Rating: 
Summary: For a Dream, there is a Price
Review: Cather published her second novel, O Pioneers, in 1913 at the age of 40. Together with My Antonia it is the novel for which she is best known. Years after writing the book, Cather wrote of it " Since I wrote this book for myself, I ignored all the situations and accents that were then thought to be necessary."The book takes place on the plains of Nebraska in the late 19th Century as the Prairie is settled be Swedish, Bohemian, and French immigrants trying to eke out a living from what appears to be a harsh, inhospitable land. The heroine of the book is Alexandra Bergson who inherits her father's farm as a young woman, raises his three sons and stays with the farm through the harsh times to become a successful landowner and farmer. The books speaks of being wedded to the land and to place. In this sense it is an instance of the American dream of a home. It also speaks of a strong woman, not in cliched, late 20th Century terms but with a sense of ambiguity, difficulty and loss. This is a story as well of thwarted love, of the difficult nature of sexualtiy, and of human passion. There is also the beginning of what in Cather's works will become an increased sense of religion, Catholicism in particular, as a haven and a solace for the sorrow she finds at the heart of human endeavor. Above all it is a picuure of stark life in the midwest. There is almost as much blood-letting in this short book as in an Elizabethan tragedy. Cather's picture of American life on the plains, even in her earliest books, is not an easy or simple one. Some readers may quarrel with the seemingly happy ending of the book. I don't think any will deny that Alexandra's happiness is dearly bought or that it is bittersweet. I tendend to shy away from this book in favor of Cather's later novels. I feared that it would be conventional and trite. The stereotyping was mine,however. This is a thoughtful, well written story of immigrant life on the plains and of the sorrow pain, and strength of the American experience.
Rating:
Summary: Good book
Review: Before I review the novel, I want to point out that most of the reviews that have given it one star seem to be coming from, perhaps, immature audiences..."it was totally uncoool!" Now, this book is not the best thing you'll ever read, but it IS very worthy of reading. Don't be discouraged by the title, as I once was. Basically, the story talks about Alexandra, a Swedish woman who has to take care of the family once her father dies at the beginning of the book. I didn't really admire her character or was interested too much in it, but that's okay because a lot of the plot involves her brother Emil and her neighbor Marie and their clandestine type of love...it's a heartwarming novel and a very entertaining read. I read the book in one night. The setting was very well depicted and had a sense of magic, evethough there's nothing of a supernatural nature in the book. The characters were very lively and realistic. I wasn't really too satisfied with the ending, but I enjoyed it greatly nonetheless. It is an excellent work ; I recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: O Pioneers
Review: "O Pioneers" is a book about a girl named Alexandra, who takes charge of her house and family after her father dies. She goes through so much to keep and preserve the land. she makes it dependable, workable, and profitable, while keeping in the family, like her father had wished. Along the path of childhood to adulthood, with this goal in mind, Alexandra faces many challanges. She almost gets married twice. Two of her brothers refuse to speak to her. The third brother has an affair with a married woman. But this whole journey will only make her stronger.
The book was generally well written overall. At the beginning, it was a little slow. The 1st chapter is about a girl going to the doctor and then a little boy getting his kitten down from a pole before they go home. It picks up after that though. Overall, it was a really good read.
Willa Cather wrote this book in 1913. Cather is a Pulitzer Prize winning author, for her book "My Antonia", and has written more than 15 books. Cather was one of the most distinguished American writers of the late Ninetieth and early Twentieth century.
Rating:
Summary: Harvest of Passions and Dreams
Review: O Pioneers by Willa Cather is one of the most captivating books I have read. It reaches into your heart and urges you to become part of the story when she says " a pioneer should be able to enjoy the idea of things more than the things themselves" you feel like your right there with Alexandra dreaming and willing the land to yield it's bountiful harvest. In O Pioneers, the land plays a cruel but enticing seductress, teasing with warm breezes and the next minuet lashing out with unremitting blizzards and droughts. Alexandra by patient coaxing and uncompromising determination manages to turn her dreams into reality but not before paying a high price. The book is primarily a love story with the Divide playing the willful lover everyone is trying to tame. Sparing no one, it leaves its mark shaping and molding the characters of its inhabitants for better or worse. The immigrant settlers who call the Divide home are as intriguing as the land they dwell on, being capable of despair, loneliness, happiness and yielding the fruits of their love as the land gives up it's corn and wheat. Cather ties this all together in the phrase"...and in the long grass, by the fence the last wild roses of the year opened their pink hearts to die" speaking at the same time of young lovers and the inevitable cycle of the land.
