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    O Pioneers!: Prairie Trilogy Volume 1
    Unavailable
    O Pioneers!: Prairie Trilogy Volume 1
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    O Pioneers!: Prairie Trilogy Volume 1
    Ebook208 pages3 hours

    O Pioneers!: Prairie Trilogy Volume 1

    By Willa Cather

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    When Swedish immigrant Alexandra Bergson inherits her family’s Nebraska farm upon her father’s death, she struggles to save her livelihood. The stalwart Alexandra refuses to give up, even as many other families abandon their dreams of a life on the prairies. While working to make the farm profitable, Alexandra must also contend with her feelings for Carl Linstrum, and deal with her brother Emil, who is involved in a risky affair with a married woman.

    The first novel in Willa Cather’s seminal Great Plains trilogy, O Pioneers! was published in 1913. It has since been adapted into an opera and the 1992 Hallmark Hall of Fame television movie starring Jessica Lange, David Strathairn, and Anne Heche.

    HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 20, 2014
    ISBN9781443432337
    Unavailable
    O Pioneers!: Prairie Trilogy Volume 1
    Author

    Willa Cather

    Born in 1873, Willa Cather was raised in Virginia and Nebraska. After graduating from the University of Nebraska she established herself as a theatre critic, journalist and teacher in Pittsburgh whilst also writing short stories and poems. She then moved to New York where she took a job as an investigative journalist before becoming a full-time writer. Cather enjoyed great literary success and won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel One of Ours. She’s now best known for her Prairie trilogy: O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark and My Ántonia. She travelled extensively and died in New York in 1947.

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    Reviews for O Pioneers!

    4/5

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    • 3/5
      The story of French/Bohemian immigrants to the American West in the late 19th century. I have read much about western settlement and this book did not live up to it's hype. This was mostly a book about interpersonal relationships and not about actual settlement. By this time they had mechanized farming (except tractors) and telephones; not really pioneers, in my mind. This certainly was not on the level of The Little House Books or Sara Donati books. This was my 2nd (and last) Cather book I've read that really wasn't interesting. 198 pages
    • 4/5
      When her father dies, Alexandra takes over the running of the farm in Nebraska. Over the years and told in a series of vignettes, we get to see Alexandra's successes and challenges, and get to know the community of pioneer and immigrant folk who work hard and love the land.My first impression of the book was that the land itself was the most interesting character, and that feeling never quite abandoned me though I was impressed with how much Cather was able to convey about the community in a series of short vignettes that cover a few decades. Did I enjoy the book? It's hard to say. I admired Cather's writing to some extent. I liked some characters and the fact that it was about a woman running a farm. I was disappointed by the side story of Marie and Alexandra's brother Emil. They love each other but of course their love is ill-fated and Marie's jealous husband, Frank, kills them in a fit of passion. It was presented as almost inevitable but it made me mad. The descriptions were sometimes quite lovely. Yet it didn't completely grip me, and I most likely would not read it again.
    • 3/5
      I always had in the back of mind while I was reading this book that it had been written in a much more conservative time. I suspect that it pushed the limits more back then than it feels to be doing now, especially in regard to women's rights. I was struck by how undated the writing was, not stiff in any way, but not exactly free-spirited either. At times, the narrative is quite eloquent, but it had too many wordy, bland passages for me to forgive its variable quality. For the most part, I chock that up to this being an early work for a gifted writer. I expect to enjoy My Antonia even more.
    • 4/5
      Uncharacteristically, I managed to read more than half of this novel without reading the back of book blurb. When I did and saw the word "murder" I laughed. How could such a quiet, deliberate book lead to such a harsh, unforgiving word? Masterfully, it turns out.

      Cather's strength is description. Her descriptions of nature are especially detailed and evocative. But, she's at her best when she is underplaying events, using a few well chosen words to pinpoint emotions. Beautiful and surprising, O Pioneers! will stay with me for a while.
    • 5/5
      Life on the divide is tough. We know this as it is written, " The records of the plow was insignificant, like the feeble scratches of time left by prehistoric races, so indeterminate that they may, after all, be only the markings of glaciers, and not a record of human strivings.John Bergson is dying and he tells his daughter Alexandra he wants her to run the farm when he is gone. She has 3 brothers Emil, Lou and Oscar but everyone knows that it is Alexandra who expresses herself best in soil. John passes on and the family farm prospers for three years after his death but then hard times come. Families around them are selling out and leaving the divide but Alexandra goes down south to look at land and she comes back and talks her brothers into mortgaging the farm so they can buy up more land. Sixteen years after Johns death his wife dies. The farms are now prosperous so the inheritance is divided among the 4 children. Sadly, the coveting expressed in childhood extends into adulthood and ends in tragedy. And, the story comes full circle as Carl is there at the end to help Alexandra, just as he was in the beginning.
    • 4/5
      At the turn of the last century, Alexandra, a first generation Swedish immigrant, shoulders the responsibility of managing a farm in the vast erasure of flat land and endless sky that is Nebraska and raising her three brothers after the untimely death of their parents. She sees and capitalizes upon the potential of the land where others find despair. Frontierswomen are my favorite."Isn't it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before."
    • 4/5
      Worth a trip to Nebraska.
    • 4/5
      An engrossing story to lose yourself in, well read.
    • 4/5
      A character piece. What happens in this book isn't particularly interesting, but the people it centers around is. There isn't anything particularly mesmerizing about any of the characters - they're just so real and wholesome and pleasant that I'd like being friends with them, but they have conflict just enough that they're intriguing to watch from afar as well. I love Alexandra most, of course. A feminist icon.
    • 5/5
      Willa Cather never disappoints me - this may be my favorite yet! What a strong, woman protagonist, as well as another vivid account of Nebraskan pioneers. I enjoyed the way the story spanned two decades, which showed how both the landscape and characters progressed (or didn't).

