Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
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| Textual Feature | Appearance |
|---|---|
| passage deleted with a strikethrough mark | |
| passage deleted by overwritten added letters | |
| passage added above the line | passage with added text above |
| passage added on the line | passage with added text inline |
| passage added in the margin | passage with text added in margin |
| handwritten addition to a typewritten letter | typed passage with added handwritten text |
| missing or unreadable text | missing text noted with "[illegible]" |
| uncertain transcriptions | word[?] |
| notes written by someone other than Willa Cather | Note in another's hand |
| printed letterhead text | printed text |
| text printed on postcards, envelopes, etc. | printed text |
| text of date and place stamps | stamped text |
| passage written by Cather on separate enclosure. | written text |
I am so sorry my writing vexes you, and it will continue to vex you.! I do not in the least agree with your assumption that one kind of
writing is right and another kind is wrong. I write at all because it pleases and
amuses me - and I write in the way that pleases and amuses me. I had a perfectly
good reason for writing "Antonia"3 in the first person4, masculine - and I did not
for one minute try to "talk like a man". Such a thing as humbugging any one never
accurred to me. It does not matter who tells a story. It is merely a point of view,
a position which the writer takes in regard to his material; just as a painter must
first decide what his position is to be in regard to whatever he is going to sketch.
Again, there is one kind of story that ought to tell itself - the story of action.
There is another kind of story that ought to be told - I mean the emotional story,
which tries to be much more like music than it tries to be like drama - the story
that tries to evoke and leave merely a picture - a mood. That was what Conrad5 tried to do, and he did it well. I wholly
disagree with you regarding Jeane Christophe6 and Pelle the Conqueror7. Do either of these books tell themselves8? Not for a minute.! I should say
that Jeane is one of the most
subjective books written in the last twenty-five years. Where do you find any steady
flow of action in that, my good man? Do you mean to say that Rolland9 is not Christophe, and that he is not explaining and diagraming his emotions
every minute? What is that kind of "description" but explaining - explaining under
a
very thin disguise. I think I shall begin every story hereafter with:; "We will begin our story on a winter evening in the late seventies" or
something of that sort. That is a frank, honest way to begin. It is a story, and "we" are doing it, and we might as well
admit it. I think the two greatest writers of fiction in modern times were Count Tolstoi10 and Ivan
Turgenev11, and I think they were equally magnificent in their
achievement. Their methods were absolutely opposite, and I think both methods are
entirely admirable.
You see, I pay you the compliment of coming back at you with some spirt. I should like to have a chance to argue it out with you. I admire
Nexoö12 just as much as you do,
but that is only one of the dozen fine ways of writing.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0750.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0750
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Mr. Miller 1
- Date letter was written
- October 24, 1924
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Benjamin D. Hitz Papers, 1913-1949 (Midwest.MS.Hitz-Cather), Newberry Library, Chicago, IL
Individual Annotations
Jim Burden is the narrator of My Ántonia.
Both Nexø's and Rolland's novels are narrated in the third person and primarily from the perspective of the title characters.
Person Annotations
Miller, Mr. American reader. In 1924, Willa Cather answered a query from Miller about My Ántonia (1918), but no further information is known about him.
Conrad, Joseph (1857-1924), British novelist and master mariner.
Born in the Ukraine to Polish patriot parents, Conrad's fiction, all
written in English, often drew on his maritime experiences. He published
only one story in McClure’s Magazine, “The Brute”
(1907), but had various other dealings with S. S. McClure’s other publishing
enterprises from 1898 to 1910. During a trip to London in 1909, Cather
attempted to secure more material from him for the magazine. Cather's
letters indicate that she continued to read Conrad, often praised as a
modern master of narrative technique, closely and seriously.
Rolland, Romain (1866-1944). French author. An influential and prolific author in several genres, including fiction, criticism, and drama, Romain Rolland is best known for his 10-volume novel Jean-Christophe (1904-1912), about the development of a musical genius. He is also known for his influence on Sigmund Freud and his support of Josef Stalin in France.
Tolstoy, Leo (1828-1910). Russian writer and philosopher. Born south of Tula, Russia, into an aristocratic family, Tolstoy served in the army in the Crimean War. His experiences there and during travels in Europe afterwards led him to philosophical and Christian anarchism. In 1861 he married Sofia Andreyevna Behrs, with whom he had thirteen children. She worked with Tolstoy on his novels War and Peace (1873) and Anna Karenina (1877) as secretary and copyist, but the marriage became increasingly unhappy. Tolstoy also came to espouse the economic theories of Henry George, incorporating them into his novel, Resurrection (1899). Cather began reading Tolstoy in her youth and considered him one of the greatest novelists.
Turgenev, Ivan (1818-1883). Russian novelist, short story writer, and
playwright. Born into a landed family in Russia, Ivan Turgenev
studied at the universities of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Berlin, returning
to Russia anxious to bring his country into line with the ideas of Western
European Enlightenment. He spent most of his life in France and Germany,
being particularly influenced by Gustave Flaubert; he also had a life-long
relationship with singer Pauline Garcia Viardot. His relationships with his
fellow Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky were sometimes
damaged by political differences. Turgenev's early short story collection
A Sportsman's Sketches (1852) was his first work
to attract favorable attention; it was followed by several short novels and
his masterpiece, Fathers and Sons (1862). Cather read
Turgenev in translation as early as her childhood years in Red Cloud, NE,
and often referred to him off-handedly in her early journalism and later
interviews and speeches. She, like many critics and writers, evidently
admired his craft and perception.
Nexø, Martin Andersen (1869-1954). Danish author. Born into an impoverished family in Copenhagen, Denmark, Martin Andersen Nexø worked as an industrial laborer until he attended a folk high school. With the assistance of a patron, he traveled in Southern Europe and published Soldage (Days in the Sun) (1903) about his travels. His most famous work is his four volume novel Pelle Erobreren (Pelle the Conqueror) (1906-1910, in English translation in the U.S. 1913-1917), focusing on the life of the title character from childhood as a rural peasant through his adult life as a socialist labor organizer in Copenhagen. Cather published an essay in Vanity Fair in 1920 praising Nexø’s achievement in Pelle. His next novel, Ditte Menneskebarn (Ditte: Girl Alive!) (1922), was published nearly simultaneously in Danish and English. As Nexø moved from socialism to communism, he lost favor in Scandinavia and moved to the Soviet Union. He died in East Germany.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
My Ántonia (1918) by Willa Cather
Jean-Christophe (1904) by Romain Rolland
Pelle the Conqueror (1906) by Martin Anderson Nexö
