Cather Studies, Volume I ed. by Susan J. Rosowski (review)

Reviews 69 Reading Tuska is watching the myth of the West deconstruct itself. Here we are getting the facts straighter, if not completely straight. (His eccentric documentation unfortunately makes verification a hit or miss proposition.) As these things go, it is a sprawling, idiosyncratic book, filled with facts, opinions, and the pleasant white noise of foreign tongues. It may be a variable harvest but it is also a sustaining one, which shows how diligently Tuska has tilled his own garden over the past twenty years. JOHN KOONTZ Drew University Gather Studies, Volume I. Edited by Susan J. Rosowski. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. 189 pages, $25.00.) Gather scholars are certain to be delighted by the debut of a publication devoted exclusively to Cather studies. An editorial policy statement opening the hardbound, biennially published volume invites submissions on all aspects of Gather’s life and art; an editor’s note explains that the first volume has as its foundation papers presented at the 1987 Third National Seminar on Willa Cather. The articles in the first volume are interesting, thought-provoking, clearly and intelligently written and researched, and cover a wide range of topics. Several articles are devoted to various themes in the novels themselves: David Stouck deals with the influence of nineteenth-century Russian authors on Cather’s work, John J. Murphy traces references to Dante, Anne Fisher-Wirth treats loss and redemption in the novels, John N. Swift writes of narrative movement and death in Death Comes for the Archbishop, Susan Rosowski discusses gender in Cather’s endings, Jean Schwind covers art in The Song of the Lark. Three other articles deal with aspects of biography: James Woodress vulnerably talks of the difficulties involved in writing of Cather’s life, Mark Madigan presents an illuminating portrait of a peevish and self-righteous Cather as she quarrelled with Dorothy Canfield Fisher, David Harrell traces the ways Cather altered information on Mesa Verde in writing The Professor’s House. These articles are joined by three notes to form the first volume in a valuable and intellectually stimulating publishing venture. I only wish Cather Studies were less expensive and published more frequently; it otherwise deserves only praise as a much-needed, well-edited, high quality work devoted to a richly complex and original author. MARGARET DOANE California State University, San Bernardino ...