I had never read it before! What a dream of a book. And it stepped right into our conversations about WC. There's a moment later when Rachel Cohen speculates that Cather's *not* having met James, and been encouraged instead by Jewett, might have saved her "a decade of disappointment." There is such truth here about how shaped one is by whom one comes to know, even fleetingly.
Yes. It's unlike any other book of literary biography I've read, in part because it has such a keen sense for how chance fleetingly and lastingly shapes lives. And the range of lives she considers!
And it's so sensitive about the relation of life to work, recognizing the importance of experiential influences without subordinating the work to them or insisting on absolute correspondences. It's partly the delicacy of just narrating these little daily occurances without loading them with interpretation.
I am reading James's The Other House at the moment! I knew about his friendship with Jewett, but not in such happy detail.
I love The Country of the Pointed Firs, as well as Jewett's indelible story "The White Heron," which I had to read the first time sophomore year of college I think. A walk in any woods will usually bring the last lines of that story back to me like a spell. Firs is a strange wonderful book depicting a world as if of its own making.
So Cohen thinks James would have disappointed Cather's hopes as a writer? I wonder why? And if it would have been true? Cather seems sure of her own way in a way.
What a wonderful coincidence! I must read The Country of the Pointed First. I really recommend A Chance Meeting. The moment a meeting between Cather and James doesn't materialize, what Cohen seems to me to be suggesting is that Jewett was helping her to find her subject in American life and the American landscape, and James was so ambivalent about America.
A Chance Meeting is a wonderful book, and this is a great selection. James losing the muzzle, looking for another, and eating ten cakes: perfect.
I had never read it before! What a dream of a book. And it stepped right into our conversations about WC. There's a moment later when Rachel Cohen speculates that Cather's *not* having met James, and been encouraged instead by Jewett, might have saved her "a decade of disappointment." There is such truth here about how shaped one is by whom one comes to know, even fleetingly.
Yes. It's unlike any other book of literary biography I've read, in part because it has such a keen sense for how chance fleetingly and lastingly shapes lives. And the range of lives she considers!
And it's so sensitive about the relation of life to work, recognizing the importance of experiential influences without subordinating the work to them or insisting on absolute correspondences. It's partly the delicacy of just narrating these little daily occurances without loading them with interpretation.
Wonderful asides on American writers and their community.
It wouldn't be Henry James without a little Jean!
I am reading James's The Other House at the moment! I knew about his friendship with Jewett, but not in such happy detail.
I love The Country of the Pointed Firs, as well as Jewett's indelible story "The White Heron," which I had to read the first time sophomore year of college I think. A walk in any woods will usually bring the last lines of that story back to me like a spell. Firs is a strange wonderful book depicting a world as if of its own making.
So Cohen thinks James would have disappointed Cather's hopes as a writer? I wonder why? And if it would have been true? Cather seems sure of her own way in a way.
What a wonderful coincidence! I must read The Country of the Pointed First. I really recommend A Chance Meeting. The moment a meeting between Cather and James doesn't materialize, what Cohen seems to me to be suggesting is that Jewett was helping her to find her subject in American life and the American landscape, and James was so ambivalent about America.
I see .. I now I have a copy of Cohen's book and I'm looking forward to diving in!
Hooray! A book buyer!