A review by luke_christopher_west
O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

emotional reflective relaxing sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A counterpoint to Gone With The Wind. Both feature a practical, independent woman criticised for her strong will, who matures over the novel, and who is deeply attached to her father and her land. But modest Alexandra Bergson cuts a very different figure from the haughty Scarlett O’Hara, and while GWTW is pulpy and monstrous (in size, at least, though perhaps not at most), O Pioneers! is lean, unassuming. A quiet pervades the novel; no sweeping Steiner score would suit its poignant chronicle of the prairie. One laments that Cather’s (great American?) novel did not achieve the popularity of Mitchell’s.