The Reading Hour

Episode 50 introduces us to the reserved Louisa and Henry van der Luyden, at the tip of the New York elite's "slippery" social pyramid, as they seek to rectify a slight against another high-stationed family. Meanwhile, Newland Archer becomes more familiar with the eccentricities of Madame Olenska.

Episode 49 relates the first of Newland Archer and May Welland's betrothal visits to the house of Mrs. Manson Mingott, Mr. Sillerton Jackson's dinner with the Archers, and the rarefied life of the New York elite "in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs." A brief overview of Wharton's life is also provided after the break.

In episode 48, The Reading Hour begins its fourth season with the opening three chapters of The Age of Innocence (1920), in which Edith Wharton introduces us to the milieu of New York City's Gilded-Age elite including the Pulitzer-winning novel's three main characters: Newland Archer, May Welland, and Countess Ellen Olenska. The relevance of Wharton's co-authoring the interior design manual The Decoration of Houses (1897) is also addressed.

Episode 47 concludes our reading of My Ántonia with the remaining two and a half chapters of Book V, "Cusak's Boys," in which Jim Burden recalls his lifelong Bohemian friend's generous, generative firing of "images in the mind that did not fade—that grew stronger with time."

Episode 46 includes all of Book VI, "The Pioneer Woman's Story," in which the elderly Widow Steavens relates the tale of Ántonia Shimerda's betrothal and motherhood. Jim Burden then jumps forward to relate, in Book V ("Cusak's Boys"), his visit two decades later with her burgeoning family.

Episode 45 presents the whole of My Ántonia's short third book, entitled "Lena Lingard," in which narrator Jim Burden relates highlights of his first year as a student of Classics in Lincoln. (I offer my insights regarding Cather's references to Paestum, Virgil's Georgics, and Dante's Christian version of the epic Latin poet Statius in the Purgatorio.) The four chapters also relate Jim's interest in one of the so-called hired girls of Book II, who has taken up dressmaking in Nebraska's capital city.

Episode 44 concludes the second book of Willa Cather's My Ántonia, "The Hired Girls," with chs. 12 through 15, in which Jim Burden delivers his Commencement address, enjoys a restful day on the river among the blossoming elders, and grapples with Ántonio's employer, Wick Cutter.

Episode 43 begins with a warning about ch. 7 of Book II, in which the fictive narrator Jim Burden describes a "negro" entertainer in language that listeners may find prejudicially pejorative. (Those who wish to skip the chapter may scroll ahead to minute 21:00.) Much of today's reading from My Ántonia concerns how the arrival of a dancing tent in Black Hawk brought about Tony's departure from the Harlings. The episode concludes with two more poems by Marianne Moore: "Poetry" and "The Past is the Present."

Episode 42 introduces the second of My Ántonia's five books, which begins a couple of years after Book I left off. First Jim then Ántonia move to Black Hawk and adjust to life in town.

Episode 41 concludes the first of My Ántonia's five books with Jim's account of his and the Shimerdas' first year in Nebraska. Even as spring and summer return, a chill settles over the former friendship between those on the Burdens' farm and the Bohemian family, but Grandfather Burden effects a reconciliation.