O Pioneers!

I am not sure how this book has escaped my reading it before now. I adore historical fiction. I read a lot about the prairie days of westward expansion and of the hard working pioneer families that are a part of my ancestry. However, somehow this book was missed. Throughout high school, college and personal reading. I am glad that I discovered it.Honestly, I don't recall hearing Cather's name before which is a shock as well. I must say that I will be looking into more of her writings in the future.Originally published in 1913, "The book takes place on the plains of Nebraska in the late 19th Century as the Prairie is settled by Swedish, Bohemian, and French immigrants trying to eke out a living from what appears to be a harsh, inhospitable land. The heroine of the book is Alexandra Bergson who inherits her father's farm as a young woman, raises his three sons and stays with the farm through the harsh times to become a successful landowner and farmer. The book speaks of being wedded to the land and to place. In this sense it is an instance of the American dream of a home. It also speaks of a strong woman, not a cliched, late 20th Century terms but with a sense of ambiguity, difficulty and loss. This is a story as well of thwarted love, of the difficult nature of sexuality, and of human passion. There is also the beginning of what in Cather's works will become and increased sense of religion, Catholicism in particular, as a haven and a solace for the sorrow she finds at the heart of human endeavor. Above all it is a picture of stark life in the Midwest. There is almost as much blood-letting in this short book as in an Elizabethan tragedy. Cather's picture of American life on the plains, even in her earliest books, is not an easy or simple one, however, "O Pioneers" is a thoughtful, well written story of immigrant life on the plains and of the sorrow pain, and strength of the American experience." (Amazon description)From the very beginning, I was struck by Cather's descriptions. Listen to this, the SECOND sentence. "A mist of fine snowflakes was curling and eddying about the cluster of low drab buildings huddled on the gray prairie, under a gray sky." Can't you just see it?! Do you feel the icy cold of the snow?Her descriptions continue throughout, a wonderful addition to the story. I have a lot of admiration for Alexandra. She is a strong girl, an adoring older sister to Emil, and a good daughter. I was quite surprised by some events in this book, but it's hard to review this book and not give away spoilers, so I think I will end with just a few of the quotes that I loved, and the recommendation to read it if you are at all interested in the history of our country, or of the west."A pioneer should have imagination, should be able to enjoy the idea of things more than the things themselves.""People have to snatch at happiness when they can, in the world. It is always easier to lose than to find. What I have is yours, if you care enough about me to take it.""We come and go, but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it - for a little while."

Every time I read something by Cather I am struck by the simple language, the simple stories, and the awe with which she presents the life of the early Americans. Their daily life on a good day was about fifty times harder than ours. Their struggles are beyond my ken. How do we recover some of that groundedness again?

Cather doesn’t require any new insight from me. But, I do like her writing style. This is my first time reading one of her books. It won’t be my last. She provides beautiful descriptions of the physical world her characters inhabit, a world that is long gone but the she knew firsthand. Fair warning, this is a tragedy not a romance.

3.5 starsThis mini novel is the first in Willa Cather's Great Plains Trilogy and is the shortest of the three. The books are all different and can be read in any order; however, they all share a focus on the prairie landscape and on the women of this American frontier at the turn of the nineteenth century. The feminist component imbued in these stories was a trailblazer in its time.The three books are as follows: O Pioneers! (1913), The Song of the Lark (1915), and My Antoniá (1918).O Pioneers! is set in the fictional town of Hanover, Nebraska, sometime between 1883 and 1890. It centers around the Bergsons, a family of Swedish immigrants who deal with both the hardships and triumphs of farming an untamed land with an uncertain future. The eldest daughter, Alexandra, is the central focus as she inherits the land—as well as the future of her three younger brothers-- when her father dies. She's a mere 20 yet embodies the true grit and vision it takes to deal with the unpredictability of nature and the risks of new ideas. This is a woman with convictions and she's determined to put in the effort and time it takes so her progeny will have better lives one day.I think there are three things I loved most about this story.... watching the lives of immigrants transform as they reap the benefits of their hard-earned labor (particularly how the youngest brother has opportunities in education)... all the descriptive writing here... and the fact that it is centered around a woman of strength and intelligence who lives more for her land-related dreams than merely silly romance (not that's there's anything wrong with romance... I just love when historical females engage in something beyond their usual lot).However, I think the novel is rather short and hasn't aged in the best way. Occasionally, I was bored. The narrative jumps 3 years into the future, and later, 16 years into the future. For me, the struggles that went down in those spaces would have been interesting to read about. Just not a lot of development here. The ending is also a bit of a downer but that's pioneer life for ya, I suppose… and I woulda probably hated it if it had a fairy tale ending anyway.It also reads like a Young Adult novel and I am gonna shelve it as such. The language is fairly simple and plain (as are the people therein). I mean, it's also written in a very descriptive manner, which I always appreciate... but I can see why this trilogy is often found in schools (I read My Antoniá in high school yrs ago). It's historical but also very accessible for young minds. I could have read this one in junior high and understood it perfectly.What's been especially interesting is reading about Willa Cather herself. Not just her own experiences with the American frontier or as a writer... but also her possible lifestyle/identification as a lesbian, or, some believe, even a transman. Fascinating!

O Pioneers! by Willa Cather is an excellent fictional book. It is about a girl named Alexandra Bergson and her perseverance to keep her family's farmland after her father's death. At first, the farmland is not profitable, and is also very hard to keep up, but eventually the land proves to be very profitable. The land is extremely beautiful to her and is her best companion throughout her life. However, she still has interesting relationships with her older brothers and her younger brother named Emil. Willa Cather has done a great job and effectively illustrates the themes of perseverance and love of the land in her book O Pioneers!.

Willa Cather's superb account of the first generation of European settlers on the Nort American great plains

I read this as part of my book club - not my kind of book at all but I surprisingly thoroughly enjoyed it! The description of the land, the work, the life of an America which is all new is fascinating. The characters are well written and even if the language was sometimes complex it was readable and interesting.

Alexandra Bergson was older than her brothers, Lou, Oscar & Emil and knew so much more of life. She had promised her father on his deathbed that she would care for them and guard the land too. Accordingly, she functions in an incredibly self-sacrificing way for her family for sixteen years. But when she has a chance for happiness with Carl Linstrum, her siblings Lou & Oscar start bickering.

This version of Cather's novel is written in the strangest style. It reads almost like a bad translation. Comparing to other websites that critique O Pioneers, it appears quite different and this edition suffers for it. Is this really the way Cather wrote it? I can't imagine that it was meant to be like this.

Scrittura veramente ostica. Da opera prima.L'ho acquistato perchè amo i racconti edificanti in cui qualcuno esce da una situazione disagiata e fa fortuna:Qui però la parte interessante in cui la nostra eroina si rimbocca le maniche e rimette a nuovo la proprietà di famiglia viene bypassata con un salto temporale.