      I learned from this book that women CAN get married at 40, even if their family finds it peculiar.
    • 2/5
      I feel obligated to say that it wasn't by any means due to the writing, references, or classic applicability of this book that it got a two star rating (I'm calling it a 2.5). It is simply because, although interesting, it was hard pressed to keep my attention for long periods of time. I would still recommend it if you are interested in early colonial mid-west historical fiction!
    • 4/5
      Alexandra is incredible. She was strong, and suffered at the hands of all of her brothers. The story was beautiful, even in it's sadness. The writing was poetic and kept me reading.I loved the ending. The scene where Alexandra realizes it was Jesus who she had been dreaming about for much of her life. I loved it. I was still happy when Carl came back and they agreed to get married, but I also liked the idea of Alexandra becoming a nun (it was implied that was what she was considering this.)The one thing that I didn't like was the victim blaming. Frank Shabata hurt his wife, not physically, but emotionally, for years and years. It was wrong of her and Emil to commit adultry, but two wrongs make more wrong, and I didn't like that first Frank, and then Alexandra essentially blamed Emil and Marie for Frank's murdering them. Besides the fact that this action was a mortal sin for Frank, it also prevented the two of them from repenting their own. Whether he had a temper or not, Frank should not have kept saying that it was her fault for letting him catch them. It was his fault for letting himself become bitter and suspicious. It was his fault for trying to make Marie as bitter as he. It was his fault for taking the gun with him to the orchard when he did not truly think that there were any intruders. And it was his fault for raising the gun to his shoulder and firing. The murder may not have been premeditated, but it was murder none the less. Ivar believes that the Emil and Marie are in Hell for their actions. I don't know whether they are (or whether non-fictional people in their place would be,) but they didn't deserve to die so quickly and without the chance to ask for God's forgiveness.So, basically I really enjoyed the book, but I didn't like the fact that Marie and Emil were blamed for their own murders. They were to blame for the sins they committed, yes, but not for the sins Frank committed. I do think I will be reading more Willa Cather in the future.
    • 5/5
      This book was written in 1913, but it is set in 19th century Nebraska. At that time, a large number of immigrants had made their way to the United States and they came because they knew that land was being offered for free to settlers. This particular settlement is Hanover, Nebraska, and the book is about the Bergstrom family who were immigrants from Sweden. Hard work is definitely not foreign to these people and Alexandra and her family (mother, father, three brothers, and Alexandra herself), Alexandra's father is taken from the family at a fairly young age, but he leaves a sizeable homestead and a house for his family, and he entrusts his daughter to look after it all. He recognizes that she is the most capable of the lot. Alexandra faces this challenge head-on, and she increases her landholdings, and ensures that her family are much better off than when she began. She does this at great sacrifice to her own personal life. This is a story about the strength of the human race; about love and loss; and about great tragedy. It's a wonderful and realistic portrayal of colonial life in the untamed American prairie. I highly recommend this book.
    • 4/5
      Meh, Cather. I read My Antonia sometime in my teens and didn't care for it. Read O! Pioneers in masters degree school and didn't care for it. And I still don't care for it. The descriptions of the land are pretty amazing, and I like some of the characters okay, but for the most part I'm just not gripped or intrigued or fascinated or angered or annoyed or anything really until the end, when Frank shoots his wife, Marie, and Emil and Alexandra is all "well, you know, it's more their fault than yours, Frank, because, you know, carrying on and doing the what-not." Aside from my general "sorry, can't" re: "it's okay to murder your wife and her lover because adultery," Alexandra's reaction to it given her otherwise quite (proto-) feminist attitudes about everything else make me all verhoodled in my brainmeats. This is one of those books I feel is far more important to literature than it ever will be entertaining, enlightening, or appealing to me.
    • 4/5
      This book was a pleasant surprise -- I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did. Written 100 years ago, its observations of human foibles are still apt.
    • 4/5
      Beautifully written and elegantly paced. Willa Cather's talent for description and dialogue make it clear why her fans adore her. Personally, I liked Death Comes for the Archbishop more, though I haven't yet read My Antonia.
    • 4/5
      The first book in Willa Cather's prairie trilogy, O Pioneers! is a beautiful book which evokes the senses. The style of Cather's writing and the story she unfolds are so wholly lovely, without superfluous extravagance. The novel tells the story of a family of Swedish immigrants farming in Hanover, Nebraska. While dying, an immigrant father bequeaths his land to the care of his daughter, rather than to his sons. In Alexandra, he sees her love of both the land and her family runs deep and she possesses the intelligence, heart and spirit necessary to survive the harsh reality of the plains. The Bergson family faces the same difficult struggles as other homesteaders and Alexandra takes up the challenge of making the farm a viable enterprise while other immigrant families are leaving their land in search of easier, perhaps less futile lives.

