![]() ![]() There are men in it, but the interest centers on two women - not rivals, but friends, and more especially in the splendid blond farm-woman, Alexandra. It is practically a novel without a hero. We detachments steady throwing, Down the edges, through the passes. Through a direct, human tale of love and struggle and attainment, a tale that is American in the best sense of the word, there runs a thread of symbolism. Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march, Pioneers O pioneers. Miss Cather has written a good story, we hasten to assure the reader who cares for good stories, but she has achieved something even finer. It is a tale of the old wood-and-field worshiping races, Swedes and Bohemians, transplanted to Nebraskan uplands, of their struggle with the untamed soil, and their final conquest of it. “O Pioneers!” is filled with this instinct and this consciousness. ![]() ![]() The average American does not have any deep instinct for the land, or vital consciousness of the dignity and value of the life that may be lived upon it. To be sure, after we have carefully separated ourselves from the soil, we are apt to talk a lot about the advantages of a return to it, but in most cases it ends there. Probably the novel reflects a national tendency. The hero of the American novel very often starts on the farm, but he seldom stays there instead, he uses it as a springboard from which to plunge into the mysteries of politics or finance. ![]() O PIONEERS! by Willa Cather | Review first published Sept. ![]()
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