When you
feel like reading but your present mind is like a spinning wheel, trust Willa
Cather! And so did I. O Pioneers! was my second Cather after Death Comes for the Archbishop. 'O Pioneers! (1913) was Willa Cather's first great novel..' is
printed on the back of my copy, the Vintage edition. And indeed, it was great
for a first work!
O Pioneers!
is the first of Great Plains trilogy, succeeded by The Song of the Lark and My
Antonia. Depicting the first immigrants who settled as farmers in the Nebraska
country, the story focused on the Bergsons, a Swedish-American family who owned
and farmed their land. Before the father died, he trusted the land management
to Alexandra, his only daughter who was much more able compared to her two
brothers, Lou and Oscars, while their youngest brother Emil was still a little
boy. The Linstrum's land was next to Bergson's farm, and for years Alexandra
and Carl - the Linstrum boy - were friends. After two years of tereible drought
and crop failure, many of their neighbors left the land to seek better
opportunities in other counties, including the Linstrums. But Alexandra,
despite of Lou and Oscar's objections, kept staying. Bold, strong-willed, and
intelligent, she loved and trusted their farmland, and by her intuition and
eagerness to learn modern techniques, she succeeded in making it prosper, while
their neighbors failed.
Sixteen
years later, the Bergsons were the richest landowner there. Carl Linstrum
visited for the first time after he tried (and failed) to prosper in Chicago.
Lou and Oscar suspected him of wanting to marry Alexandra. They trudged the
idea if receiving an outsider into the farm, while it was they who had worked
hard for years. Carl, who has realized after those years that he truly loved
Alexandra, had no choice but left, this time to Alaska. But not before he
witnessed a growing flirtatious relationship between Emil (now a handsome young
man) and a married Bohemian woman, Marie Shabata, who, with his husband, has
brought Linstrums' land after they left.
If you seek
a slow-paced, soothing book, O Pioneers! is perfect for you. But for one tragedy
near the end, this book is generally calm. It gives us chance to witness the
characters dynamically developed. At the beginning, Alexandra was my favorite.
But I was disappointed after she blamed Emil and Marie, while pitied Frank over
the tragedy. I realized that adultery is never right, but you can't stop people
of falling in love with anyone. And really, it's Frank's fault too that his
wife must find another love. She fell in love head over heels with him in the
first place, but he just wanted her to suffer during their marriage. Marie is
flirtatious in nature, but never unfaithful. And on top of everything, murder
is the ultimate crime. I can probably (though difficultly) forgive adultery,
but never murder - passionately or coldly. I personally will never forgive a
man who deliberately seized a gun when he was just suspicious. No, Frank has
always been a murderer-to-be from the beginning. He just sought for a
justification to take revenge on Marie. (-_-)
Fortunately
Cather ended the story happily. At least, Carl Linstrum deserved it!
All in all,
4,5 / 5 is my final score.