Something good about Nebraska

I give my good friend Laree no end of grief about her home state of Nebraska. Really, I have only two reasons to do so:

1. They are a Big 12 rival of my Oklahoma Sooners. Admittedly, not much of a rival these days. The Sooners regularly beat the Cornhuskers like redheaded stepchildren. But still...

2. Because there is so little else to give Laree a hard time about.

But I now have to say something good about her state. I am finding great enjoyment in the writings of Willa Cather (pictured above) who, while not technically a native of Nebraska, did grow up there. I came upon Willa Cather in an airplane magazine a few years ago. The writer listed his five favorite novels. One was Cather's Death Comes to the Archbishop. It sounded intriguing, so when I got to wherever I was going I stopped at a bookstore and bought the book. It is set in one of my favorite parts of the country--New Mexico. The story follows two missionary Catholics who have been sent to the new United States territory to restore the faith and rebuild mission churches.

The story itself is good and rewarding, but it is the quality of Cather's writing that grabbed me. It is so simple, so sparse. This is textbook as to how to use the fewest words to tell the story. So now I am checking out more of Cather's novels. (Death Comes to the Archbishop is on my shortlist for taking with me on vacation later this month for a second read.)

So today I stopped at Barnes and Noble and bought O Pioneers!, Cather's tale of the women and men who helped to settle Nebraska in the nineteenth century. Cather published this novel in 1913, at which time she was no longer living in Nebraska. After she graduated from University of Nebraska-Lincoln she moved to Pittsburgh where she taught English and worked for Home Monthly magazine. Then she accepted a position with McClure's magazine, taking her to New York where she lived and wrote until her death in 1947. But her Nebraska roots show through in many of her novels, including O Pioneers!, My Antonia, and One Of Ours.

Here are a few samples of her simple, yet deep, prose from O Pioneers!

"The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman."

"There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes over for thousands of years."

"I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do."

"From two ears that had grown side by side, the grains of one shot up joyfully into the light, projecting themselves into the future, and the grains for the other lay still in the earth and rotted; and nobody knew why."

I'd give up my iPhone just to be able to write one sentence like that.

Here is a poem that Cather published in McClure's in 1911 titled Prairie Spring.

Evening and the flat land,
Rich and sombre and always silent;
The miles of fresh-plowed soil,
Heavy and black, full of strength and harshness;
The growing wheat, the growing weeds,
The toiling horses, the tired men;
The long empty roads,
Sullen fires of sunset, fading,
The eternal, unresponsive sky.
Against all this, Youth,
Flaming like the wild roses,
Singing like the larks over the plowed fields,
Flashing like a star out of the twilight;
Youth with its unsupportable sweetness,
Its fierce necessity,
Its sharp desire,
Singing and singing,
Out of the lips of silence,
Out of the earthy dusk.

OK, this poem alone makes me want to visit Nebraska.* I want to go to Red Cloud in south central Nebraska where she grew up and dig my hands through the soil, heavy and black, full of strength and harshness. I want to listen to the larks singing over the plowed fields. I want to see the fading fires of sullen sunsets. I want to experience prairie spring in Nebraska.

*I also want to visit Nebraska because it is one of a handful of states I have never been to or through. The others are Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, Montana, Alaska, and North and South Dakota. But let's be honest. Those last two are very questionable whether or not they are real states. They sound like they have been made up, like the Canadian Army. But I am willing to drive to where the map says they are to check it out.

When I was touring the Wright Brothers' museum in Dayton last summer, I noticed they had a display about Cather. I have no idea why, but will check that out further next time I am in Dayton. But relating her to my heroes, Wilbur and Orville, only makes me like her all the more.

I recommend you check out a Willa Cather book from your library and give her a try. You may just find yourself longing for a visit to the Cornhusker state.

There, Laree. I said nice stuff about your state. Are you happy?