I think there is more to this book then I'm seeing at this moment, so I will reread it and post about it later. But I will put some thoughts about it here.
I found this book rather refreshing: stripped of a lot of unneccessary ‘niceties’. This story is about the essential things of life, whose problems fundamentally are the same as in these days; how does a human being finds its place in the often chaotic or bewildering world?
Vivian Gornick, who wrote the forword for this novel, expresses it beautifully.
Spoiler:
10.'In all human beings, she felt, there is what she called a soul, an essential spirit, an expressive, inviolable self. She knew it was the task of every life to fashion an existence that would free the expressive self. This was the thing she saw from the very beginning. It became her subject, her metaphor, her lifelong preoccupation. For thirty years she fashioned stories and novels in which human beings struggle with the question of how to be themselves. If her characters struggle successfully, somehow or other, they come to glory. If not, if the inviolable self is denied or ignored, abused or pushed out of shape, the character comes to grief.'
Alexandra has to be the responsable one, or feels she has to be. She has a free spirit, unlike the society she is in and unlike two of her brothers. She must feel like an outcast, but still she follows her own path. The way she pursues her dream is rather modern for those days. She is the one who reflects on the inner life of men.
She doesn’t let the fixed morals and ideas of the restricted society influence her in the way she handles things or treats people. For example Ivar, who is closer to nature and wild things than the people in his community.
The way Willa Cather describes how the town on the prairie is struggling to survive, is comparable to the way the protagonists are battling to survive their emotions, their sense of alienation, the problems of their life.
Spoiler:
17.’ the little town of Hanover, anchored on a windy Nebraska tableland, was trying not to be blown away. A mist of fine snowflakes was curling and eddying about the cluster of low drab buildings huddled on the gray prairie, under a gray sky. The dwelling-houses were set about haphazard on the toughprairie sod; some of them looked as if they had been moved in overnight, and others as if they were straying off by themselves, headed straight for the open plain. None of them had any appearance of permanence, and the howling wind blew under them as well as over them. The main street was a deeply rutted road, now frozen hard, which ran from the squat red railway station and the grain “elevator” at the north end of the town to the lumber yard and the horse pond at the south end. On either side of this road straggled two uneven rows of wooden buildings; the general merchandise stores, the two banks, the drug store, the feed store, the saloon, the post-office.'
Emil, the only brother of Alexandra she can relate to, is also trying to survive. When he leaves for the big towns, he feels alienated; hardly knows who he is any more.
All these people are very unhappy and closed up. Alexandra’s friend Marie and her husband Frank are unhappy in their marriage. Marie is in love with Emil, but all cannot speak with each other about their true feelings.
Even Marie and Alexandra don’t discuss their problems; it all goes festering under the surface.