One of Ours by Willa Cather

Willa Cather is one of those authors that draws much division. Some authors are widely acclaimed, others are popular. Cather won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for this effort, one would assume she was both. Reading some of the history of the book after I finished reading it I was surprised to see that in some circles it was ridiculed, including by my favorite author Ernest Hemingway.

Hemingway,of course, was a much different type of author than Cather. Cather's war scenes are not drawn that well, they could be considered a bit clunky, still from the author of O Pioneers one does not expect scenes of war to be as descriptive as an ambulance driver in World War such as Hemingway.

The book centers on Claude Wheeler, the middle son of a successful Nebraska farmer at the turn of the 20th century. Growing up on the plains, with a successful father and a pious mother Claude has a good life. He, however, feels the success and comfort is confining.

He goes to a Christian college but wishes to go to the State University. His father brings him home to run the farm while his younger brother is giving the more exciting charge of a new farm purchased in Colorado. For Claude it seems like everything is the same, he feels boxed in.

Claude marries a young woman who he has a deep friendship with. By the standards of the day however they do not know each other well and have little in common. His wife to be Enid's friend dates Claude's older brother. His older brother and Claude are not much alike and not much fond of each other, Claude also grew up with this girl, a poor girl who the town considers flighty. Claude never pursues his feelings for this girl and lives to regret it.

This book has some passages that are very memorable. Claude seeks the approval of Enid's father for the marriage. The gentleman knows and likes Claude, he knows his daughter however, what her goals in missionary work are and how that will conflict with the happiness of a young man expecting a traditional wife. As they talk however he realizes that for an older man to talk to a younger man about life is " like the dead talking to the living, they cannot be heard." Having a couple of teenage sons of my own that I often wish I could get to listen to me rather than experience the hard lessons of life themselves. It is as written, it is like the dead talking to the living. In a sense is that not what the difference is between young and old. The young are living and the old have lived.

The second part of the book features Claude going to war. As the war heats up in Europe, as Belgium and France fall his family becomes transfixed by the war. His Mother prays over Paris. Claude notes that Paris used to be the city of vice in his parochial mother's mind, now as the German army approaches it becomes a citadel of light and she prays both the city and it's citizens.

In this day of instant news watching Claude, his father, or his neighbors go into town to get the news of the war from the Omaha papers to the east shows what an effect this war had on the isolationist nation. Of course on the plains a great deal of immigrants farmed, Cather's books often speak of Bohemians, and these people were very concerned with the affairs of the home continent.


As Claude is trained and goes to Europe we follow him. He falls in love with France and it's people. Eventually he takes part in battles, loses good friends and heads for the Battle of Verdun.

This is a moving book. I was glad when I finished to see that it won the Pulitzer. Enjoying My Antonia and O Pioneers Cather is an author I appreciate. This book is more, more significant. A true moment in time of this country with a hero that is not a hero, but a simple American boy of the plains. This makes him all the more honorable.

A great book.

O Pioneers by Willa Cather

Written in 1913 and telling the story of a fictional family of Swedish immigrants on the plains of Nebraska at the turn of the century O Pioneers is one of Cather's most popular works.

I am currently reading several books and certainly did not need to add this one to the list. I read it on my Iphone, with the trouble I have with my arms that can be the easiest way to read, but it was also an easy story. For me the attraction of Cather's writing is it's simplicity. It has a strong attachment to the land it describes. It is strong writing.

In this story Alexandra Bergson is the daughter of dying John Bergson. A Swedish immigrant who owns 640 acres on the prairie, Bergson had immigrated from Sweden and struggled on the prairie for the second half of his life. As he dies he tells his oldest child, his daughter Alexandra not to give up on the land and then advises her younger brothers Oscar and Lou to listen to her as he makes decisions about the farm and cares for her mother.

Alexandra is the main character and over the next 20 years she develops the farm, she buys more land and farms when her immigrant neighbors give up on the prairie, and becomes wealthy and a leader in the community.

Her older brothers over time become jealous of her. Her younger brother Emil gains the benefit of her wealth and goes to college.

Alexandra is lonely and is such a straight ahead kind of woman that she often does not feel or notice others feelings and frailties.

The main story turns on the relationship between Alexandra and her neighbor Maria and her childhood friend Carl Linstrom. Maria and Alexandra's brother Emil have a complicated relationship that becomes more so as the story goes on.

Cather's efforts at romanticism are clunky and flat at times but it is balanced by how well she affect the time and place of living on the prairie. The simpler life of church fairs, harvest time, the change of seasons and the gentle good will of folks fighting the eke out a living together.

It is easy to see why Cather has become a landmark novelist. She writes very well and this is a story to be read and savored.

My Antonia by Willa Cather

After finishing War and Peace the next book I chose to read from the selection of free books on the Kindle was this one. Certainly much lighter material Cather is an author I have not read but have heard much about and heard many references too.

This book was very entertaining. Being a nostalgic person I found myself captured by the description she gives of growing up on the Nebraska plains.

In starting the book we meet Jim a man who is remembering his youth and before the story even begins the meter and pace of the writing tells you that this is going to be a well written story.

Through Jim's telling of his own youth we meet Antonia and her family, Bohemian immigrants who arrive in Jim's town the same day that Jim does, on the same train in fact as Jim who himself is coming to Nebraska to live with his grandparents after being orphaned in Virginia.

It is a different life told about in these pages. A life without modern conveniences but which seems at least to me as a life more full. A life more participated in. A life that with all its rough and tumble of the prairie still had more manners and regard for " the right thing."

I am an unabashed nostalgic. I love stories of the past. This book is well written. The story is interesting, it is a book that is dated in places but then again aren't we all.

Cather is a very good writer and based on this I will try some of her other stories. Very good.