Rating: 
Summary: Good, But Not Cather's Best
Review: "A Lost Lady" is a good read and any experience with Willa Cather's outstanding writing is worth your time, but it's not her best story. "My Antonia" is best followed by "O' Pioneers". Start with those and then by all means read this and everything else that is Cather. She's GREAT!!
Rating:
Summary: Good, But Not Cather's Best
Review: "A Lost Lady" is a good read and any experience with Willa Cather's outstanding writing is worth your time, but it's not her best story. "My Antonia" is best followed by "O' Pioneers". Start with those and then by all means read this and everything else that is Cather. She's GREAT!!
Rating: 
Summary: a lost lady
Review: A novel of retrospection, A Lost Lady (1923) tells of events several decades earlier, when the rapid growth of the railroads was both expanding - and ending - the western frontier. But that is the larger, the national, backdrop against which more intimate dramas are played out, dramas that have to do with youth and age and beauty, and with adultry, sadism, and the growth of a young man, Niel Herbert. Niel idolizes Captain Forrester's young wife, Marion, and in this he is not alone. All who visit the Forrester's home find Marion's warmth and vitality captivating. In Cather's imagination, Mrs Forrester embodies the natural energy of the west itself: ageless and utterly unselfconscious of its own vibrant beauty. So, too, the Captain stands for all that once was the best in America but is now being lost in a greedy bid for money and land; the Captain is a man of conscience - strong, honorable, solid as a mountain. Their home, Sweet Water, is a kind of Eden on the prairie, and even the willow stakes he planted to mark his property lines come to bloom.Over time, as Niel matures, his "lady" too ages. And when the Captain dies, she falls on bad times, hurt rather than aided by advice from her lawyer. Her fall however is as much moral as it is financial - or at least it is in Niel's eyes. He notes that she has begun to use cosmetics and sherry. He finds her voice too loud, her laughter too forced. Niel loses his lady- or perhaps he gives her up. There is a kind of poignancy to this brief novel, and a unity that is as pleasing as the story itself. It is, on the one hand, the story of the West's golden youth and fading future. On the other hand, it is the story of a young man's growth and an aging woman's refusal to live as others would prefer.
Rating: 
Summary: The Lost Frontier
Review: First Cather book I've read. I was impressed, frankly and I think I'll read more. Set in the 1880's/90's in Nebraska, this book chronicles the relationship of a young boy/man and the wife of a wealthy local luminary. As the boy turns into a man, his early admiration for the lady turns into contempt. Is this about a human relationship or rather a metaphor for the rise and decline of the plains economy in the aftermath of the railroad? Maybe both. One interesting aspect about this book, and, I suppose, all of Cather's work, is that she is writing about a period some twenty or thirty years prior to the era when she was writing. I thought that was pretty cool. She seems like an early example of the "New Yorker" style fiction writer. Good stuff.
Rating:
Summary: this is excellent! very underrated!
Review: i had heard a lot about willa cather (death comes for the archbishop, my antonia) but i had never heard of A Lost Lady until i went to the bookstore and found it, picking it mainly because it was short. however, once i started reading it i never wanted it to end! i think it is one of her finest novels and i wish more people knew about it. mrs. forrester's struggles are so real and timeless.
Rating:
Summary: A very complex character
Review: I have been amazed by this novel because of the ambiguity of its protagonist, Marian Forrester. On the one hand, it seems to me that she is a very good wife who is the perfect companion for her husband; however, on the other hand, she seems to enjoy more than ever when she is accompanied by young men. These very opposed extremes forbid me to state a clear judgement about her. However,I recommend this rather interesting novel
Rating:
Summary: A Lost Lady
Review: I really enjoyed reading this book. The storyline was unique and the characters intricate and amusing. Mrs. Forrester was a wonderful wife of the times, but was not afraid to act out of the norm for her era. She did what she wanted. My thoughts of her were divided, sometimes I disliked her and sometimes I admired her. All of the different people's relationships were complicated, but kept the reader on his/her feet. If you want a good book that makes you think, A Lost Lady is great for analyzing.
Rating:
Summary: Complex characters and a true story of the west
Review: I thought A Lost Lady was a really good, fast read. The characters were complex, especially Mrs. Forrester and the Captain. Mrs. Forrester was the devoted and kind wife at some times and the lying, deceitful adulteress at others. I had a hard time deciding whether to love her as Niel did, or hate her. The relationships were as varied and complicated as the characters, and that's what makes A Lost Lady so great for analyzing.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and moving...
Review: I've read most of Cather's novels and this is pretty close to the top of the list. More sophisticated and complex than the well-beloved (by high school English teachers) 'My Antonia', 'A Lost Lady' plays with similar elements but seems (in structure and content) so much more successful. 'A Lost Lady' explores the fragile role women played in society around the turn of the century and, as such, stands up admirably with Wharton's 'The House of Mirth'. For other interesting Cather, give 'The Professor's House' and 'My Mortal Enemy' a shot.
Rating:
Summary: As brilliant as it is short
Review: In the opening sentence of this short novel, Cather describes Sweet Water, the Nebraska town in which it takes place, as "so much grayer today" than it was a generation or so before, when the story takes place. When she wrote those words in 1923, she couldn't possibly have known how prophetic or poignant they would be today, as that part of the country has continued to lose population and become dotted with ghost towns in the decades since then. But sad as that may be, it only adds to the brilliance of this story of times that changed and a community that didn't keep up with the changes. As per usual for Cather, her heroine is seen mostly through the eyes of a young male character, about whom we know less in the end than we do about the woman he tells of. Taking place toward the end of the nineteenth century, it's a coming of age story for the both of them and for the land they call home, and, one could argue, for America at large. (Subtlety always was among Cather's strongest points; it's never easy to tell for certain whether her stories really are only about individuals or whether they're intended as an allegory for the loss of her beloved Midwestern frontier.) As the times change, so does the place of her protagonist, Mrs. Forrester, in the insular community due to some circumstances she can't control and some she can but won't. Like the title itself, the story ultimately leaves it up to us to decide whether she is ultimately better or worse off at the end than at the beginning and whether her fate reflects poorly on her friends and neighbors or herself, or both. The one certainty is a loss of youthful exuberance on the part of the town as a whole, which Cather paints vividly as a bustling young community at first and a wounded, declining one not long thereafter. We're left on our own to decide what it all says about Mrs. Forrester, her generation, women in society as a whole, and Cather's own opinions about it all. It's not easy to leave so much ambiguity without leaving the reader frustrated, but remarkably, that's just what happens here.
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