Book Review: "The Song of the Lark" by Willa Cather

Willa Cather is normally an author I have avoided. Since reading “O Pioneers!” I have not really been too into her work. I find that the stories are all rather the same and I have read about three of her books now to think that. “The Song of the Lark” though, is actually something refreshingly different to her normal doomed romances filled with fleeting estranged friends and distrust etc. “The Song of the Lark” is actually mildly disturbing at times. It is sad at times as well. But most of all, it is not very well written. Yes, it might be refreshingly different in storyline and it might be a bit disturbing now and again and the girl seems like she is being exploited for her singing voice by others - but the book is badly written. It is dry and it is dull. I am not going to lie, this really is not like the other experiences I have had with Willa Cather. Normally, I am quite fond of her writing style, which seems super deep and dark, tearing away at the soul with a rugged-cloth covered knife. However, this book just seemed a bit sad and a bit dull. It just did not have the same impact as the other novels by her.

I’m not saying I hated every word in this book and the way it was written. I found it dry, dull and a bit inconsistent. The beginning of the book up to about the fifth chapter, was definitely far better than the rest. The ending was not as well written as the rest of the book and I do not feel like the ending was done as neatly as other Willa Cather novels. But, enough of the negativity, let us take a look at some of the quotations that really made me think in the novel, as Willa Cather is famous for her rugged depth.

“It came over him now that the unexpected favours of fortune, no matter how dazzling, do not mean very much to us. They may excite or divert us for a time, but when we look back, the only things we cherish are those which in some way met our original want; the desire which formed in us in early youth, undirected, and of its own accord.”

So this one definitely shows us the raw nature that applies to most of Willa Cather’s writing. It teaches us about the fact that the human mind can go through a thousand thoughts about a thousand things before they settle on making one, singular decision.

“The rich, noisy city, fat with food and drink, is a spent thing; it's chief concern is its digestion and its little game of hide-and-seek with the undertaker. Money and office and success are the consolations of impotence. Fortune turns kind to such solid people and lets them suck their bone in peace. She flecks her whip upon flesh that is more alive, upon that stream of hungry boys and girls who tramp the streets of every city, recognisable by their pride and discontent, who are the Future, and who possess the treasure of creative power.”

Willa Cather has been known to discuss social class in comparison to the larger landscape in a massive metaphor that surrounds the way the cityscape moves and works to make itself larger. This quotation is no exception and is definitely one of the better passages in the book.

And here’s the identity crisis fantasist quotation which is possibly the most Willa Cather thing I have read since a few years’ back now:

“Many a night that summer she left Dr. Archie's office with a desire to run and run about those quiet streets until she wore out her shoes, or wore out the streets themselves; when her chest ached and it seemed as if her heart were spreading all over the desert. When she went home, it was not to go to sleep. 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 ardor and anticipation. It was on such nights that Thea Kronborg learned the thing that old Dumas meant when he told the Romanticists that to make a drama he needed but one passion and four walls.”

And those are the quotations that are literally the only examples of good writing by Willa Cather’s standards in the book. All in all, average but not great - the book is not Cather’s best.