[paola]

I finally also got to O Pioneers!

Originally Posted by fantasyfan

Try as I might I just could engage neither with the characters in the book nor with the novel as a whole. The writing itself was certainly quite skilful and cery well crafted but that was the only thing I really appreciated. The story itself just didn't resonate for me.

Perhaps Willa Cather requires more than one reading before the depth of the novel will become apparent.

Originally Posted by bfisher

I'm ambivalent about this book. There were things that I really liked ; there were things that I didn't. It was the best of novels; it was the worst of novels.

I have to agree with this. Indeed,

Originally Posted by desertblues

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.

this is the part I really could not buy, so it did spoil it for me - I am not saying Alexandra would not perceive this, but the way she resoned about it was what I could not relate to.

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

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.

Like Bookpossum, I will definitely do that!

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

I did forewarn you all that I have a lot of random thoughts running around in my head about this book!

Keep them coming :-)

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

I agree - I didn't find Alexandra a believable fully-rounded human being. She was just too good to be true. I'm happy to look on the book as an early work and see how Willa Cather developed by trying some of her later ones.

but weren't all the characters like that? It seems to me they were all cloyingly good - even small minded Lou deep down is really a good man. That did irk me at various places.

Originally Posted by issybird

My biggest issue with the book was the structure. In the end, I felt that the story happened in those 15 years that Cather skipped over, that transformed the bleak and barren prairie dotted with soddies into the fecund landscape all around, with the concomittant triumphs and disasters that caused the characters to turn out as they did. Instead, Alexandra wonderful and never put a foot wrong, apparently (I'll get back to that), brothers horrible and avaricious, hey, presto prosperity! And lacking the plot she didn't pursue, Cather cobbled on the melodramatic story of Emil and Marie because she needed a device to wrap it up, including bringing Carl back, he who also experienced offscreen prosperity, by prospecting in his case.

yep, indeed - these gaps were annoying to me too.

I did enjoy the writing style and the descriptions, but what really got on my nerve was the constant over-reasoning on how other people feel - even Lou tells Oscar

"Talk of that kind might come too high, you know; but she's apt to be sen*si*ble. You hadn't ought to said that about her age, though, Oscar. I'm afraid that hurt her feelings.

And if you just search for "hurt" in the book, you will find Marie encouraging Emil to dance with other girls not to hurt their feelings, Carl fearing of being "hurt", Alexandra telling Carl that he's afraid of hurting her feeling, and so on - it seems everybody is at it, and it did make me wonder whether Cather was aware of psychoanalyisis and maybe sprinkled too much of it in her novel.