Random Thoughts on Pearl Harbor and Willa Cather And How This Event and This Person are Joined by a Date in History

Of course this is the sixty-eighth anniversary of the Japanese attack on the American naval base in Pearl Harbor. While it would have happened, almost certainly; this was the event that catapulted Americans into the world war.

It would become one of the iconic moments of American history. During my growing up as it was also my parent’s lived memory. So it was never, never forgotten.

Time passes…

The Japanese are our staunchest allies in Asia. And have been for more than a generation.

Time passes…

While I believe this date will be etched into my mind for the whole of my life, already I am aware how it is becoming history. After all people of an age to be my children are now moving into leadership of our nation and the world.

Time passes…

And this passing of time allows me to notice other events that happened in history on this day.

For one this is the birthday of Willa Cather. I don’t have a feel for how well she’s received these days. The article at Wikipedia notes how luminaries of her time such as H. L. Mencken praised her beautiful and simple writing style and that when Sinclair Lewis won the Nobel prize for literature he freely acknowledged that Cather should have won it. She did win a Pulitzer.

Time passes.

She’s been out of favor for political reasons.

Time passes.

She’s been in favor because of her ecological consciousness…

Again, I’m not sure where she fits in the American literary pantheon today.

My favorite of her books is Death Comes for the Archbishop. The novel is loosely based on the life of the founder of the first Roman Catholic diocese in New Mexico.

I found it lyrical in its simplicity and the themes are the themes of human life…

Simple. Beautiful. Haunting.

I will always be more sympathetic to the Catholic church because of this book, written, I believe, by a Protestant, if not a completely secular figure.

But it is her treatment of the Southwest and its native peoples that most moves me.

Again. Simple. Beautiful. Haunting.

And she brings with that an integration of human psychology and the world as it is which presents a spirituality, which at least in my memory, is compelling, naturalistic, and true.

And, time passes…

It would tickle me pick if I learned somewhere that this posting led someone to pick up a copy of the book…

Well worth a read.