      So begins an amazing love story. This book addresses love in its many intricate, shifting, and enduring forms: the love of the land, the love of a dream, love within families, love of the past, love of tradition, love of new opportunities, love between friends, the love between men and women, and the love of living. This book gets deep under your fingernails, like the very earth that it celebrates. And though, many of the events recounted are sad, it is the kind of sadness that leaves one feeling hopeful.

      "O Pioneers! (1913) was Willa Cather's first great novel, and to many it remains her unchallenged masterpiece. No other work of fiction so faithfully conveys both the sharp physical realities and the mythic sweep of the transformation of the American frontier -- and the transformation of the people who settled it. Cather's heroine is Alexandra Bergson, who arrives on the wind-blasted prairie of Hanover, Nebraska, as a girl and grows up to make it a prosperous farm. But this archetypal success story is darkened by loss, and Alexandra's devotion to the land may come at the cost of love itself.

      At once a sophisticated pastoral and a prototype for later feminist novels, O Pioneers! is a work in which triumph is inextricably enmeshed with tragedy, a story of people who do not claim a land so much as they submit to it and, in the process, become greater than they were."

      In a 1921 interview for Bookman, Willa Cather said, "I decided not to 'write' at all, - simply to give myself up to the pleasure of recapturing in memory people and places I'd forgotten."
    • 3/5
      The story of French/Bohemian immigrants to the American West in the late 19th century. I have read much about western settlement and this book did not live up to it's hype. This was mostly a book about interpersonal relationships and not about actual settlement. By this time they had mechanized farming (except tractors) and telephones; not really pioneers, in my mind. This certainly was not on the level of The Little House Books or Sara Donati books. This was my 2nd (and last) Cather book I've read that really wasn't interesting. 198 pages
    • 5/5
      O Pioneers by Willa Cather was originally published in 1913 and is written in her trademark spare yet lyrical prose as it explores themes of destiny, chance, love and steadfastness. The setting is that of a farming community in Nebraska which brings a sense of neighbourliness and family ties. Over and above all is the land which these people homesteaded, saw through the lean and difficult years and now are reaping it’s rich benefits. The central character is Alexandra Bergson, the only daughter and oldest child of Swedish immigrants. She holds the family together and to the land when her father passes away unexpectedly. She more than proved herself worthy and made her family one of the most prosperous landowners in the region. Of course there was a price for this success, she gave up any chance of a personal life in order to help the family. Of course, her brothers aren’t always at ease with Alexandra and in later years they try unsuccessfully to control her which causes them to fall out. The tragedy of the story is her youngest brother, Emil, whom Alexandra has basically raised. She wants him to have choices and advantages that the rest of the family didn’t have, but she cannot control his heart which he has given to Marie, a married woman from the town’s French community. Although I haven’t read Willa Cather’s Prairie Trilogy any particular order, O Pioneers is a wonderful addition. Her strong simple characters go about their lives in this descriptive Nebraska setting in a natural manner. There is drama and action but it never feels artificial or forced. I found this to be an excellent read, and it will be one that I remember.
    • 5/5
      I should probably start off this review by admitting that I have not been reading Cather’s Prairie Trilogy in order, having read My Antonia around this time last year. Cather’s strength – IMO anyways – is her wonderfully descriptive prose. She knew how to paint a picture with words! Like My Antonia, Oh Pioneers! gives readers a strong female protagonist, this time in Alexandra Bergson, the eldest child of a Swedish immigrant family who takes over the running of the family farm when the father dies. Like other women in Cather’s stories, Alexandra is an individual with grit and determination, valuable characteristics to have to survive and thrive in the American frontier of the early nineteenth century. Alexandra faces family struggles as her younger brothers side with societal views of the time period and feel that it is inappropriate for Alexandra to be free to do as she pleases, so very much a story about a woman claiming her rights outside of the bounds of traditional social norms of the time period. While a short novel – more a novella – the story only hits a couple of stutters/lurches to the otherwise even flow of the story. A common theme I have found in the Cather stories I have read so far is her ability to communicate to the reader the spiritual connection of land and people. Her characters are grounded, driven with a purpose and not flighty as one might find in some other novels. For me, the high points of this story are the strong female protagonist, the mosaic of immigrant characters from the “old country” that would have populated the American frontier of the time period and Cather’s wonderful, descriptive prose, written in plain, accessible language.
