I felt like I was reading in slow motion, floating along on the words of Willa Cather. 

The Song of the Lark is rich.  The words paint pictures and hold you.  Impossible to skip any.  It’s one of the best books I’ve read all year. 

The full text is available online, with study guides and more.  The Song of the Lark is said to be somewhat autobiographical, about a young girl’s struggle to achieve her best–her destiny. 

My favorite passage, the one that caused me to want to read the novel:

“…what was any art but an effort to make a sheath, a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining, elusive element which is life itself, –life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, to sweet to lose?”

Willa Cather was born in December of 1873.  The Song of the Lark is her third novel, published in 1915, in between O Pioneers! and My Antonia.  This is the first book of hers that I have read, or that I remember reading. 

More tomorrow…