My Dear "Neighbor Rosicky"

Willa Cather’s Neighbor Rosicky is quite possibly the most beautiful, fulfilling, and moving short story that I have ever had the privilege to read.  Besides the magically perfect and poignantly vivid descriptions of the farmlands and countryside—the High Prairie—of Nebraska that me feel as though I might have looked up from my book at any moment and seen the open fields and softly falling snow, Cather’s impeccable mastery of the subject matter she presents through these characters is profound.  The ideals of a simple country life, of personal freedoms and independence of spirit, and of the longing for a deeper happiness that is unattainable to those too busy working for it to actually discover, are here brought to life in a more eloquent and lyric way than I could ever have possibly imagined. 

Rosicky himself is made so real, so round and fully developed as a thinking, feeling human being (and all in the space of just a few brief pages), that when he speaks I am captivated, when he acts I admire him, when he remembers my heart breaks, and when he dies I feel as though I have just lost my own grandfather.  After finishing the last and most wrenchingly beautiful words on the page, I find myself turning back to the beginning of the story only to be in Rosicky’s company again, or else I lose myself in simply gazing out the window at a willow branch moving slowly and gently as the early evening breeze stirs the air, entranced and sensing a feeling of deep gratification by the simple sight.

           

Neighbor Rosicky is a work of Modernist fiction in many ways and on various levels.  Firstly, it is centered around a poor immigrant farmer—one of the “common people” or minorities (either ethnic, gender, racial, class, or otherwise) who were increasingly at the forefront of Modernist literature as subjects, authors, or intended audience.  Also, the story integrates local and regional dialects, with Rosicky’s urban Bohemian accent even differing slightly from his wife’s country Czech pronunciations: a feat begun by Mark Twain’s groundbreaking Huckleberry Finn and, although certainly difficult to accomplish, making a strong impact in Modernist works.  Finally, Neighbor Rosicky encompasses the grand themes of simplicity, nature, spirit, determination, and freedom that began in American literature in earnest with Emerson and Thoreau and the Transcendentalists, and which were carried on with much enthusiasm and renewed vigor by the Modernists.

           

As the editors of the Harper Single Volume American Literature say of Modernist writers’ contributions to the magazines of the day, one could also say of Willa Cather on her work in this story: “[She] examined the consequences of the quickened pace of urban life and the flood of modern technological inventions on the moods of people and on the landscape.”  I believe that statement summarizes the essence, if not the magnitude, of Neighbor Rosicky.