who can know?

storm cloud near Red Cloud

From the introduction to My Antonia, an exchange between Jim Burden and the unidentified author of the introduction: "We agreed that no one who had not grown up in a little prairie town could know anything about it." 

And there is the dilemma, succinctly stated.  Is it possible for anyone to know about anything that we have not experienced directly for ourselves?  And if it is not possible, then how will we develop bonds of relationship and compassion for each other?

Surely there is a role for imagination that bridges what I have not experienced in a way that fosters empathy, not only for those 'less fortunate' than me, but for anyone who is not me.  And isn't that one of the functions of art and scholarship, to build such a bridge that we can cross?  Reading Cather's work we are offered an opportunity to learn something about growing up in a little prairie town, not every thing, but something worth knowing.  We need not take her novel as the only source; in fact, we ought to come to it with both sympathy and eyes wide open.  But, if we don't read it and engage our imagination and our evaluative capacities, we will know less.