An elegantly written novella set in the mid-west of the USA. A young woman is married to a much older man and her life and her loves and deceits are observed by a boy and later young man who is besotted by her and though he becomes aware of her faults and folies never loses his affection for her. ( )

1075 A Lost Lady, by Willa Cather (read 13 Sep 1970) This is a rather slight book, but reads easily. It is laid in Nebraska. ( )

This was my first foray into Willa Cather's writing and I found this a thoughtful and engaging novel that works on several levels. It is a character study of a woman at a time of change in the American west; a character study of America at the time of the railroad boom as it evolves alongside changing ideas of morality and social convention; a study of a complex web of relationships: friendship, love, loyalty rooted in respect, gratitude or feudal class-based tradition. I was left under no illusions, Cather was obviously a supporter of the old ways.

Mrs Forrester, the 'Lost Lady' of the title is married to an ageing Captain in a small, backwoods town in the transitional America of the railroad era. This work deals with her complex relationship with her husband, her lovers and a youth of the town, Neils, who idolises the image of her and reveres her husband and his old fashioned morals and conventions. The new, crude manners of the upcoming generation contrasts with Neils' old-school outlook. Cather shows him as outdated, left behind by his compatriots. As you follow this trio of characters through to the death of the Captain, we see Neils' polarised idea of right and wrong in the light of the complexities of the emotional and moral ties that bind the other characters. Ultimately, Neils' innocence dies with Captain Forrester as his illusions are shattered by the realisation that all live with some kind or moral compromise and none of his idols fit into his succinct categories of morality. As for the 'Lady' herself, on the one hand, the reader is tempted to dislike her for her perceived disloyalty. However, ultimately it becomes clear that, in her own way, she was as loyal to her husband as others and that loyalty and faithfulness are not necessarily synonymous and in some ways this redeems her.

It is an interesting and beautifully crafted novel and the characterisation is very competently realised. Criticism has been levelled at Cather's work, implying that she was over-reliant on her devotion to the old America of a time that was passing and that she refused to accept the newer world; that she was wasting her obvious talent by not turning it loose on the modern world. However, for me, it is exactly this viewpoint that makes the novel so poignant. I would certainly recommend this. It is a very engaging and fast read but definitely a pleasureable one too. ( )

A toast--Happy Days! / The wild roses of summer / Their bloom, quick to fade.

In A Lost Lady, Willa Cather presents the complementary side of prairie life to the "homesteaders and hand-workers" who populate O Pioneers! and My Antonia. This is the story of "the bankers and gentlemen ranchers who came from the Atlantic seaboard to invest money and to 'develop our great West.'" Especially one such banker, Captain Daniel Forrester, who lived in the prairie town of Sweet Water with his young, beautiful, charming wife, the former Marian Ormsby.

Captain Forrester made his fortune building the railroad and many railroad VIPs made a point of stopping at "the Forrester place" on their business trips back and forth on the railway. In those "happy days" Mrs. Marian Forrester presided over this remote outpost of Denver and San Francisco society. It was the image of Mrs. Forrester as the perfect wife and hostess that captivated Niel Herbert, a boy growing up in Sweet Water. But bank failure and crop failure turned Sweet Water into "one of those grey towns along the Burlington railroad" and drained the fortune of Captain Forrester. The VIP visits grew fewer and fewer.

Neil is another of Cather's emasculated male characters and it is through his eyes that we see the decline of Mrs. Forrester. Unfaithful as wife, a clandestine affair with the notorious Frank Ellenger. Abandoned by Ellenger, a drunken telephone call to him overheard by the town gossip. Putting her business affairs in the hands of the shylock, Ivy Peters. Later allowing those hands familiar access to her person. Niel is first appalled and ultimately contemptuous of his fallen goddess. His judgment: "she was not willing to immolate herself . . . she preferred life on any terms."

Of course she preferred life--she was a survivor, as much as Alexandra and Antonia were survivors. At age 19 she survived the murder of her millionaire fiance and the ensuing scandal; the fall off a mountain cliff that killed her guide; the isolated life of a prairie town with no indigenous social peers. She did what she had to do, suffered what she must. Her talent was not tilling the earth, but tilling society. She had a charm that brought admirers from across the country, and when those admirers no longer came to Sweet Water, she knew she had to go to them. She mortgaged herself to Ivy Peters until she had the means to leave. She did leave then, found another millionaire and lived out her life in her own grand style. She remained true to herself, if not always to others. She was a lost lady only to the jejune Niel Herbert. ( )

Recently reread this classic by Cather. She's a wonderful writer, but I didn't like this as much the second time around. ( )