O Pioneers! (1913)

This is my second Willa Cather novel, and will probably be my last. She writes extremely well about places, but her character development leaves something to be desired.

In this book, we can see the very different ideas of morality that existed a century ago. Marie and Emil are more at fault than the man who shoots them. Alexandra was, in many ways, an early feminist. But, she still lived for her youngest brother and ended up married. Given that the book was written in 1913, I found these ideas more "interesting" than upsetting...in a "times have changed" kind of way.

So, a good story about duty: to the land, to your father and ultimately to yourself. ( )

This was one of many books that I was assigned for a college class and didn’t read, but I decided to pick it up now out of queer Nebraskan solidarity with Willa Cather.

And I really enjoyed it! The descriptions of life on the prairie and the relationships between neighbors and communities were evocative and rich without seeming sentimental, as is sometimes the case when you read books about rural life meant for an urban audience (Cather was living in New York at the time). The book is best when it takes its time picking apart relationships and individual psychology, and I especially enjoyed looking at the portrayal of European ethnic enclaves in Nebraska—Scandinavian, French, Bohemian—which seem a little flattened-out in modern Nebraska.

Alexandra is a strong, interesting personality in her own right, and I guess that’s where the book lost me at the very end. After Frank shoots Emil and Marie and Alexandra visits him in prison, vowing to get him a pardon from the governor, I found myself confused and alienated. Alexandra blames Emil and Marie for their youth and passion more than she blames Frank for murdering them—what? This is after a great stream of narration that gets into Frank’s mind during the murder where he tries to rationalize and blame everyone but himself, and in that moment, you can tell that the narrative is well aware of the cycle of male entitlement and violence. But Alexandra, who has so far been portrayed as the correct and sensible one, goes into the prison and tells him that she doesn’t blame him, because Marie was so beautiful and full of love that someone like Frank couldn’t help but shoot her when she directed it toward someone else? What??

Part of Alexandra’s character is her need to take responsibility for that which no one else knows how to nurture. Her father’s land, Ivar, her brothers, business in general, and she considers it her joy and her responsibility to bring beauty and life out of that which everyone else considered barren. So now that she’s decided to do the same for Frank, I get the narrative consistency, but the application leaves me cold.

In short, I liked everything except the last chapter, which kind of ruined the rest of the book. ( )

One of my favorite Willa Cather books (who am I kidding...all her books are my favorite) I LOVE Willa Cather. This book is on my every other year reading rotation along with most of her other books :) ( )

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. ( )

Willa Cather è cresciuta nel Nebraska a contatto con il mondo degli immigrati, nei suoi romanzi e racconti descrisse la vita di frontiera, il conflitto tra uomo e natura, la solennità dei cicli stagionali, tema centrale anche in questo grande romanzo. Alexandra Bergson, la protagonista, è una giovane donna dal carattere determinato che dedica la vita alla terra ereditata dal padre, amandola profondamente fino a considerare la prateria la stessa sua dimora: la casa "era l’enorme paesaggio che si estendeva fuori dalla porta. Era nella terra che quella donna trovava la migliore espressione di se stessa”.
Come nelle altre opere qui si confermano l'incredibile sensibilità della Cather nel cogliere le sfumature dei mutamenti storici e sociali.
Pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1913, "Pionieri" è il primo romanzo della Great Plains Trilogy ( )