Rating:
Summary: O what a classic!
Review: In "O Pioneers!", her classic novel first published in 1913, Willa Cather wrote, "The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman." By revealing to us the hearts of those pioneer immigrants in this book, Cather offers a moving meditation on United States culture and history. "O Pioneers!" tells the story of a community in Nebraska farm country. Her main character, Alexandra Bergson, is a Swedish immigrant. Cather creates a marvelous portrait of the community and its rich mix of European ethnic groups: Norwegian, Swedish, French, etc. It is especially fascinating to see the multicultural, multiethnic world they created in the United States. Cather also depicts the cultural and linguistic "shift" that takes place along generational lines. Cather's story deals with issues of economics, gender roles, and sexuality. In addition to the formidable Alexandra, she creates a cast of compelling characters. And her luminous prose style evokes all of the sensations of Alexandra's world: the smell of ripe wheat, the chirping of insects in the long grass, the golden play of light in an apple orchard. But this is Alexandra's book. She is a great American heroine who reminds me of such beloved characters as Zora Neale Hurston's Janie (from "Their Eyes Were Watching God") or Alice Walker's Celie (from "The Color Purple"). Like those great characters, Alexandra will break your heart, deeply touch your soul, and ultimately leave you feeling richer for having known her. Finally, as an interesting companion text to "O Pioneers!" try "Anna Christie," the 1922 play by U.S. writer Eugene O'Neill. O'Neill's life and career were contemporary with Cather's, and "Anna Christie," like "O Pioneers!", deals with a Swedish immigrant woman in the United States.
Rating:
Summary: O Pioneers
Review: "O Pioneers" is a book about a girl named Alexandra, who takes charge of her house and family after her father dies. She goes through so much to keep and preserve the land. she makes it dependable, workable, and profitable, while keeping in the family, like her father had wished. Along the path of childhood to adulthood, with this goal in mind, Alexandra faces many challanges. She almost gets married twice. Two of her brothers refuse to speak to her. The third brother has an affair with a married woman. But this whole journey will only make her stronger.
The book was generally well written overall. At the beginning, it was a little slow. The 1st chapter is about a girl going to the doctor and then a little boy getting his kitten down from a pole before they go home. It picks up after that though. Overall, it was a really good read.
Willa Cather wrote this book in 1913. Cather is a Pulitzer Prize winning author, for her book "My Antonia", and has written more than 15 books. Cather was one of the most distinguished American writers of the late Ninetieth and early Twentieth century.
Rating:
Summary: The Price of Keeping the Land
Review: This early Cather novel introduces readers to the majesty and the fury of the untamed prairie, when the mid west was yet Americca's frontier. It obliquely asks the question: How did the Land shape its people--mainly immigrants from Scandinavia, Bohemia and France--and how did the hopeful settlers, true Pioneers, shape and share the land? Who ultimately can ever own the prairie; can mere mortals seriously hold the undulating waves of grain in trust for future generations? Spanning some 17 years this gripping novel depicts the struggle to tame the midwest by a Swedish family, whose lives intertwine with those of their neighbors. Against hostile and unforgiving nature
the simple tale is spun out: a wise teenage girl inherits control of the family farm from her dying fathr, since she alone of his offspring understands the importance of retaining the land at all costs. Despite interferance by her resentful, short-sighted brothers, Alexandra does just that, revealing vison and determination beyond her years. For it is thus that she honors the memory of their father, keeping his faith in the ultimate
productivity o the savage land, when many neighbors sell out.
Creating strong female characters--of which the land itself or Mother Nature may be considered a shadowy one--Cather glowingly describes the rugged beauty of the mid west: rolling grasses,
powerful sunsets, intoxicating spring blossoms, with fluctuating, unpredictable weather. A farmer's life is an annual gamble, but then so is any pilgrimmage of the heart. Totally absorbed in running her successful farm, Alexandra does not look beneath the surface; she does not Notice things. Like the illicit love which blooms unbidden between her young brother, Emil, and Marie, the restless married woman next door. Add a wild, jealous husband into the equation and a volatile situation is inevitable.
