My Antonia, by Willa Cather

(If you haven’t read this book, know that spoilers abound in this overview.)

I find it rare, when I am reading, to be gripped by feelings and longings I don’t understand. Non-fiction and memoirs are where I usually hang out. Sometimes good fiction can plumb the depths of whatever my unconscious is holding onto. My Antonia, by Willa Cather (1873-1947), was published in 1918, and it caught me unawares.

A description: “All those fall afternoons were the same, but I never got used to them. As far as we could see, the miles of copper-red grass were drenched in sunlight that was stronger and fiercer than at any other time of the day. The blond cornfields were red gold, the haystacks turned rosy and threw long shadows. The whole prairie was like the bush that burned with fire and was not consumed.” The setting is southern Nebraska, near Red Cloud.

An evocative writer makes you stop reading and think about what you are imagining and feeling. Willa Cather developed her talent through years of hard work and determination. In 1896 she got a position in Pittsburgh at a women’s magazine: Home Monthly. She wrote short stories, poetry, articles, and continued working as a journalist for other publications. She also taught at Pittsburgh’s Central High School for a year, and taught English and Latin at Allegheny High School. She published her first book of poetry in 1903, followed by a collection of short stories in 1905. She joined McClure’s Magazine as an editor and her first novel (Alexander’s Bridge) was serialized by McClure’s in 1912.

“…Cather learned to create on her pages a new-found sense of intimacy, one borne of the relation between intimates. This is first really seen in My Antonia.” 

(From the section “Emerging Writer, 1914-1922”, Willa Cather Center website: https://www.willacather.org/about/willa-cather-biography.)

Kathleen Norris wrote a Foreword to the 1995 paperback edition of My Antonia. She says: “Intent on telling the truths of a particular time and place, she made her own prose as spare as the land about which she was writing, and became a pioneer in American fiction.” Norris mentions that Cather had the great good fortune to have lived among the first generation of white settlers in 1880s Nebraska. In her Foreword, Norris also states: “In many ways the world of My Antonia is still with us, a neglected but significant part of America.” 

Ms. Norris grew up in Lemmon, North Dakota, a small town near the southern border of that state. I grew up in Minnesota and immigrants, starting in the 1860s, moved into the state from Europe and Great Britain. Many settled on farmland, thanks to the Homestead Act of 1862 and the liberation the railroads provided after the Civil War. They usually banded together and were suspicious of others, even as they needed help outside their own enclaves.

But it is Antonia who left a lasting impression on Willa Cather. Cather writes: “Antonia had always been one to leave images in the mind that did not fade – that grew stronger with time…she lent herself to immemorial human attitudes which we recognize by instinct as universal and true…but she still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one’s breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things…All the strong things of her heart came out in her body, that had been so tireless in serving generous emotions.”

Someone like Antonia often leaves us with an intense yearning, a need to be near them, to feel their essence. Attraction to another person seems to work on a number of simultaneous levels. It can be visual, physical, appreciation of speech and style, gestures, even sexual attraction can be part of it. Whatever their special quality, it pulls us to them by proximity or thought. Why is that?

PBS American Masters  did a review of her life. In it, David McCullough speaks about the suicide the Grandfather commits: “Kills himself, commits suicide. Can’t take it – some people are crushed by it. It will either make you or break you. That’s a very American theme...And what really counts in the long run, is the feeling it leaves with you – that feeling that you have about the book, My Antonia. Ten years after you’ve read it, you can still feel that. Why? Because of the transforming magic of art. Because Willa Cather took that story and made it immortal.”

PBS Documentary:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1AJDk9QCkk&t=3343s

For several days, I have wanted to write just one more thing about Willa Cather and this novel. What I settled on was something Willa Cather wrote in her Introduction to the book in 1918. She is taking a long train journey with her friend, Jim, the narrator of the book.

“…our talk kept returning to a central figure, a Bohemian girl whom we had known long ago and whom both of us admired. More than any other person we remembered, this girl seemed to mean to us the country, the conditions, the whole adventure of our childhood. To call her name was to call up pictures of people and places, to set a quiet drama going in one’s brain.”

                                                        Civil War? Here?

The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson, 2024 Large Print edition

I have never felt strongly drawn to reading about the United States Civil War during the 1860s. I watched the Ken Burns’ Civil War series on PBS and thrilled to the history he and his team brought to life. Books about the American Civil War abound, and as best-selling author Erik Larson says in an Introduction to his non-fiction book, The Demon of Unrest: “I suspect your dread will be all the more pronounced in light of today’s political discord….which has led some benighted Americans to whisper once again of secession and civil war.” Even knowing the outcome, the reader senses the attitudes and beliefs at play in the drama that led up to the attack on Fort Sumter.

As Covid unfolded in early 2020, Erik Larson began to wonder: “Exactly how did the Civil War begin? What really happened at Fort Sumter?” Ordering a bound copy of: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Mr. Larson found letters, telegrams, and reports that captured in vivid detail the march toward fratricide. He had his narrative spine for the book. As pandemic restrictions eased, he was able to visit the Charleston Historical Society, the Library of Congress, and consulted other primary source material archives. Secondary sources were also sought out and listed at the end of the book. Mr. Larson also informs the reader: “This is a work of nonfiction. As always, anything between quotation marks comes from some form of historical document…”

As I read the book, I consulted the April 1861 map of Charleston Harbor provided in the front of the book, and Google maps of the area for reference, as well as the National Park Service website, Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie: https://www.nps.gov/fosu/index.htm  Any legitimate material consulted will aid the reader’s imagination in picturing the events as they are described in the book.

First thing that struck me was that the 2020 United States census shows a total United States population of 331,449,281. The 1860 census lists 31,443,321 people in 33 states and 10 territories. Of this number, 3,953,760 were slaves and the states that had the greatest number of slaves by percentage, were: South Carolina, 402,406 (57.2%); Mississippi, 436,631 (55.2%); Louisiana, 331,726 (46.9%); Alabama, 435,080 (45.1%); Georgia, 462,198 (43.7%); Florida, 61,745 (44%); North Carolina, 331,059 (33.4%); Virginia, 490,865 (30.7%); Texas, 182,566 (30.2%); Arkansas, 111,115 (25.5%); Tennessee, 275,710 (24.8%); Kentucky, 225,483 (19.5%), Maryland, 87,189 (12.7%).  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_United_States_census

According to Mr. Larson, there were 440 South Carolina planters who each held one hundred or more enslaved Blacks within a single district. They called themselves “the chivalry” and held jousting competitions and gave themselves military titles and loved elaborate uniforms. Honor was what they valued above all other human traits. When insulted, rage flared and duels commenced. After the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852 (which sold 300,000 copies in the first three months), Mr. Larson writes: “In the North, it confirmed readers’ worst imagining about the true nature of slavery; in the South, it was spurned as yet another Northern failure to understand how slavery benefited the enslaved themselves…”

After John Brown’s raid on the federal arsenal in Harper’s Ferry in October of 1859, the South was galvanized. State militias received new recruits, stockpiles of arms increased, vigilance committees were formed. Charleston’s inhabitants were incensed and stepped up the aggressive interrogation of outsiders and free Blacks. Traveling salesmen were required to get a license. Lincoln’s election in November of 1860 intensified Southern discontent about the Union.

Although shipping improved with steam power, and the telegraph speeded information access, these were early days for how people received information. Rumors and false assumptions were widespread. South Carolina kept trying for acceptance as a sovereign state, and Lincoln’s administration did not want to make any moves that could be seen as starting hostilities. 

When Major Robert Anderson moved his men and their families, on his own initiative, from Fort Moultrie to Fort Johnson, no one suspected that the real destination was Fort Sumter.  

As the sun set on December 26^th, he informed his officers what he had secretly planned and set in motion. It took two trips on three boats to get his two companies of soldiers to Fort Sumter. Once there, the vessel with the forty-five women and children set off from Fort Moultrie for Fort Sumter. By morning, smoke was rising from the Fort Moultrie burning gun carriages, and the flag was missing. Everyone was safely within the walls of Fort Sumter. 

Less than four months later, South Carolina weapons opened fire on Fort Sumter on April 12^th, 1861.

In “A Note To Readers” at the beginning of his book, Mr. Larson tells us that while watching the Jan. 6^th 2021 Capitol riots: “I was appalled by the attack, but also riveted. I realized that the anxiety, anger, and astonishment that I felt would certainly have been experienced in 1860-1861 by vast numbers of Americans…I invite you now to step into the past, to that time of fear and dissension, and experience the passion, heroism, and heartbreak – even humor – as if you were living in that day and did not know how the story would end.”

If you would like to hear and watch Erik Larson talk about The Demon of Unrest, click on this link from the Library of Congress (Sept. 4^th, 2024).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHQv5oQd3Zg&t=2294s

A History of Reading by Steven Roger Fischer, 2019 revised edition

In an A.O. Scott essay about reading, published in the N.Y. Times Book Review section on June 21^st, 2023, Mr. Scott mentioned Mr. Fischer’s book: A History of Reading. I ordered the book from Sno-Isle Interlibrary Loan service. Mr. Fischer is a New Zealand linguist and former Director of the Institute of Polynesian Languages and Literatures in Auckland, New Zealand.

