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    O Pioneers!
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    O Pioneers!
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    O Pioneers!
    Ebook202 pages3 hours

    O Pioneers!

    By Willa Cather

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    The first of her renowned prairie novels--a story that expresses Cather's conviction that "the history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman." When Alexandra Bergson takes over the family farm after her father's death, she falls under the spell of the rich, forbidding Nebraska prairie.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAB Books
    Release dateMay 12, 2018
    ISBN9782291023333
    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

    1,247 ratings28 reviews

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    • 3/5
      1074 O Pioneers! by Willa Cather (read 7 Sep 1970) This is like other Cather novels, and only obliquely is about pioneers. It is laid in Nebraska and tells of Alexandra Bergson, a Swedish-born farmer, her brother Emil, Bohemians, French, etc. It certainly was not what I expected.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 4/5
      I loved Alexandra and the way she could see the true beauty of the land even as she struggled to harness it. Sad, beautiful, luminous.
    • 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!
    • 1/5
      Had to read it for an American Lit class in college. So boring.
    • 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
      Alexandra Bergson tames the prairie and gets no respect. Her oldest brothers are idiots. She sends the youngest to college and he turns out well, but then he falls in love with their neighbor Marie. Trouble ensues. I'm not sure why Alexandra needed Carl, but she likes him and he likes her. It was nice that they could be together.
    • 4/5
      Worth a trip to Nebraska.
    • 5/5
      I can't begin to tell you how appropriate Willa Cather's work is to my life. This requires a blog, and I may or may not include Willa's My Antonia altogether in one blog. To be continued.
    • 5/5
      Alexandra Bergson, a strong, brave, intelligent woman with a love of the land, born for management, kind to others, not kind enough to herself. It takes a tragedy for her own feelings to come through. I very much liked this novel which brings together people from different origins at the end of the 19th century and shows how the American nation was forged. This westvaco edition is simply beautiful.
    • 4/5
      Some of the most beautiful nature writing I've ever come across. She can make you feel the land. Story is also interesting, but the ending is a bit offensive to modern sensibilities. How exactly does Marie "deserve" to be killed by her loutish husband. Why would Alexandra feel sympathy for the man who killed . . . killed! . . . her brother. Has me scratching my head.
    • 4/5
      An engrossing story to lose yourself in, well read.
    • 4/5
      Somehow, I managed to make it through 64 years of life and an MA in American Literature without ever having read any of Willa Cather's novels. So I picked up O PIONEERS and found it to be very good. Cather shows the same passion for the American landscape that John Steinbeck does, but in a less flowery manner.
    • 3/5
      Willa Cather gives us a memorable set of archetypal characters who revolve around Mother Earth, Alexandra Bergson. Much of what happens tastes fairly bitterly of fate, and the characters are pushed into situations which force them to act at cross-purposes with happiness.What lasts is the hard-won triumph of the titular characters, the visionary and inexhaustible Alexandra most of all.
    • 4/5
      Cather is a wonderful writer, painting a hard-edged world in beautiful strokes. I didn't enjoy this one as much as others by her because I don't handle depressing stories especially well.
    • 4/5
      classic Cather--probably a good one to start out with--not sure if it's my favorite one but still it is very good
    • 2/5
      Best summed up by the word "Eh." This books starts flat and ends flat, with nothing special happening in between. I'm shocked that so many people gave this high ratings. Personally, I think this one should be avoided. Nothing was gained from reading it.
    • 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.
    • 5/5
      A wonderful example of historical literature in regards to the pioneer life on the plains at the end of the 19th century into the 20th century. The plot, characters, and language are so full and engaging that I was swept up in the story and characters. The ending is fitting in many ways with all of the threads coming together in a beautiful but sad quilt.I am so glad that I finally picked up Cather's books. I liked this better than My Antonia (which was very good also).
    • 3/5
      During Cather's time, the story of a woman who succeeded on her own was probably an original one. These days, a determined woman who can run her own farm is a story you've read before. This is a work of literature that doesn't really stand the test of time.
    • 4/5
      I loved this book . The landscape is such a feature, a thing of beauty and threat and the promise of hard work. The way of life is portrayed brilliantly, a unique subgroup of Swedish immigrants to the US , their language, culture, habits of dress and food, all fascinating . The role of women is shown through their work, family and personal relationship ships.a very powerful, moving novel.
    • 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.
    • 4/5
      Hmmm....being a chemist in college I never had to read this book as part of a scholastically driven forced march. That being said, I picked this up in St. Charles on a whim and when I finished it I was pleasantly surprised. I'd expected a celebration of mother earth (which was in there) or a hymn to nature (which is there too), but I got a dark tale of late requited illicit love between Marie Shabata and Emil, adultery and murder. Touché Willa!
    • 4/5
      The book is the story of a time (late 1800's) and a place (Nebraska) as much as it is of the characters.The land is vividly portrayed along with those who love it. Agatha, her brothers, and her neighbors seem believable and real. I found the book compelling and touching.
    • 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
      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
