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.