Reviews for Youth and the Bright Medusa

The average rating for Youth and the Bright Medusa based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-04-19 00:00:00 Nick Smith If you care for 20thC American Lit, you love Willa Cather. She breaks hearts in a few sentences. Cather tops any American Lit List with Edith Wharton and Scott Fitzgerald. Who else is there on top 20th tier? In spare, concise style she digs into emotions and dreams. This fine collection includes 'Paul's Case' (lad in midwest plans an escape with No Exit); 'A Wagner Matinee' (elderly aunt fr Nebraska meets nephew in Boston for a final, naked moment at a Wagner concert); 'Coming, Aphrodite!' (a young aspiring NYC painter luvs a young aspiring opera singer, but.--Well, this short is of novel substance about careers forged with a worldly irony that shatters). Writes Cather, "A big career takes its toll, even with the best of luck." Cather knew-- and felt -- far too much. An American Great.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-08-01 00:00:00 Kimberly Game "Hedger melted a little. 'My dear, I have the most expensive luxury in the world, and I am much more extravagant than Burton Ives, for I work to please nobody but myself.' 'You mean you could make money and don't? That you don't try to get a public?' 'Exactly. A public only wants what has been done over and over. I'm painting for painters, - who haven't been born.' Os protagonistas destes contos de Willa Cather são artistas, músicos, mulheres e homens de algum modo relacionados com o mundo do espectáculo e das artes e, além de serem todos maravilhosamente caracterizados, têm em comum a inconformismo. Há aqui personagens lutadoras, insatisfeitas, audaciosas, vítimas da má-língua tanto por estarem à frente do seu tempo como por não se coadunarem com a tacanhez e a mesquinhez dos seus conterrâneos. Willa Cather é uma autora realmente especial. "It was at the theatre and Carnegie hall that Paul really lived; the rest was but a sleep and a forgetting. This was Paul's fairy tale, and it had for him all the allurement of a secret love. The moment he inhaled the gassy, painty, dusty odour behind the scenes, he breathed like a prisoner set free, and felt within him the possibility of doing or saying splendid, brilliant things. Coming, Aphrodite - 5* The Diamond Mine - 4* A Gold Slipper - 5* Scandal - 3* Paul's Case - 5* A Wagner Matinée - 5* The Sculptor's Funeral - 4* "A Death in The Desert" - 3ª