Cather, Willa. O Pioneers. New York : Everyman's Library. 1913. Print.
One January day, thirty years ago, the little town of Hanover, anchored on a windy Nebraska tableland, was trying not to be blown away. A mist of fine snowflakes was curling and eddying about the cluster of low drab buildings, huddles on the gray prairie, under a gray sky. The dwelling houses were set about haphazard on the tough prairie sod; some of them looked as if they had been moved in overnight, and others as if they were straying off by themselves, headed straight for the open plain.
Description:
Right from the openng sentences, O Pioneers! by Willa Cather pulls readers into the windswept tiny settlement of Hanover, Nebraska at the turn of the nineteenth century. One cannot help but picture the desolation, the cold, and the emptiness that surrounds the people who are trying to scratch out a new town and solidify their own lives against tremendous obstacles. They are immigrants, German, Bohemian, Czech, and Swedish, who are shaped by the land as much as they try to wrestle the same land to work for them.
This novel first brought author Cather to the attention of the literary world as it sparingly recounts the courage, fortitude, and resourcefulness of one woman, Alexandra Bergson, a Bohemian daughter with two younger brothers.
As her father began to weaken with a long illness, he turned over the operational decisions of the farm to his eldest daughter, Alexandra. His decision was constantly challenged by her two strong but less-mentally capable brothers who did the heavy work in the fields and felt they should have more say in the land's future.
After the father's death, the acreage was equally divided among the three siblings with each having completelcontrol over a segment. But is is Alexandra and her section which succeeds, further evoking the complaints and envy of her brothers. Faced with natural forces of drought and stubborn soil, as well as the doubts of her two brothers over her management ideas, Alexandra definitely became a force to be reckoned with.
Years pass and Alexandra began to make the farm flourish and even expand. But there is a cost. She becomes isolated from the one man who clearly loves her and courts her to no avail. She is simply too busy dealing with the everyday challenges and decisions of a struggling farm, as well as planning for its future.
How terrible it was to love people when you could not really share their lives!
O Pioneers! is the first of Willa Cather's Prairie Trilogy series (along with My Antonia and Song of the Lark), all set in the plains of Nebraska in the early 1900s. (She eventually won the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours). I have only read My Antonia and had the same admiration and warm feeling about the Nebraska land, the time, and the families. My Antonia is an equally absorbing novel which follows the lives of two children who grow up together on the prairies. I recommend both books for lovers of great writing, setting, and characters.
[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:]
Young, Carrie. Nothing To Do But Stay
Memoirs of a woman living alone on the prairies of North Dakota after her husband died. The enthralling stories of her keeping a household, raising children, and surviving by cooking for field workers make this book a wonderfully engrossing read with my highest recommendation. (Previously reviewed here.)
Happy reading.
Fred
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