    • 5/5
      The story of a strong female pioneer. It must have really hurt to have her brothers dismiss her contribution because she was a women.
    • 4/5
      I have read excerpts of this book over the years, and it was wonderful to read the full book at last. It's a short read (my copy was a little over 200 pages) and it reads fast as well--much more so than many other novels of the period. Cather is a master of lyrical reason. For that alone, she should be studied and modeled by writers, but her story construction is likewise fascinating. Cather's characters are well-rounded and evocative and utterly relatable. She does follow some conventions of the time, such as tragic, transformative deaths of major characters, but O Pioneers! is actually more positive than other period books in this regard. This is in keeping with the nature of the book's heroine, Alexandra, who is a strong, assertive woman in a male-dominated world. I was bothered by some of Alexandra's actions at the end, but I'm also aware that her reactions were in keeping with a woman of faith in her time.
    • 4/5
      Cather was simply brilliant at painting a picture of Nebraska as the country became tamed and the people that tamed it.
    • 4/5
      O Pioneers!, Book One of the Great Plains Trilogy by Willa Cather was written in 1913 and begins some 30 years earlier. It follows the lives of several groups of immigrant farmers in Nebraska, focusing on the Swedish Bergersen family, especially the strong, wise, Alexandra. From the very first chapter, the simple, clear writing leaps off the page. The prose lovingly describes the Nebraska land and the cycle of highs and lows of the people who live there over the years. It's a simple story simply told and what and how Cather writes is true art. She nostalgically captures the stubbornness and loneliness of these early Plains settlers. A very moving and worthwhile reading experience.
    • 4/5
      While I found this to be well written, it seemed a bit simple in terms of plot. The character development was good and there were some great descriptive passages of the land at the turn of the century as pioneers settled the west, and in this case Nebraska. Taken in historical perspective, I can understand the staying power of this writing.
    • 2/5
      I'm not sure that I care for Cather's work very much, this being the second novel of hers I've read. Something felt lacking here, the characters didn't connect or feel fully developed. The novel suffers from a naivety that likely is representative of the time (and Cather's feminine sentimentality). Several times I was reminded of a watered down (and prude) D. H. Lawrence, another writer I find to be dull despite his mastery of language. Cather has a few poetical moments but not enough to glue the scattered narrative together. I just don't think this novel holds up for contemporary readers.
    • 5/5
      Wow. This book... it kind of blew me away. Reading it evoked such strong mental images, it was almost like the book in my hands was a movie in my head. I read "Shadows on the Rock" once, but I don't remember it having this kind of effect.

      I also liked the way the characters are reintroduced in each section. Especially the first two sections, the characters are described with indefinite articles, so they appear more at a distance and unfamiliar to us readers. Because of this, the changes in their character are highlighted. We can be pretty sure the character is the protagonist we think it is,but it isn't completely certain until we actually read the name.

      So, basically, I thought this book was really, really well written. Also, it re-whetted my appetite for Midwestern American Pioneer history. I'll have to re-read all of the Little House books sometime soon.
    • 5/5
      What a wonderful novel. It's the story of a Bohemian farm girl in Nebraska who runs the family farm with her father from the time she is 12, and on her own after he dies. Her ideas make the family rich, but she isn't appreciated by her two dull-witted brothers. It's also two love stories, one between Alexandra and her childhood friend and another that involves her best friend Maria and...well...I don't want to give too much away.
    • 5/5
      This book is truly proof that great things come in small packages! The story of pioneers from Norway and Sweden in Nebraska, this embraces every aspect of human nature. Alexandra loves the land and her family, her older brothers are somewhat simple, jealous, and mean spirited. Her youngest brother Emil, is smart and thoughtful. Her neighbors run the gambit of all of human nature.This book starts in a deceptively slow way and builds to a powerful ending.My favorite quote: "Freedom so often means that one isn't needed anywhere."
    • 3/5
      A realist tale of Swedish immigrants living on the Nebraskan plains, their lives, and their hardships, Cather expertly paints a vivid, natural picture of pioneer life, not one embellished, but one fully developed. Truly captures the spirit of pioneer life.