In his Introduction the author says: “What music is to the spirit, reading is to the mind. Reading challenges, empowers, bewitches, enriches.” In seven well-documented chapters, Mr. Fischer starts with Egypt and runs us up to present time. He tells us that writing prioritizes sound, and reading prioritizes meaning. And a key point to remember – for most of written history, reading was reciting. If scribes bore false witness, they were killed.

Reading represents freedom to me; the freedom to absorb anything and the freedom to think about whatever has been read. No one should be dictating what you can read, right? But some have raised the issue about what is appropriate reading material for those under a certain age. As a parent, I understand their concern. Some parents want the libraries to withhold or move material they feel is inappropriate for children. But I don’t like their approach. It’s confrontational and draws a line in the sand. And they get to decide for us.

Many of us expect parents to make suggestions and guide their children when it comes to choosing material. Some parents take no responsibility for kids’ choices. Schools may provide suggestions for age-appropriate reading lists. But when you expect school boards to arbitrarily censor books, you are putting the responsibility for choosing or discarding material in the hands of citizen-driven pressure groups. Where is the freedom in that?

  In Mr. Scott’s essay he says that: “Reading liberates and torments us, enlightens and       bewilders us, makes and unmakes our social and solitary selves.”

Most of us are nodding our heads in agreement. That book that looked so promising on the shelf, ended up sparking feelings of disgust, anger, or maybe horror. Some books chime within us and spark feelings that we can scarcely understand. Scott makes the case that: “Reading, like democracy or sexual desire, is an unmanageable, inherently destabilizing force in human life.” Reading holds risk as well as promise. Reading gives us a connection with another person and their imagination and opinions. The only price we pay is our time. And yes, a risk is involved, but taking a risk implies the freedom to do so. That is the crucial element: free to choose for ourselves.

Mr. Fischer makes the same argument. “A reader can choose to understand, react to, and interpret the author’s work however the reader wants….No text, not even the most fundamental religious, dictates to a reader. It is the reader who chooses how to react, what to think. The wonder in reading is that the writer is never in control. It is the reader who plays God.”

We choose to believe, cast aside, denounce or embrace the material we read. There’s freedom of speech, freedom of the press and there’s freedom of the mind. 

(Steven Roger Fischer also wrote: A History of Writing in 2021. Also available via the Sno-Isle Library system using the Inter-Library Loan portal.)

 

Poverty, By America, by Matthew Desmond, Random House, 2023.

Mr. Desmond, a professor of sociology at Princeton University, won a Pulitzer Prize for his earlier 2016 book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. It tells the stories of eight families who, in some cases, had to spend 70% of their income for rent. And because women are paid less than men and are often raising children, they pay a greater emotional price.

Mr. Desmond grew up pretty poor, in a small railroad town in Arizona, and after his family’s home was lost to foreclosure, Poverty stressed and diminished them. He wondered: is this how families dealt with hard times? Why should there be so much hardship and desperation in this land of money?

Of his time later living in Milwaukee, Mr. Desmond says, “I saw a level of poverty that was incredibly cruel, and painful, and it drilled home in me that this is a morally urgent issue; this isn’t just about people having enough money – this is about pain, on top of eviction, on top of hunger, on top of incarceration, on top of, just, death, really…”  (C-Span “After Words” March 29^th, 2023).

Why is there so much poverty in this incredibly wealthy nation? This question drove him to write his book. And he also said: “This book is about how some lives are made small, so that others may grow…There is an incredible amount of unnecessary scarcity in this land of abundance…(and) this book is about why and how we can finally abolish it. This is a call to rebalance our safety net. I want a country that does a lot more to fight poverty than it does to guard fortunes.”

Mr. Desmond cites a study that says: “…if the top 1% just paid the taxes they owed, not pay more taxes, just stop evading taxes, we as a nation could raise an additional 175 billion. That’s more than enough money to re-establish the child tax credit; that’s enough to double our investment in affordable housing and still have money left over.” (Poverty, By America  by Matthew Desmond. April 18^th, 2023 interview on “Democracy Now.”)

How do we subsidize the wealthy? One way is the $1.8 trillion per year supplied by tax breaks – which is about double what we spend on the military. Wealthier people get more of these tax breaks from the government, than poor people get. “We could afford [to abolish poverty in America] if the richest among us took less from the government, if we designed a welfare state to do less to subsidize affluence and more to eradicate poverty.”

