“Uncle Valentine” was published in 1925, the same year as Cather’s novel, The Professor’s House. Both stories feature a man who is tied to a particular place in order to create his best work, a place that is threatened. For the professor, it is his workspace in the sewing room of his old house. For Valentine, it is the refuge he finds in the family home and surrounding landscape that he returns to after escaping a bad marriage. I didn’t make this connection myself. It is a comparison Bernice Slote makes in her introduction to Uncle Valentine and Other Stories.
I saw more connection to My Antonia, at least in terms of structure. In that novel, Jim Burden looks back to write the story of his childhood friend Antonia. In this short story, the narrator, Marjorie, tells the story of her Uncle Valentine to an American girl studying music in Paris. Marjorie seems to be a mature adult now, but she’s telling a story from when she was sixteen.
Her story begins with Uncle Valentine returning home. He intentionally created a scandal to escape his wife, burning her rather severely, and now seems to be the most free of men. He’s composing wonderful songs and seems colorful and carefree. Long walks through the hills and forests surrounding his home fulfill him, as do simpatico family members.
Uncle Valentine in Eden
But all is not well in Uncle Valentine’s Eden. The pollution of Pittsburgh hovers in the distance. He hates the “ugly women” his sister Charlotte invites to his welcome home party, and the men of his family are psychologically damaged and/or alcoholics. Drugs are mentioned. If you haven’t read this story, I won’t spoil it, but it has an ending that I did not see coming.
The young American student asks why Valentine didn’t write more beautiful songs. The teacher replies, “Oh, the things that always prevent one: marriage, money, friends, the general social order.” Also, he was killed while still young by a “motor truck . . . one of the first in Paris” (3). That is on the story’s first page, so it’s not too much of a spoiler.
Since finishing “Uncle Valentine,” I’ve been thinking about Slote’s connecting it to The Professor’s House. In the novel, the professor is alive at the end, and the last time I read it, I wondered if he’d make changes to better his life conditions. There is hope in the end because he’s alive, but Valentine, on the other hand, is dead. There is no second chance for him.
This didn’t seem like an utterly bleak story, even with the damaged men lurking around Valentine’s home, his hatred of “ugly women,” and his literally being mowed down by modernity. Cather’s theme of the artistic spirit being crushed by an ill-suited spouse, the ravages of industrial capitalism, and American small-mindedness are present. Still, this story seems much more about a specific individual and his choices. I’m curious what others think of this.
Ethelbert Nevin
As I mentioned in the reminder post, some of the elements of this story were inspired by Cather’s friend Ethelbert Nevin, a very well-known composer. One such connection is the scene when Valentine goes Christmas shopping with his sister, Charlotte, and they have a wonderful day together. Bernice Slote connects that scene and a letter Cather wrote to a friend in 1898, in which she shared how Nevin went shopping with her earlier that day, carried her bundles, and brought her flowers [xxv].
Learn more about Nevin here.
Works Cited
Cather, Willa. Uncle Valentine and Other Stories: Willa Cather’s Uncollected Short Fiction, 1915-1929. University of Nebraska Press, 1973.
New to this blog? Learn more about the Willa Cather Short Story Project here. In a nutshell, we read one Cather short story a month. I remind everyone what story we’re reading on the second Wednesday of the month and then share a response on the fourth Wednesday. Jump in anytime!