The Troll Garden

This was Willa Cather's first published book which came out in 1905. I am singularly unqualified to comment on her entire opus, having read only one other book, and that when I was in grade school. The seven stories here certainly smack of Victorian era romanticism, that often dark and tragic force, but for all that most of them will strike you as sensitive, discerning, and very apt as far as human nature is concerned. The themes vary, but all center around people in the arts or those who lead, as Cather puts it, "tributary lives", that is, they pay homage to the arts. Perhaps that homage is a bit too earnest, a bit too cloying, for 21st century readers, or perhaps, as a first time writer, she overstated her case sometimes. Another common theme is the incomprehension of small town America towards artistically-inclined people. Thus, one escapes from the inanities of Podunk, or sinks in the mires thereof. Henry James later emphasized the theme of "old Europe vs new America" in many of his novels---Cather frequently takes up a similar strand, concentrating more on the difference between 'sophisticated East Coast" and "crude Center". "Flavia and Her Artists" may be the best story here---it is vivid and unlike some others, has a sharp ending. A social butterfly with cultural pretensions, plenty of money, and a tolerant, but somewhat philistine husband, tries to "catch" Manhattan artists,composers, dancers, and the like for her weekend parties and soirees at Tarrytown, NY. An invited French writer later publishes a mocking, satirical piece on the butterfly, but the husband and narrator hide the fact from the naive socialite. The upshot is that the husband takes it on the chin for no reason. In "The Sculptor's Funeral" a Kansas town can't fathom anyone different. We listen to their hickish, blind soliloquies of a town boy who went East to follow his art, but died. Only a local drunken lawyer (once the sculptor's classmate) and a horrified New England visitor understand. "The Garden Lodge" presents with considerable sensitivity an immensely practical woman who worked her way out of a ne'er do well, totally impractical family and married a rich, successful man. Now she wrestles for one night with a secret love which could 'bust everything wide open'. What's her choice ? There are four other stories as well, one, "The Marriage of Phaedra" I thought did not match up to the rest, perhaps because it is laid in England and Cather seems much better at American personalities. Sex, violence, and power do not play even a marginal role in Cather's writing; much more dreams, pretensions, failed loves and sunken ambitions. They are not modern tales, or at least, not in the modern style. But, if you're looking for some interesting reading, you could give these stories of a vanished world a try.

Cather's first book of fiction gathers seven stories, four of which were initially published in magazines and later revised for inclusion in the 1920 eight-story collection "Youth and the Bright Medusa" (which is worth reading on its own). Collectively, the stories in "The Troll Garden" show the young Cather in the throes of an overtly Jamesian phase, with perfunctory nods to her later rural and Nebraskan subjects. While all are united by the theme of artistic genius and influence, none are about the artists themselves. Instead, they relate the dreams and delusions of the relatives, friends, hangers-on, and wannabes who associate with artists and either idolize or scorn them. The two most well-known stories are "The Sculptor's Funeral" and "Paul's Case," both of which were left largely unchanged for their later versions and in Cather's 1937 edition of collected works. The first describes rural neighbors who vent their lack of appreciation for the achievements of an internationally famous sculptor when his corpse is shipped to his hometown for burial; "Where the old man made his mistake was in sending the boy East to school" is the verdict of one of the town's inhabitants. "Paul's Case" concerns a school-age boy whose flightiness and irresponsibility is exacerbated by the fanciful extravagances represented on the stage and by the glittering allure of celebrity lifestyle. Both ""A Death in the Desert" and "A Wagner Matinee" were heavily revised for their later publications. The first of these, filled with literary allusions and oddly detached from its Wyoming setting, benefited from the later changes, which tightened both the prose and the emotional impact. Its heroine is an opera singer dying of tuberculosis who recalls a lost love--a brilliant composer--in the unexpected appearance of his younger brother, whose own career never escapes the shadow of his sibling's renown. The 1905 version of "A Wagner Matinee," in contrast, is far superior to its later incarnations, in which Cather had softened beyond recognition her portrait of a Bostonian woman transplanted to Nebraska who returns back East after thirty years of relentless drudgery. Although Cather's family regarded the story as a mocking and insulting caricature of her own aunt, the earlier depiction's bite and its leanness are what make it so powerful. The three stories that appear exclusively in this collection are "Flavia and Her Artists," "The Marriage of Phaedra," and "The Garden Lodge." The first of these is the best; it concerns a society matron playing hostess to a gaggle of artists who take advantage of her hospitality but who can barely tolerate her pretensions. The story turns when a member of the company broadcasts his scorn for Flavia in a withering profile published by a local newspaper. Many of these pieces, in sum, should be read not simply for insights into the early development of a celebrated author; they are near-masterpieces in their own right. In them one can see a uni