      With a title purportedly named after the Walt Whitman poem, Willa Cather takes us to the memories of her youth in the plains of Nebraska where her family moved when she was 9 in 1882. The nearly uninhabitable environment of the land combined with a harsh uprooting at a tender age left a strong mark on this author, including cutting her hair short and dressing as a boy in her youth. Selfishly, I’m glad of her past as she certainly wrote a gem in the 1913 novel of O Pioneers! Perhaps it’s my own city life surrounded by ‘first world problems’, I thoroughly enjoyed the difficult though simple life in Part I – The Wild Land. Ms. Cather’s love of the land radiates in this: “…Her face was so radiant that he felt shy about asking her. For the first time, perhaps, since that land emerged from the waters of geologic ages, a human face was set toward it with love and yearning. It seemed beautiful to her, rich and strong and glorious. Her eyes drank in the breadth of it, until her tears blinded her. Then the Genius of the Divide, the great, free spirit which breathes across it, must have bent lower than it ever bent to a human will before. The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.”Also in Part I, consider this sentence in our tech-flooded world - “A pioneer should have imagination, should be able to enjoy the idea of things more than the things themselves.” Sometimes, it’s the journey (or design process) that brings amazement, rather than the destination (or a new gadget). The book’s leading lady, Alexandra Bergson, is intelligent, ambitious, direct, and… lonely. Entrusted with the modest family farm upon her father’s death when she was ~20, she used her brains and a lot of guts to guide her family through the tough years, eventually building the biggest homestead in the Divide, sharing it in thirds when two of her brothers, Oscar and Lou, married. ‘Entrusted’ and ‘Burdened’ are two sides of the same coin as she cared for the land, the farm, and most importantly, her youngest brother, Emil. Like all immigrant families, she worked to give Emil the most precious gift – the gift of choice. The book continues in 4 additional parts. Alexandra was troubled by the disagreements with Oscar and Lou over her potential love for Carl, a childhood friend, and by their accusations that her land does not belong to her and that she didn’t do any ‘work’. (I wanted so much to smack her brothers writing multiple !!! throughout the pages.) The second major story arc is Emil and his secret, growing love for Marie, also a childhood friend but now unhappily married. This love ends tragically. And I was thoroughly agitated with Alexandra, where “She blamed Marie bitterly.” What?!? Emil wooed her too! Despite my disagreement over this element, I found the book to be moving and relatable 101 years later. Nice.Some Quotes:On Commanding Attention and Conflict Management – I love how these simple methods were used:“Alexandra looked down the table from one to another. ‘Well, the only way we can find out is to try. Lou and I have different notions about feeding stock, and that’s a good thing. It’s bad if all the members of a family think alike. They never get anywhere. Lou can learn by my mistakes and I can learn by his. Isn’t that fair, Barney?’” On Life:“Isn’t it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes over for thousands of years.”On Freedom – I feel this way more often than I care to admit:“Freedom so often means that one isn’t needed anywhere.”On City Life:“…in the cities, there are thousands of rolling stones like me. We are all alike; we have no ties, we know nobody, we own nothing. When one of us dies, they scarcely know where to bury him. Our landlady and the delicatessen man are our mourners, and we leave nothing behind us but a frock-coat and a fiddle, or an easel, or a typewriter, or whatever tool we got our living by. All we have ever managed to do is to pay our rent, the exorbitant rent that one has to pay for a few square feet of space near the heart of things. We have no house, no place, no people of our own. We live in the streets, in the parks, in theatres. We sit in restaurants and concert halls and look about at the hundreds of our own kind and shudder.”On Age – argh:From Emil: “There was trouble enough in the world, he reflected…,without people who were forty years old imagining they wanted to get married.”On Winter:“…The ground is frozen so hard that it bruises the foot to walk in the roads or in the ploughed fields. It is like an iron country, and the spirit is oppressed by its rigor and melancholy. One could easily believe that in that dead landscape the germs of life and fruitfulness were extinct forever.”On Gifts – I love presents (and enjoying giving them too). I found Emil entirely charming here towards Marie:“Emil laughed shortly. ‘People who want such little things surely ought to have them,’ he said dryly. He thrust his hand into the pocket of his velvet trousers and brought out a handful of uncut turquoises, as big as marbles. Leaning over the table he dropped them into her lap. ‘There, will those do? Be careful, don’t let any one see them. Now, I suppose you want me to go away and let you play with them?’”On First Kiss – hmmm, yum:“… Little shrieks and currents of soft laughter ran up and down the dark hall. Marie started up, – directly into Emil’s arms. In the same instant she felt his lips. The veil that had hung uncertainly between them for so long was dissolved. Before she knew what she was doing, she had committed herself to that kiss that was at once a boy’s and a man’s, as timid as it was tender… And Emil, who had so often imagined the shock of this first kiss, was surprised at its gentleness and naturalness. It was like a sigh which they had breathed together; almost sorrowful, as if each were afraid of wakening something in the other.”On Death – my heart broke a little and yet felt touching at the same time:“…From that spot there was another trail, heavier than the first, where she must have dragged herself back to Emil’s body. Once there, she seemed not to have struggled any more. She had lifted her head to her lover’s breast, taken his hand in both her own, and bled quietly to death. She was lying on her right side in an easy and natural position, her cheek on Emil’s shoulder. On her face there was a look of ineffable content. Her lips were parted a little; her eyes were lightly closed, as if in a day-dream or a light slumber. After she lay down there, she seem not to have moved an eyelash. The hand she held was covered with dark stains, where she had kissed it.”On the Desire for love and for being care for – I think it’s in all of us:Alexandra – “ As she lay with her eyes closed, she had again, more vividly than for many years, the old illusion of her girlhood, of being lifted and carried lightly by some one very strong. He was with her a long while this time, and carried her very far, and in his arms she felt free from pain.”