Reading notes: 'The Song of the Lark'
What happens if you're better than everyone else? Or, at least, if there's something special about you that it would be indecent not to nourish at any cost? What if you're young, and that special part of you is undeveloped, and you don't yet know what it is? What if you're from pre-statehood Colorado, and the beautiful small town (the town that made you) will, fundamentally, never be enough for you? Are you turning up your nose at your friends and neglecting your parents, or doing what must be done to honor your capacities, or both? Does any of this change if what is special about you is music?
These are uncomfortable questions,1 but literature ought to ask uncomfortable questions. I loved My Ántonia and was implicitly expecting The Song of the Lark to be intelligent and engaging, but not to have a picture of human exceptionalism that makes Ayn Rand look like an egalitarian. Anyway, I also loved The Song of the Lark.
(Also: I received My Ántonia as a gift, then moved it around the country with me for 20 years or so before reading and loving it. I probably shouldn't have waited another decade or so to read my second Willa Cather novel, and I certainly shouldn't wait a decade to read my third.)
...and questions that are pretty remote from day-to-day suburban life of, say, figuring out how to boil water more efficiently.↩