It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer. Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions. I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters. Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs. Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77. I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not. Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi
Another view of Washington and biography:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/09/27/100927crat_atlarge_lepore?currentPage=all
I've read numerous biographies of Washington, but no one volume biography can come close to this one. It is a superlative piece of work giving a panoramic view of the man ang going into copiosly noted details I never read before. This makes GW genuinley human and appropriatley flawed--at last we find out that he genuinley smiled snd laughed and that he wasn't sickenly boring. This is Pultzer material. I spent 25 days plowing througgh 825 pages of text and enjoyed it all. Read it--it'll change your views on him and enrich your views on those around him. My eyes preclude me fromreading the New Yorker review--I trust it was favorable. Let me know.
ReplyDeleteI overdid it today finishing the book...so I'll wait and post more tomorrow... 30 pages on a Kindle is not a bad rate for me---the print in the book is small. With regular print I'm good for 40 to 50 pages daily on a Kindle
ReplyDeleteThanks, Robert. Look forward to your additional comments. I have such a strong picture of Washington that it will be interesting to read what Chernow has to say about him. I will definitely read the book.
ReplyDeleteWhat will probably impress you are the new approaches he has to Washington's personality and behaviors. He does no fawn over the man, nor does he demonize him. He explains him--makes him human--points out his positive, his negatives and his obsnate side.Sometime the General could be an overbearing pain in the ass--and at other times a forgiving soul and a leader who would never order his men to do something he wouldn't do. He suffered as much as his men during the war--yet never lost sight that he was an aristocrat who had to be treated better than others--a democratic man he was not--but admitable he was, in every sense of the word.
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