Ernie on "O Pioneers" by Willa Cather

For the most part, we all live ordinary lives.  Probably no one would be writing a novel about us.  What could they possibly find to say that would be so fascinating everyone would want to read?

Alexandra Bergson is a young farm girl in Nebraska who has a very hard but very ordinary life.  She has a family that she loves but that does not always understand her.  Her parents do what they think is best for everyone but life on the prairie is hard and Alexandra grows up faster than most girls her age.  She has two brothers who know how to run a farm but don’t always live up to their plans.  She has a younger brother that she dotes on and has very high expectations for.  There’s a neighbor boy that Alexandra likes but who can tell if they will ever get together.  Very ordinary, right?

In O Pioneers, Willa Cather tells us an extraordinary tale about this young girl living a hard life.  We follow her as she grows up and then grows older.  Her struggles with the farm, the weather, the economy and even her family make for a story that, if not riveting, is surely remarkable in the way it demands our attention.  Like an old family friend, Alexandra becomes someone that we root for and admire.  We can cheer her simple successes and we can mourn for her straightforward heartbreaks. 

As we learn about the Bergson’s friends and neighbors, Cather delves into serious issues such as immigration, religious tolerance and those scoundrels on Wall Street.  Amazing how timeless some topics remain.  Desire, another timeless issue, rears its head in the form of Alexandra’s little brother and a married woman.

if they'd only had power on the prairie I'm sure life wouldn't
have been so hard!

O Pioneers jumps in time throughout the book; days, months, sometimes years go by in the space of a page.  Cather only tells us the bare facts that need to drive the story.  Her scene descriptions are sparse seeming to match the bleakness of the cold Nebraska prairie.  This economy of prose makes her writing that much easier and enjoyable to read. 

Written in 1913, this is one of Cather’s earlier books.  We reviewed Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) a while back and Sandra and I both enjoyed that novel very much.  With this book, Willa Cather is becoming one of my favorite authors.  I look forward to reading more of her work. 

Next Week:  Sandra reads The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Getrude Stein--just the title with author alone is a head scratcher!!