Another area in which the poor are disadvantaged is in housing. Private equity swooped in after the financial crisis of 2008 and bought up enormous amounts of housing, reducing the overall inventory. Mr. Desmond believes that expanding  opportunities for first time homeowners and working families could ease some of this situation. But banks prefer to lend money for expensive real estate rather than lower cost mortgages. There’s a much larger financial return from financing big ticket homes and commercial projects.

Aid Left on the Table

There are a lot of different kinds of financial aid for the poor, but it is often hard and confusing to get the money. He says they are entitled to it, but in many cases are not told how to apply for it. Mr. Desmond endorses increasing the understanding needed to apply for aid, and cutting the red tape.

“We do a very poor job in connecting families with programs that they need and deserve…Most Americans want a higher minimum wage, most Americans think the rich are not paying their fair share of taxes, most Americans, Democrat and Republican, believe now that poverty isn’t caused by a moral failing – that it’s caused by unfair circumstances.”

Concerns about Basic Needs

His 2023 book, tackles poverty in two sections: “Facts About Poverty in Your State” and “Join the Fight.” Links are provided to learn more about the issues related to poverty in the first section, and lists of organizations, both on a national and state level, that advocate for change are featured in the second. Mr. Desmond is passionate about what he has learned and argues that we may be ignorant of how poverty is allowed to exist in America, but that we can change our awareness and do something concrete.    https://endpovertyusa.org/

In his epilogue, Mr. Desmond says that poverty will be abolished in America only when a mass movement stirs. He believes that all of us “…can learn from, support, and join movements led by those who have intimate knowledge of poverty’s many slights and humiliations... mass movements are composed of scores of people finding their own way to pitch in.”

What I hear from Island County residents is this: I have just enough for myself and my family. Movements for change creep along at glacial speed and the folks who might create some change, aren’t compelled to do what we ask for. There’s some societal pressure for change, but there’s no leverage to change. I’m just one person, in a county of 87,000 people.

Mr. Desmond makes the point that: “Profiting from someone else’s pain diminishes all of us.” And at the end of the C-Span interview he says: “I think the book (Poverty, By America) makes the case that an America without poverty makes for a freer America, a safer America, a happier America, and it’s an America that’s committed to each other’s flourishing.”

Those who live too close to disaster’s edge usually don’t have much hope. Their constant focus is a four-sided box of not enough work, shelter, food, and a running car. Add the stress of providing for children, and you have people who feel trapped and desperate. Social change holds out the hope that we are moving closer to having enough –- enough safety and security and enough satisfaction through a shared community of relatives, friends, and neighbors.

Next books I will be reviewing: Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in A Divided Nation by John Freeman, and Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis by Beth Macy. Will also be covering: A History of Reading.               

Mike Diamanti

Some Suggested Reading for “Concerns”

I received hardly any suggestions for issues to tackle in this blog, so I decided to run out a list of books that hit the topics I hear in conversations during my daily rounds. All books listed are available through the Sno-Isle system.

Homeless

Best recent book for this volatile issue is: Homelessness is a Housing Problem: How Structural Factors Explain U.S. Patterns, 2022. The authors, Gregg Colburn and Clayton Page Aldern, combine their talents to shed light on the housing market conditions, which they consider an overlooked consideration when tackling homelessness issues. Their position is that mental health and drugs often get the spotlight, while housing availability can be overlooked. Both work in the Seattle area.

They believe that public perception, funding, and placing the problem within a broader societal context are the most important concerns that will help. They say: “…approaches that work have not been sufficiently scaled to the magnitude of the crisis.” And they mention that, on the West Coast, there is strong pressure to demonstrate progress because residents are getting increasingly frustrated.

They cite the example of the concerted effort to reduce homelessness among veterans. Since 2009, the number of homeless veterans has dropped by 50 per cent. Civilians receive far less attention and support during policymaking periods. And at a federal level there has been more money to address the veteran homeless issues.

They finish their book by stating: “Access to housing – independent of one’s ability to pay – is the bedrock of these policy successes. From the veteran’s example, we know that investments in housing, rental subsidies, and systems thinking can substantially reduce the population of people experiencing homelessness…People design cities and structure markets. They can also choose to change them.”

Island County has a robust Housing Assistance menu of services as well as the Veterans Assistance help. Here are the links:

https://www.islandcountywa.gov/383/Housing-Assistance

https://www.islandcountywa.gov/200/Veterans-Assistance