Response to Reginald Dyck

Notes 425 First, she supports it by accepting Cather’s explanation of her writing the novel as a transparent description of the process. For example, Cather’s statement that the book has no skeleton because the land had none is presented without comment (42). To accept these statements as transparent is to ignore widely accepted theories of autobiog­ raphy that radically question such assumptions. Cather’s personal context—her anxiety about the book and her desire for recognition—and cultural context—the common anxiety about the corruption of modem mass society—suggest that her account is to some degree shaped by her circumstances. Using Cather’s comments as a foundation, Rosowski then reads O Pioneers! nar­ rowly as Alexandra’s relationship to the land by focusing only on Part I and the last few pages. Of course, any critical essay must present a selective reading; however, the essay’s claim is for the whole novel: that the “premise”of the novel is “the great fact [of] the land itself,”that Alexandra’s communion with the “Genius ofthe Divide”is “the moment from which allelsesprings,”and that a new relationship to the land “is the gravitational center’’of the novel (42,44, emphasis added).Yet, most of the novel presents various interpersonal conflicts that are shaped by tensions (gender, economic, regional, etc.) in Cather’s society. The process of developing a proper relationship with the land mainly takes place on the blank pages between Parts I and II. Even in the first part, along with the Genius of the Divide there is Charley Fuller, the real estate agent who helps Alexandra see that “[s]ome day the land itself will be worth more than all we can ever raise on it.” The Bergsons’ success has a great deal to do with land speculation. Alexandra responds to Carl’s rapsodizing about his past on the Divide by retorting, “[w]e pay a high rent, too . . and concludes her explanation of Carrie Jensen’s two suicide attempts by stating, “And it’s what goes on in the world that reconciles me [to living on the Divide].” These attitudes are also a part of the regionalism that Cather expresses in O Pioneers! It is hard to see how they follow from the “premise” Rosowski asserts. Although she proposes “a map drawn by principles of community”that includes a Chicago bakery and Wall Street, Rosowski’s explanation does not make clear how community, these places, and the Genius of the Divide come together “naturally.” Rosowski usefully calls for an ecological dialectic in which “[d]esire affects the genetic code,” but this mode of thinking must also dialectically engage much more. To live well on the Divide, one must understand more than “the winds/And the changing skies . . .” (44). Cather understood this and created a regional novel that engages the complexities of both natural and social conditions. The essay concludes by rejecting the analytical perspective of constructed identi­ ties and by accepting one of natural metaphors. But metaphors are constructs, even if they are used as means of engaging nature. Without that premise, one is left with a considerably abridged novel. REGINALD DYCK Capital University Response to Reginald Dyck Professor Dyck distinguishes between my reading of Cather’s descriptive style versus my assertions about form and my claim that “botanical and ecological principles helped shape Cather’s very idea of art.” He is concerned by my “accepting Cather’s explanation of her writing the novel as a transparent description of the process” on the basis that “to accept these statements as transparent is to ignore widely accepted theories of autobiography that radically question such assumptions.” Here we agree. Of course other circumstances factor into Cather’s idea of art. In the Scholarly Edition of O Pioneers!, our textual and historical essays, plus explanatory 424 Western American Literature notes, attempt to demonstrate how multiple and varied those factors are. As for theories of autobiography, I know of no such theories that would ignore a writer’s representation of herself, and if I found one, I’d be skeptical of it. I refer to these quotations as Cather’s description of her writing, and I find no basis...