and suggested, that it would be a definite plus to the book club to use facebook for on-going discussions and notifications of new posts on the blog.  She set it up for me, and I'm trying to figure out how to use it properly....... I may need some tutoring on it.  But I like the idea.

She also suggested, and grandma Mary concurs, that the book club would be more interesting if we opened it up to some of your favorite books as well. We have tentatively decided that we would do one of grandma's books one month, and one of yours the next. The question remains however which of you would like to lead out and when? I'm tempted to suggest Jennifer as we are due for a children's book and as an elementary school teacher she is up on the best and the newest. That would be for September, and I'll ask grandma to come up with a suggestion for October. What do you all think? Who wants to choose for November?