O Pioneers (Willa Cather, 1913)

(158 pages)

Willa Cather is one of my very favorite authors.  I like this book, though it isn't one of my favorites of hers.

Alexandra Bergson takes over the family farm in Nebraska upon her father's early death, and makes a success of it.  Her parents (Swedish immigrants) had moved into what is called "the Divide" area of Nebraska when things were rather primitive there; she sees quite a bit of change and material progress.  Three brothers - two also are farmers, the third (Emil) gets a college degree.  Alexandra feels more connected to him.

The descriptions of the land resonate quite a bit, even if it isn't exactly Iowa.

Toward the end of the book Alexandra is discussing potential future disposition of her land (with Carl Linstrum) - and says "The land belongs to the future, Carl; that's the way it seems to me.  How many of the names on the county clerk's plat will be there in fifty years?"  One can look at the plat pages in the 1976 St. Joe history book and understand what she was talking about already in 1913.

There is another passage that resonated (copied below from the Project Gutenberg version of this book).  I think it's too hard on the farmer/small town community (as Cather can be) and tends to generalize the disconnectedness of the city - but I do know what they're talking about.  In 1960s St. Joe, Iowa, for example - you're connected in a meaningful way to pretty much everyone - one or more categories apply - of relative, neighbor, fellow parishioner, schoolmate, share the same working life (farming), etc.  The schedule of annual activities is well established; yes, you even know where you'll be buried.  If you grow up in that environment, you notice its absence.  Some of Carl's observations below are quite on point.  The transplanted city-dweller is extra grateful for spouse, children, immediate family. 

Yet - while I thought about it a bit, I couldn't quite see living in St. Joe long-term.  (Though it is wonderful to visit there.) 

_______________________

[Alexandra is again speaking to Carl, who had moved to St. Louis and taken a job there after his father failed at farming.  Carl is back visiting his former neighbors in the Divide.]

  Carl paused. Alexandra pushed her hair back from her brow with a puzzled, thoughtful gesture. “You see,” he went on calmly, “measured by your standards here, I'm a failure. I couldn't buy even one of your cornfields. I've enjoyed a great many things, but I've got nothing to show for it all.”

“But you show for it yourself, Carl. I'd rather have had your freedom than my land.”

Carl shook his head mournfully. “Freedom so often means that one isn't needed anywhere. Here you are an individual, you have a background of your own, you would be missed. But off there in the cities there are thousands of rolling stones like me. We are all alike; we have no ties, we know nobody, we own nothing. When one of us dies, they scarcely know where to bury him. Our landlady and the delicatessen man are our mourners, and we leave nothing behind us but a frock-coat and a fiddle, or an easel, or a typewriter, or whatever tool we got our living by. All we have ever managed to do is to pay our rent, the exorbitant rent that one has to pay for a few square feet of space near the heart of things. We have no house, no place, no people of our own. We live in the streets, in the parks, in the theatres. We sit in restaurants and concert halls and look about at the hundreds of our own kind and shudder.”

    Alexandra was silent. She sat looking at the silver spot the moon made on the surface of the pond down in the pasture. He knew that she understood what he meant. At last she said slowly, “And yet I would rather have Emil grow up like that than like his two brothers. We pay a high rent, too, though we pay differently. We grow hard and heavy here. We don't move lightly and easily as you do, and our minds get stiff. If the world were no wider than my cornfields, if there were not something beside this, I wouldn't feel that it was much worth while to work. No, I would rather have Emil like you than like them. I felt that as soon as you came.”