Thread: Literary O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
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Old 10-17-2014, 06:22 PM   #19
Bookworm_Girl
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I have been too busy to post my thoughts but have been compiling them in my mind. I really enjoyed the book. I love the simplicity of her writing style yet how vividly the images are in your mind. I debated which novel to nominate, and I went with this one because it was one of her most well-known and I hadn't read it yet.

Willa Cather famously said she had two first novels. That's because she dismissed her real first novel, Alexander's Bridge, as being too drawing-room style in imitation of Henry James. It was in writing O Pioneers! that she found her true voice and was inspired by Sarah Orne Jewett to write about what she knew. She also didn't want to follow standard conventions of how to write a novel. My Antonia is generally considered the strongest of the Prairie Trilogy. Death Comes for the Archbishop is also considered one of her best; I really liked that book a lot and think most here would find it to be a stronger read. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 for One of Ours about WWI; however it's not considered to be as great a work as some of her other novels. I added it to my TBR list after another member of our club recommended it to me.

My point is I encourage you to try another book, maybe outside of the trilogy, to get a better impression of her legacy and why she is considered such an important author in the canon of American literature.
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