A portrait of a woman who reflects the conventions of her age even as she defies them and whose transformations embody the decline and coarsening o...
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May 31, 2009
Cynthia
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A young man grows up worshiping an older, gracious woman but he can't forgive her for choosing a vigorous, full life over his youthful, staid definition propriety. You can feel his angst over his puppy love for her battling the static vision he needs from her. She however, has her own longing to keep living and loving to her fullest ability. They both find a type of peace in the end.
Cather explores how well we can actually know and understand others. As a young woman the aging heroi More...
Cather explores how well we can actually know and understand others. As a young woman the aging heroi More...
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Mar 26, 2011
Miranda
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I found A Lost Lady, the melancholy story of the restless young wife of an aging railroad entrepreneur, to be a satisfying introduction to Cather’s work. From the changing perspective of Mrs. Forrester’s young friend, Niel, as he grows from boy to man, Cather observes the long, painful transformation of the central figure from a spirited, lively object of all admiration to a woman grasping, unmoored in the midst of widowhood, financial anxiety, and the vast loneliness of life on the Nebraska pla
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Jun 02, 2010
Jenna
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Dec 09, 2011
Scott
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I enjoy reading Cather's prose. She crafts a sentence,a paragraph, a chapter with great skill. This is a simple, pared down American prose but still with description, which makes it more fun to read than Hemingway, for example.
This is the third Cather novel I've read. First was her masterpiece and one of my favourite novels Death Comes for the Archbishop. O Pioneers I enjoyed. It has brilliant moments, but also some weaknesses in its structure and some overly sentimental element More...
This is the third Cather novel I've read. First was her masterpiece and one of my favourite novels Death Comes for the Archbishop. O Pioneers I enjoyed. It has brilliant moments, but also some weaknesses in its structure and some overly sentimental element More...
Dec 21, 2011
Amanda
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Mar 14, 2010
Derek
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Willa Cather's work always fascinates me thanks to Mrs. Pepoy's introduction of her to my first-year college writing class through the classic O Pioneers! Both her novels and short stories are strong, but the short novel, A Lost Lady, had sat on my bookshelf too long.
It is a novel which brings in the familiar Cather themes of old vs. new, stagnation vs. growth, and to stretch the idea a bit, love vs. loyalty. Cather published the work in 1923 and in it we see a move away from the pio More...
It is a novel which brings in the familiar Cather themes of old vs. new, stagnation vs. growth, and to stretch the idea a bit, love vs. loyalty. Cather published the work in 1923 and in it we see a move away from the pio More...
Sep 07, 2009
Tom
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I continue to be amazed at the consistency of Willa Cather's work. As far as my favorite fiction writers go, only Flannery O'Connor comes close, but her published output is also significantly smaller than Cather's.
This is the sixth of Cather's books that I've read, and I honestly only picked this one because it's short and I needed something I could breeze through after slogging through Faulkner's The Unvanquished (which isn't especially long itself). Cather's also been a reliable be More...
This is the sixth of Cather's books that I've read, and I honestly only picked this one because it's short and I needed something I could breeze through after slogging through Faulkner's The Unvanquished (which isn't especially long itself). Cather's also been a reliable be More...
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Mar 10, 2010
Jane
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This was first published in 1923. It tells the story of Marian Forrester and her husband, Captain Daniel Forrester who live in the Western town of Sweet Water. The novel is written in the third person, but is mostly written from the perspective of Niel Herbert, a young man who grows up in Sweet Water and witnesses the decline of Mrs. Forrester, for whom he feels very deeply.
Favorite quotes:
They behaved like wild creatures all morning; shouting from the breezy bluffs, dashing down int More...
Favorite quotes:
They behaved like wild creatures all morning; shouting from the breezy bluffs, dashing down int More...
Nov 04, 2008
A Lost Lady - Willa Cather
An interesting shorter read that will surely spur thought and discussion.
I was surprised at what seems Cather's heavy judgment regarding sexual freedom and choice, and the gender double standard presented here. It seems to praise an unhealthy celibate repression and to condemn the respectful physical expression of love.
I was also troubled at judgments made on personal and moral worth based on physical appearance [lookism.info], though perha More...
An interesting shorter read that will surely spur thought and discussion.
I was surprised at what seems Cather's heavy judgment regarding sexual freedom and choice, and the gender double standard presented here. It seems to praise an unhealthy celibate repression and to condemn the respectful physical expression of love.
I was also troubled at judgments made on personal and moral worth based on physical appearance [lookism.info], though perha More...
Aug 10, 2011
Jerry
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This is an interesting little novel that is worth the reading. A danger to enjoying an author as well known as Willa Cather is the risk that some of the lesser known works might disappoint the reader who expects all the body of work to be as good as the finest written by the author. I have never found that to be the case with Willa Cather. This is a character study of a woman of culture who struggles to live a socially active life in a small town in the midwest. Or is she a cultured woman?
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Jul 16, 2009
Jake
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My mentor in college turned me on to Willa Cather. I have to think she would never make it as a mainstream novelist today. Her stories are so subtle, at times understated. Some novels demand your attention. Cather's request it, often politely. It took me a couple of novels, but I've fallen in love with Cather's aesthetic style. She gets me into the characters' hearts and lets me look at them closely, without feeling rushed.
In A Lost Lady, the stakes are very high for each character. More...
In A Lost Lady, the stakes are very high for each character. More...
Mar 16, 2010
Stephanie
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Okay so I actually enjoyed this one. It was all about people! Willa Cather is very much the observer and I think she has a great knack for aptly descibing people with very little description. I am looking forward to trying out the other stories that were recommended to me.
The story is very simple a boy, Niel, grows up watching and admiring the honorable and engaging Mr. and Mrs. Forrester. He is a man of certain fortitude and his wife beautiful and vivacious. Mostly Niel tells of h More...
The story is very simple a boy, Niel, grows up watching and admiring the honorable and engaging Mr. and Mrs. Forrester. He is a man of certain fortitude and his wife beautiful and vivacious. Mostly Niel tells of h More...
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Oct 07, 2009
Andrea
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Read alongside To the Lighthouse. Same time period (1920s), similar struggles against the changing times, two very different storytellers. A Lost Lady reminded me of The Great Gatsby (which came later) in that our narrator is a young idealistic man of sorts who slowly has to come to terms with the reality of the messiness of people and life. The "lost lady" may be his ideals lost, for the lady, she lives on to old age - she's a survivor for her time. I will also say that this is a memo
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Oct 29, 2009
Laura
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I love how so many of Cather's novels are a male narrator revering a woman with so much wistfulness. This novel's leading lady doesn't come close to the lovable, proud Antonia of My Antonia, however. A Lost Lady is a study of a dynamic between an ambitious, solemn young man adoring from both near and a far an aristocratic society woman, whose pathetic collapse mirrors the fall of their town's economy and future. Mrs. Forrester's downfall is comparable to that of Madame Bovary, only slightly more
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Jan 26, 2012
Mirra
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I've been wanting to read something by this author for quite a while, and got the opportunity when my boyfriend needed to read it for school and so we read it together. I liked her writing and found it to be an interesting start...but I want to read o pioneer next on my own and get a better feel for this author before judging her too much. Also...reading this while at the same time reading Anna Karenina (on my own, not for Austins school work) made for some interesting comparisons on how women
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Jul 31, 2011
Ronald
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My first book by Cather, and it had an impact on my impression of prairie life at the end of the 19th century, much like that of Wallace Stegner. What was strange, however, is that this book reminded me of Jerzy Kosinki's The Painted Bird — both contain a disturbing scene in which an act of sadistic cruelty to a bird provided a symbolic synopsis of the overall story. The relationship between the heroine and narrator presented a complex mesh of sociological tensions, many of which I can feel but
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Aug 10, 2011
I enjoyed this book. I can't tell if it was really the story, or if it is just Cather. She is an amazing author and she can make any character, the most flawed person, into someone you want to see succeed, even as the narrator becomes disillusioned. This book I have read, was written in response to Madame Bovary, and I read them one after another. They are almost exact opposites, but they both posit that women are tabula rasas. They take on the best, or worst, features of the men around them. Of
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Jun 01, 2009
Ann
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Okay, I'm putting this on because a friend recently asked if it was any good and I went all apoplectic. It's wonderful, and quite underrated within Cather's oeuvre even, I think, partly because it's not one of her "prairie" novels and therefore doesn't fit into the Manifest Destiny theme of so many high school and college American Lit curricula. But it's one of my favorites. And I challenge anyone to come up with another scene in literature in which sexual energy is so perfectly ill
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Jan 08, 2012
Janneke
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Oorspronkelijke titel: A lost Lady
Vertaling Gerda Baardman
Willa Siebert Cather (1873-1947) geldt in Amerika als een belangrijke vertegenwoordiger van de modern classics, maar buiten de VS bleef zij tot na de Tweede Wereldoorlog vrijwel onbekend. In haar boeken beschrijft ze vooral het leven op de Amerikaanse Priarie en met Een verloren vrouw wilde zij het einde van het tijdperk van de pioniers opnieuw in herinnering brengen. Hoewel de personages in het boek romanfiguren zijn is More...
Vertaling Gerda Baardman
Willa Siebert Cather (1873-1947) geldt in Amerika als een belangrijke vertegenwoordiger van de modern classics, maar buiten de VS bleef zij tot na de Tweede Wereldoorlog vrijwel onbekend. In haar boeken beschrijft ze vooral het leven op de Amerikaanse Priarie en met Een verloren vrouw wilde zij het einde van het tijdperk van de pioniers opnieuw in herinnering brengen. Hoewel de personages in het boek romanfiguren zijn is More...
