A writing lesson from Willa Cather

 If you want to know why some people consider Willa Cather a great writer, consider Mr. Rosen, a minor character in “Old Mrs. Harris.”

The story is about three generations of women: Mrs. Harris, her daughter Victoria Templeton and Victoria’s daughter Vickie. These women are observed by their neighbor Mrs. Rosen. Mrs. Harris and her family came to Colorado from Tennessee. They are undergoing a change in culture, something Mrs. Rosen, who spoke with a European accent, can appreciate. But Mrs. Rosen has advantages of education and culture that the women in Mrs. Harris’s family lack. That contrast between the women is interesting. Mrs. Rosen is a crucial character.

Mr. Rosen not. He is just Mrs. Rosen’s husband. He has to listen to his wife talk about Mrs. Harris and the house next door is full of children. Mr. Rosen knows his wife wanted to have children more than anything else in the world, so he listens.

Mr. Rosen appears as unpromising minor character.

 

Mr. Rosen was a reflective, unambitious man, who didn’t mind keeping a clothing-store in a little Western town, so long as he had a great deal of time to read philosophy. He was the only unsuccessful member of a large, rich Jewish family.

 

But you have to watch Willa Cather or she’ll sneak wonderful things by you. When everyone is homesick — even Mrs. Rosen misses the Adirondacks — Mr. Rosen is not.

 

All countries were beautiful to Mr. Rosen. He carried a country of his own in his mind, and was able to unfold it like a tent in any wilderness. 

 

When Mrs. Harris’s granddaughter decides to go to college, Mrs. Rosen is skeptical that Vickie has the ability. Mr. Rosen is encouraging. He doesn’t think education has to be for something — just going to learn is justification enough. He writes out a quotation from Michelet for the young woman: “The end is nothing, the road is all.”

Mrs. Rosen consider the neighbors directionless and doesn’t think any member of that family needs to be told to stop and smell the roses.

 

Moreover, she always called her husband back to earth when he soared a little; though it was exactly for this transcendental quality of mind that she reverenced him in her heart, and thought him so much finer than any of his successful brothers.

 

If you follow Mr. Rosen as he makes his cameo appearances, you are rewarded with suggestions of stories within the story. I’m no expert in the genre of romance, but this strikes me as a fine example.

David Rosen hits me as a fine character. I wanted to read a story about him and wished Cather had written a sequel.

• Sources and notes: Willa Cather, Great Short Works of Willa Cather, edited by Robert K. Miller; New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1992. The quotations are on pp. 272, 283, 305. For more, see “Willa Cather: ‘Old Mrs. Harris,’” Dec. 9, 2024.