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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A survival tale reminiscent of the "gumption" of Gone with the Wind. A little Steinbeckian with the taming of the wild lands, our lead character is Alexandra, a determined hard-nosed worker who was willed low-country plains by her passing father. Despite incompetent brothers and a constant pressure to move back to the cities east, Alexandra maintains her promise to develop the land and ultimately cultivates it into something worthwhile.
O Pioneers is a true tale of loyalty, the American work ethic, and an immigrants struggle to make it in a foreign land. A condensed story (only about 180 pages), but one that stayed with me, especially Alexandra's character. So much is put on her shoulders, and she forgoes the pleasures of many natural human vices to conquer and make profitable her new land.
And with this survival tale are two love stories naturally interwoven without being too overpowering. Alexandra's brother, Emil, and his fatal flaw: his love for a married woman, Maria; and the return of Carl Lindstrum, a childhood friend who catches the eye of Alexandra. Can't say enough about this book. It was great.
O Pioneers is a true tale of loyalty, the American work ethic, and an immigrants struggle to make it in a foreign land. A condensed story (only about 180 pages), but one that stayed with me, especially Alexandra's character. So much is put on her shoulders, and she forgoes the pleasures of many natural human vices to conquer and make profitable her new land.
And with this survival tale are two love stories naturally interwoven without being too overpowering. Alexandra's brother, Emil, and his fatal flaw: his love for a married woman, Maria; and the return of Carl Lindstrum, a childhood friend who catches the eye of Alexandra. Can't say enough about this book. It was great.
I remember putting [b:Death Comes for the Archbishop|545951|Death Comes for the Archbishop|Willa Cather|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1424830862s/545951.jpg|1457974] back on the library shelf when I was kid, thinking it sounded boring. Perhaps that preconception stuck with me, because this is the first Cather I've read. It is far from boring. The prose seems effortless, the pages turn quickly and I became invested in the characters.
Over the weekend, while in Jackson, Mississippi, I came across a quoted conversation (in the Mississippi Writers Exhibit in the public library renamed the Eudora Welty Library) that had Faulkner answering Clark Cable's question about whom he thought were the best living writers:
"Ernest Hemingway, Willa Cather, Thomas Mann, John Dos Passos, and myself."
I found it interesting that Faulkner included Cather (and that I came across this while I was reading her for the first time). Though there are no similarities as far as their styles, the conception of the land as an eternal presence can be found in this novel, as it is in Faulkner's works.
This was an early novel of Cather's and from what I've heard, there are others of hers that are even better. I look forward to reading them.
Over the weekend, while in Jackson, Mississippi, I came across a quoted conversation (in the Mississippi Writers Exhibit in the public library renamed the Eudora Welty Library) that had Faulkner answering Clark Cable's question about whom he thought were the best living writers:
"Ernest Hemingway, Willa Cather, Thomas Mann, John Dos Passos, and myself."
I found it interesting that Faulkner included Cather (and that I came across this while I was reading her for the first time). Though there are no similarities as far as their styles, the conception of the land as an eternal presence can be found in this novel, as it is in Faulkner's works.
This was an early novel of Cather's and from what I've heard, there are others of hers that are even better. I look forward to reading them.
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Not what I was expecting! Cather writes a descriptive setting that makes even city dwellers want to try their hand at farming. I felt Alexandra’s connection to the land as deeply as she did.
Character development was compelling. In audio form, it was sometimes difficult to recall how old the characters were, and how the reader should feel towards their actions because of it. My heart broke so many times as the story continued and at other points I was completely frustrated because someone just wasn’t getting what seemed so obvious.
Overall a brilliant read and she continues to prove why she is a force to be reckoned with as an early female author.
Character development was compelling. In audio form, it was sometimes difficult to recall how old the characters were, and how the reader should feel towards their actions because of it. My heart broke so many times as the story continued and at other points I was completely frustrated because someone just wasn’t getting what seemed so obvious.
Overall a brilliant read and she continues to prove why she is a force to be reckoned with as an early female author.
emotional
medium-paced
This is the first book I’ve read by Willa Cather and won’t be the last. I loved this and it resonated with me being from a rural area. The land becomes a part of you.
The first book in Willa Cather's prairie trilogy, O Pioneers! is a beautiful book which evokes the senses. The style of Cather's writing and the story she unfolds is wholly lovely in its simplicity. The novel tells the story of a family of Swedish immigrants farming in Hanover, Nebraska. While dying, an immigrant father bequeaths his land to the care of his daughter, rather than to his sons. In Alexandra, he sees her love of both the land and her family runs deep, and she possesses the intelligence, heart and spirit necessary to survive the harsh reality of the plains. The Bergson family faces the same difficult struggles as other homesteaders and Alexandra takes up the challenge of making the farm a viable enterprise while other immigrant families are leaving their land in search of easier, perhaps less futile lives.
from willa cather.org - http://www.willacather.org/pioneers:
"O Pioneers! (1913) was Willa Cather's first great novel, and to many it remains her unchallenged masterpiece. No other work of fiction so faithfully conveys both the sharp physical realities and the mythic sweep of the transformation of the American frontier -- and the transformation of the people who settled it. Cather's heroine is Alexandra Bergson, who arrives on the wind-blasted prairie of Hanover, Nebraska, as a girl and grows up to make it a prosperous farm. But this archetypal success story is darkened by loss, and Alexandra's devotion to the land may come at the cost of love itself.
At once a sophisticated pastoral and a prototype for later feminist novels, O Pioneers! is a work in which triumph is inextricably enmeshed with tragedy, a story of people who do not claim a land so much as they submit to it and, in the process, become greater than they were."
In a 1921 interview for Bookman, Willa Cather said, "I decided not to 'write' at all, - simply to give myself up to the pleasure of recapturing in memory people and places I'd forgotten."
from willa cather.org - http://www.willacather.org/pioneers:
"O Pioneers! (1913) was Willa Cather's first great novel, and to many it remains her unchallenged masterpiece. No other work of fiction so faithfully conveys both the sharp physical realities and the mythic sweep of the transformation of the American frontier -- and the transformation of the people who settled it. Cather's heroine is Alexandra Bergson, who arrives on the wind-blasted prairie of Hanover, Nebraska, as a girl and grows up to make it a prosperous farm. But this archetypal success story is darkened by loss, and Alexandra's devotion to the land may come at the cost of love itself.
At once a sophisticated pastoral and a prototype for later feminist novels, O Pioneers! is a work in which triumph is inextricably enmeshed with tragedy, a story of people who do not claim a land so much as they submit to it and, in the process, become greater than they were."
In a 1921 interview for Bookman, Willa Cather said, "I decided not to 'write' at all, - simply to give myself up to the pleasure of recapturing in memory people and places I'd forgotten."
I wavered between giving this 4 or 5 stars, but in the end I couldn't ignore how beautiful the language is and how masterfully the story is woven in this novel. The dialogue...well, okay, it was a little stilted and melodramatic, but it served its purpose of progressing the story and learning more about the characters. I really loved reading the descriptions of the country and how Alexandra was intimately tied to the earth.
Beautiful!
Beautiful!
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes