O, Pioneers!
O, Pioneers! was the first novel, published in 1913 of Willa Cather's Prairie Trilogy alongside My Antonia (1918) which is book number 35 in this challenge and Song Of The Lark (1915) which I have yet to read. Like My Antonia, O Pioneers! concerns the European immigrant communities of America's frontiers in this case a family from Sweden and like My Antonia charts their struggles working on the land and trying to live the American dream.
Though setting and theme are very similar to My Antonia, the overall stories though they bear comparison are ultimately different. Alexandra Bergson inherits the responsibility of her fathers farm following his death as he places more faith in her abilities than those of her brothers. Over the course of a relatively short novel we trace Alexandra's life from her teens to her forties with chapters often jumping large spaces of time.
Alexandra's relationship with childhood neighbour Carl bore some similarity to that of Antonia Shimerda and Jim Burden, but reminded me more of Corelli and Pelagia in Captain Corellis Mandolin. Although we get the resolution I expected in My Antonia in O Pioneers, i really felt more moved by Antonia and Jim than Alexandra and Carl.
The other main strand of the novel, the growth and relationships of Alexandra's brother Emil is the main thing which makes this story different from My Antonia. It shows how mistakes and frustrations of life as we know it, though they can be easily rectified in modern society, choices were permanent in those days, and to not adhere to choice was to bring shame.
Simplistically written, but none the lesser for that, O Pioneers is a sweet little book which is evocative of the era in which it is set. I would recommend My Antonia for it's tender nostalgic qualities, over this book though 7/10
Showing posts with label Prairie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prairie. Show all posts
Friday, 25 November 2011
Monday, 16 May 2011
Book #35 My Antonia by Willa Cather
My Antonia
I wanted to read a Willa Cather novel having seen her recommended elsewhere, a search in two branches of Waterstones came up dry and the only one of her books available on Kindle was My Antonia, so choice made for me! I'm rather glad it was made for me as I'm not sure I would have necessarily picked it if I'd had options and I'm genuinely glad I read it.
Published in 1918 it is part of Cather's prairie trilogy alongside O Pioneers! and The Song Of The Lark though the storylines are unconnected all the novels take place in prairie outpost settings.
In 'My Antonia' the lead character is Jim Burden an orphaned boy sent to live with his grandparents on their prairie farm. Whilst there he comes across the Shimerda family who are Bohemian immigrants, and one of the themes of the novel broadly speaking is the successes and failures of European immigrants in early America. The fact that the Shimerda's are Bohemian led to my acquiring new general knowledge as Bohemian in their sense is not as it is used today nor as it is used in 'Joe Gould's Secret' but means that they are from the area now known as the Czech Republic. Learn something new every day!
My Antonia is a fictional memoir in which main character Jim looks back upon his childhood and youth in which he knew Antonia Shimerda and the various changes in their relationship as they grew up. It's a fairly uneventful novel, more a portrait of a time, a place and a community though it is not the poorer for that. It is a nostalgic novel that brims with warmth, fond memories, kindness and love, to the extent that it feels like it could be a well written reflective autobiography. It has a sense of realism that is often lost in fictional stories.
Nostalgia seems to be the distinct theme of the novel experienced by multiple characters. Things were better 'in youth', 'in the old country' when they weren't necessarily so, the human trait of putting a certain gloss on the past.
I particularly liked the quote:
'In the course of twenty crowded years one parts with many illusions. I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again."
In later parts of the book Jim avoids Antonia through the fear that 'Antonia now' will ruin his memories of 'Antonia then'. This shows how certain memories become sacred to what made us who we are as a person, what we treasure from our past.
For a story which is essentially simple and not written in an overly challenging way, My Antonia has a resonance in the universal experience of what it is to be human, and as such is a special novel, belonging in the wider novel community to a select and distinguished club.
I enjoyed this novel very much and I'd say it was accessible to all readers and that everyone could find something to identify with in it. I will be on the lookout for other Cather novels if I can find them, O Pioneers! seems to have suddenly appeared on Kindle.
Read this. 9/10
I wanted to read a Willa Cather novel having seen her recommended elsewhere, a search in two branches of Waterstones came up dry and the only one of her books available on Kindle was My Antonia, so choice made for me! I'm rather glad it was made for me as I'm not sure I would have necessarily picked it if I'd had options and I'm genuinely glad I read it.
Published in 1918 it is part of Cather's prairie trilogy alongside O Pioneers! and The Song Of The Lark though the storylines are unconnected all the novels take place in prairie outpost settings.
In 'My Antonia' the lead character is Jim Burden an orphaned boy sent to live with his grandparents on their prairie farm. Whilst there he comes across the Shimerda family who are Bohemian immigrants, and one of the themes of the novel broadly speaking is the successes and failures of European immigrants in early America. The fact that the Shimerda's are Bohemian led to my acquiring new general knowledge as Bohemian in their sense is not as it is used today nor as it is used in 'Joe Gould's Secret' but means that they are from the area now known as the Czech Republic. Learn something new every day!
My Antonia is a fictional memoir in which main character Jim looks back upon his childhood and youth in which he knew Antonia Shimerda and the various changes in their relationship as they grew up. It's a fairly uneventful novel, more a portrait of a time, a place and a community though it is not the poorer for that. It is a nostalgic novel that brims with warmth, fond memories, kindness and love, to the extent that it feels like it could be a well written reflective autobiography. It has a sense of realism that is often lost in fictional stories.
Nostalgia seems to be the distinct theme of the novel experienced by multiple characters. Things were better 'in youth', 'in the old country' when they weren't necessarily so, the human trait of putting a certain gloss on the past.
I particularly liked the quote:
'In the course of twenty crowded years one parts with many illusions. I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again."
In later parts of the book Jim avoids Antonia through the fear that 'Antonia now' will ruin his memories of 'Antonia then'. This shows how certain memories become sacred to what made us who we are as a person, what we treasure from our past.
For a story which is essentially simple and not written in an overly challenging way, My Antonia has a resonance in the universal experience of what it is to be human, and as such is a special novel, belonging in the wider novel community to a select and distinguished club.
I enjoyed this novel very much and I'd say it was accessible to all readers and that everyone could find something to identify with in it. I will be on the lookout for other Cather novels if I can find them, O Pioneers! seems to have suddenly appeared on Kindle.
Read this. 9/10
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