Cather's style draws the reader directly into the mindset of her main characters. Recognizing the danger signs before Alexandra does, we tremble with the realization of future emotional turbulence. The author' use of color to help us visualize her beloved landscape is remarkable, but most of all we marvel that she depicts the countryside itself as a non-verbal player in the repetitive tale of human stories. In the end readers must decide for themselves who is most to blame for the tragedy--if guilt must be parceled out. Her grim theme, that Happiness is easier to lose than to find, taints the backdrop of timid hope. The furrows of her novel are plowed and scored with attempts of her characters to "possess a personality apart from the soil. " This seemingly agrarian novel is less about the effect so grains of seed in the ground, than about the grains of love sown in a desperate search for joy in the hearts of the pioneers. How can Love survive in a barren wilderness? A true classic of human striving and passion.
Rating: 
Summary: When men were men and women were more so.
Review: The first half of this novel is curiously disjointed. Months, sometimes years elapse between each chapter, making it rather like reading fragments of a long family saga. The effect is to distance the reader from the characters. The second half is a more continuous and involving narrative, developing into a conventional social drama with a surprisingly melodramatic climax. The writing is fine, with an especially strong visual sense, sometimes reading almost like a treatment for a screenplay. The author manages a simple and elegant style that suits her theme perfectly. Cather's sympathies are firmly with the strong central female character Alexandra. The male characters are mostly insipid and unstable, and an affection, tinged with contempt, is shown toward the more submissive female characters. Apart from Alexandra, the author's deepest affection is reserved for the country itself. Cather writes of the Nebraska that she knew in her youth and of the immigrant men and women who tamed a hostile landscape. The title is taken from a very poor and overblown poem by Walt Whitman, appropriate only in that the poem is as hard going for the reader as the land was for the pioneer. But, title apart, the novel remains a solid rendition of Western pioneer life, a vital strand of American cultural history.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful story, but little else
Review: Besides being the novel that allowed Willa Cather to become an established American writer, O Pioneers! was also very dear to her heart. In the novel, Cather addresses the subject matter with which she was most familiar: immigrant pioneers farming on the Nebraska Divide. The plot of O Pioneers! concerns the Bergsons, a Scandinavian family who maintains their livelihood by farming in the small Nebraska town of Hanover. The death of the family patriarch, John Bergson, leaves the oldest child, Alexandra, to manage the vast farming lands. Soon after, pressure mounts on Alexandra to sell the farm and return to urban life. She makes the decision, however, to "hold on harder than ever." O Pioneers! is not only the story of "the old wild country, the struggle in which [she] was destined to succeed while so many men broke their hearts and died," it is also the exploration of human emotion as a result of that toil. Cather's descriptive language lends itself to a lyrical, pastoral beauty. But maybe because I live in a world apart from Alexandra, I thought that the novel lacked genuineness. Since we've heard this story so many times in other settings, the novel has a fairytale-ish quality and an oversimplicity that didn't really allow me to connect with any of the characters. Therefore, I hesitate to heartily recommend it. Still, O Pioneers! is a valiant first effort from Willa Cather. Bonus points, too, for the strong female character Alexandra.
Rating:
Summary: ****Beautiful Lyrical Classic****
Review: Willa Cather is coming into vogue once again in no small part due to First Lady Laura Bush. Mrs. Bush hosted a symposium dedicated to "Women Authors of the American West." One of these authors was Willa Cather. I remember reading Cather in high school in the early 1960's and realizing she had a classical sytle. What a pleasure it was to pick up this book and rediscover her again. "Oh Pioneers" has the simplicity and beauty of the Nebraska plains it so well describes. The herione, Alexandra Bergon is as wholesome, strong, and simple as Nebraska wheat. Written in the days before television, video games, and the many corrupting factors of modern culture, this book is a hymn to the virtues of the pioneers who built our country. "Oh Pioneers is not a sanguine novel. There is death, drought, sickness, and thwarted love. But, utltimately there is also human triumph and hope embodied in Alexandra. She faces life with courage, dignity, and compassion. "Oh Pioneers" speaks to the heart. I highly recommend it.
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