A Book A Week #44-Neighbour Rosicky

I don’t get to teach English as much as I would like.  I find ways to keep my hand in, figuratively speaking.  Each year I pick a few books that are in the 11th grade ‘canon’ and then when I hear one of my anatomy students are going to choose one of those ‘mystery books’ for their research paper then I offer to read it with them and be a resource to bounce ideas off of.  I love coming up with paper topics as long as I don’t have to write them.

This was a short story/novella that I read to help a student with their paper.  It’s been years since I read Willa Cather.  I went into it knowing that Faulkner was not a fan, which probably meant I would like it.  I was right.

Faulkner didn’t like this story because, as he argued, Cather portrays a life of simplicity and being out of debt as all you need for happiness.  After reading it, I disagree.  There’s another element that the main character has that is his true source of happiness–relationships.  It’s no wonder Faulkner missed that. (Yes, that was a dig at Faulkner.)

This was a touching story with a nice ending.  It can be found online and it’s an easy read.