Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by roscoehuxley
So Big by Edna Ferber
5.0
In my quest to read classics I've never read, So Big is a confirmation of why I need to continue this effort.
A simple, short novel, So Big was a pleasure to read from a literary and historical point of view. Starting in the 1890s, Ferber tells the story of Selina DeJong - her childhood with a gambler father, her sudden move to become a teacher in a Dutch truck farm community (somewhere south/west of Chicago - you Chicago folks I'm sure can tell me exactly where this was), her marriage and survival as a vegetable farmer. Selina succeeds in getting her son, Dirk, to move away from the farm, yet she is not, in the end, pleased with Dirk's choice of careers.
So Big won the Pulitzer Prize in 1924. In the novel, Ferber reflects the changes in the status of women going on in the 1920s and, I feel reflects the 1920s/post-war/pre-Depression love of art and creativity.
The ending left me puzzled. It felt somewhat rushed and unfinished - like there is another paragraph/chapter out there. Yet, it leaves the reader the the freedom to decide on their own what exactly does Dirk decide to do????
A simple, short novel, So Big was a pleasure to read from a literary and historical point of view. Starting in the 1890s, Ferber tells the story of Selina DeJong - her childhood with a gambler father, her sudden move to become a teacher in a Dutch truck farm community (somewhere south/west of Chicago - you Chicago folks I'm sure can tell me exactly where this was), her marriage and survival as a vegetable farmer. Selina succeeds in getting her son, Dirk, to move away from the farm, yet she is not, in the end, pleased with Dirk's choice of careers.
So Big won the Pulitzer Prize in 1924. In the novel, Ferber reflects the changes in the status of women going on in the 1920s and, I feel reflects the 1920s/post-war/pre-Depression love of art and creativity.
The ending left me puzzled. It felt somewhat rushed and unfinished - like there is another paragraph/chapter out there. Yet, it leaves the reader the the freedom to decide on their own what exactly does Dirk decide to do????