Jun 08, 2010
Katie
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Earlier this year, in the Fall, my family decided to go through all of my grandma's old books. She was a literature professor, so this was a pretty big task. My aunt boxed them all up and brought them in her van to the family reunion. My mom and her two sisters spent an entire morning going through the books, dividing them up like players in a fantasy football draft. I came in later and set a few aside for myself. I was looking at this book, A Lost Lady, when my cousin came in and told me how in
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Apr 19, 2009
David
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This is a work of genius. There are so many stories within the story. There's the story of a boy and the idealized love of his life. There's the story of the Colonel and his quiet, admirable power. There's the story of the woman herself, her fall and resurrection. And there's the story of the changing of the guard, a commentary on society. After reading A Lost Lady, I thought about Mrs. Forrester for almost a week. Then, I went back to mindlessly wasting my life away on the Internet and watching
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Nov 09, 2008
Shannon
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Based on the reviews that other people have written of this book, there seem to be a lot of different interpretations of what the story is fundamentally about. Here's mine: A Lost Lady is the story of a woman needing to be saved. At first she seems to be a romantic figure, but as time passes her pathetic situation becomes more apparent. She lacks something basic in her personality that would allow her to anchor herself, so instead she uses men as anchors. She has a deep passion for life, but
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Aug 08, 2011
Joy
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Love this book! Willa Cather explores the changes that took place on the prairie at the turn of the century. Placed in a withering town, Sweet Water holds the past in its charms; however, it doesn't succeed in joining the progressive movement sweeping the nation as the railroad is being built and established. Niel Herbert, the story's narrator and protagonist, provides insight into Sweet Water's creme de la creme society...the Forrester's, particularly Mrs. Forrester. A woman full of vibrancy an
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Nov 01, 2011
Amanda Lueck
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Another that I've read before and forgotten. I kind of hate the beginning, with the idolization (is that a word?!) of Mrs. Forrester, but by the end I really enjoyed the book. A long meditation on not only the frontier and its effect, as well as the effect of its decline, on various types of people -- and eventually a meditation on people. It's kind of amazing how Cather managed to make her characters so symbolic but also so true-to-life, as well.
Apr 09, 2010
Kate
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I read this in English 54: Early Twentieth-Century American Fiction with Professor Louis Renza.
" . . . whatever Mrs. Forrester chose to do was "lady-like" because she did it. They could not imagine her in any dress or situation in which she would not be charming" (6).
"She had a nice way of talking to boys, light and confidential" (11).
"There could be no negative encounter, however slight, with Mrs. Forrester. If she merely More...
" . . . whatever Mrs. Forrester chose to do was "lady-like" because she did it. They could not imagine her in any dress or situation in which she would not be charming" (6).
"She had a nice way of talking to boys, light and confidential" (11).
"There could be no negative encounter, however slight, with Mrs. Forrester. If she merely More...
Dec 27, 2009
Kim
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My friend Blair told me to read this book to help me with the main character in my novel I'm revising. It's a beautiful study of a woman without an anchor. A woman who appears to be one thing to the world, but is just the opposite ... troubled, lost. The most beautiful part of this book is its subtlety, and of course the way Cather depicts the landscape, as well as the fading grandeur of the railroad baron era.
Sep 27, 2009
Karen
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I am not into short books, but thank G_D most of the 27 books I'm reading this semester are short.
This is the first Willa Cather I can remember reading, and I was not all that impressed, probably because the character of Marian Forrester just irritated the snot out of me. And IVY PETERS made me want to kill him from the second he appeared until the bitter end. I felt sorry for the Captain.
This is the first Willa Cather I can remember reading, and I was not all that impressed, probably because the character of Marian Forrester just irritated the snot out of me. And IVY PETERS made me want to kill him from the second he appeared until the bitter end. I felt sorry for the Captain.
Sep 01, 2009
Abner
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I'm a big fan of Willa Cather, and eventually would like to read if not all, at least most of her novels. This was not one of my favorites so far because of the story, yet the writing was what you'd expect from the author: descriptive, crafty, and with that usual flow from word to word and sentence to sentence. It wouldn't be my first recommendation.
Dec 01, 2007
Dayna
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I kind of surprised myself by actually liking this book. I thought, for sure, that I would hate it ... because it was required reading for a women's lit class. But it was good!
It's about a young woman, married to a much older man, and her life in a railroad boomtown in the Midwest. It is told from the point of view of a young man named Neil, who much admires the beautiful, pleasant Mrs. Forrester. He admires her for her devotion to her husband, for the way she makes people feel much More...
It's about a young woman, married to a much older man, and her life in a railroad boomtown in the Midwest. It is told from the point of view of a young man named Neil, who much admires the beautiful, pleasant Mrs. Forrester. He admires her for her devotion to her husband, for the way she makes people feel much More...
Oct 10, 2011
Alex
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I guess the book was okay. Felt like I was reading a slightly more cultured version of a gossip column. I don't understand how this book was published AFTER "My Antonia," "O, Pioneers!," and "The Song of the Lark," which all featured particularly strong female leads. I don't feel this is a good representation of Willa Cather's work and would recommend her more well-known novels instead.
