O Pioneers! by Willa Sibert Cather (March 29-31, 2004)
O Pioneers! (1913) tells the story of the Bergson family in Nebraska, in particular on the eldest child (Alexandra) and the youngest (Emil). The reader meets the family at a time when Alexandra's father John Bergson is dying. John leaves the land in Alexandra's capable hands, and that he wants the family to preserve what he had worked for since leaving Sweden. John judges his eldest sons, Oscar and Lou, less capable of managing the property than Alexandra. He makes the correct decision because over the years Alexandra repeatedly makes decisions, against the norm, that cause her family's farmland to prosper.
Meanwhile, she feels isolated as the one friend who understood her, Carl Linstrum, and his family leaves. Later, Alexandra and her brothers divide the land evenly when her brothers marry, and she continues to manage her own farm, which becomes the most prosperous on the Divide. The narrative skips to sixteen years after Alexandra's father's death. Alexandra has the money to send Emil to college and raised him without him ever having to toil on the land. Alexandra has taken in Ivar, a Russian man that many consider crazy, out of friendship for him. Since the early days, he advised her and helped her with the animals. His love of nature and life make him wish to isolate himself from others and cause the least damage to the land. He is one of the most interesting of the novel's characters. Both he and Alexandra still recall the harsh realities of the land they came to, while others seem ashamed of the memory and want to appear "civilized." Her meddling brothers want Alexandra to send Ivar to an asylum, but she adamantly refuses.
Alexandra's neighbor is a pretty, Bohemian girl named Marie Shabata. Marie was introduced in the first chapter as a child Emil's age. Now she has married Frank, a difficult and brooding man filled with jealousy and lives at the old Linstrum place. She still tries to find brightness and happiness in what she sees, and Alexandra enjoys her company.
Carl Linstrum returns for a visit after years away. He is mesmerized with Alexandra, and is dissatisfied with his own life. As Carl and Alexandra grow closer, Oscar and Lou grow angry, considering Carl to want Alexandra's land (land that they wrongfully consider theirs). They believe she should not marry at forty, and that she is a fool to let Carl hang around. Sadly, Carl departs to win success in Alaska, leaving Alexandra more alone than ever, in spite of her wanting him to stay.
Still, Alexandra is attached to the land more than she is to any living person. She embodies the spirit of the pioneer and the land itself. This makes her ignorant of the emotions of those around her. She fails to see that Emil is deeply attracted to Marie, and that he wants to reciprocate his feelings. Emil decides to escape to Mexico, trying to escape his feelings, but while he is there, he writes letters to both Alexandra and Marie. You realize that Marie is struggling not to understand Emil's love for her, and that she is trying to hide herself from it. He returns a year later, and kisses Marie in the middle of a church crowd, while everyone is in the dark. In stunning simplicity, no one notices anything has happened, though for Marie and Emil, their worlds have shifted. Marie pleas with Emil to leave because she cannot live with him nearby. When Emil comes to say goodbye, he sees Marie under a white mulberry tree. When her husband Frank sees them, he shoots and kills them both in a terrifying and bloody scene.
Alexandra is shocked and lost. She dreams more often of a man of enormous strength who can pick her up and carry her over her fields. She resolves to try to help Frank who is now in prison, and surprisingly places blame for the murder more on her brother and Marie. She learns that Carl has returned upon hearing the news. The two at last decide to marry.
The novel entwines two stories into one. The underlying story is the story of Alexandra and the land and her determination. The second story is that of the love between Emil and Marie and its consequences. Cather's understanding of decisions and consequences, and what is known and hidden in hearts shines through in her characterizations. They are harsh, true, and believable, and amid the land's richness, this book is a gem.
Favorite Quotes:
"It's by understanding me, and the boys, and mother, that you've helped me. I expect that is the only way one person ever really can help one another."
"Then the Genius of the Divide, the great, free spirit which breathes across it, must have bent lower than it ever bent to a human will before. The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman."
"The grain is so heavy that it bends toward the blade and cuts like velvet."
"Isn't it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they have never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same notes over for thousands of years."
"The veil that had hung uncertainly between them for so long was dissolved. Before she knew what she was doing, she had committed herself to that kiss that was at once a boy's and a man's, as timid as it was tender; so like Emil and so unlike any one else in the world. Not until it was over did she realize what it meant. And Emil, who had so often imagined the shock of this first kiss, was surprised at its gentleness and naturalness. It was like a sigh which they had breathed together; almost sorrowful, as if each were afraid of wakening something in the other."
"How terrible it was to love people when you could not really share their lives!"
