I fancied a Virago Modern Classic, and didn’t have all that many that were slender. I wasn’t sure which to choose – but thankfully I pulled down A Lost Lady (1923) by Willa Cather. I bought it in Oxford in 2015, and it’s the second Cather novel I’ve read – and it’s really good.
It’s essentially a portrait of Mrs Forrester from the perspective of a younger man – who knew her when he was a boy and she was recently married to a man much older than her. The novella follows her over the years, as his admiration for her kindness and happiness becomes tempered when he realises that she has feet of clay. It’s beautifully, sparely written – and the drawing of the characters is expertly done. I suspect it might be one of my books of the year – perfect in what it is doing. (And a perfect meeting of book and bookmark!)
She had a fascinating gift of mimicry. When she mentioned the fat iceman, or Thad Grimes at his meat block, or the Blum boys with their dead rabbits, by a subtle suggestion of their manner she made them seem more individual and vivid than they were in their own person. She often caricatured people to their faces, and they were not offended, but greatly flattered. Nothing pleased one more than to provoke her laughter. Then you felt you were getting on with her. It was her form of commenting, of agreeing with you and appreciating you when you said something interesting, – and it often told you a great deal that was both too direct and too elusive for words.
Long, long afterward, when Niel did not know whether Mrs Forrester were living or dead, if her image flashed into his mind, it came with a brightness of dark eyes, her pale triangular cheeks with long earrings, and her many-coloured laugh. When he was dull, dull and tired of everything, he used to think that if he could hear that long-lost lady laugh again, he could be gay.
I just read this in May and loved it and it will be one of my books of the year, too. It’s a coming of age story as well as an homage to the dying American West. I’m so glad that you liked it so much.
I looked at this as part of my novellas in May. I agree – sparsely written and perfectly told.
I do love Cather, and I have this so I really don’t know why I haven’t read it yet….
Lovely match of book and marker. This wasn’t my first of hers (The Song of the Lark, which was, apparently her most autobiographical and has lots to say about the life of an artist, a singer in this case) but I read it soon after, and I am very fond of it.
I’ve only read two Cather novels but I do love her spare yet descriptive writing. I think I have this in a bind up with O’Pioneers! which I also have yet to read.
This is on my list of potential books for ACOB. I’ve loved everything I’ve read by Cather so I’m not surprised to hear you enjoyed it!
I read this back in 2006 and wrote a massive (not) review of it https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2006/08/04/willa-cather-a-lost-lady/ but I seemed to like it!
I love this book, it is my favourite of Cather’s and I think is a small beautiful masterpiece. I read it on a holiday trip where I was determined (this was pre-Kindle days) that I was going to leave behind all the books I read, carry none of them home with me. I had a tremendous tussle in my mind over this one, and in the end brought it home because I loved it so much.