Obscure Destinies

'The Neighbor Rosicky' is a beautiful story of a real person of family life. The descriptive detail is beautiful yet simple. 'Old Mrs. Smith' is a story of what it is to be an old lady - - her grace, her role and pride as seen from many angles. 'Two Friends' deals with a strange friendship, strong in its being and strong in its destruction.

This collection of three stories--each over fifty pages--contains what I believe is the most emotionally beautiful "short story" ever written: "Neighbour Rosicky". Here is a story of love, and despair; beauty and tragedy. All life entails suffering, but it is up to us how we handle suffering: we either handle it with dignity or despair; this volume bespeaks of the former. When the crop fails, Rosicky takes his family on a picknick, so they can appreciate what they have, not what they don't. Rosicky--with a bad heart--rakes the Russian thistle from his son's neighboring farm because "he was afraid their seed would root and 'take the alfalfa'". Some call this "silly sentimentalism", but it is not: it is the beauty of appreciating life in the simple things. Willa Cather, like Shakespeare, is a word-smith for all ages, and will be read--in a thousand years--alongside Homer and his ilk.