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Book Reviews of O Pioneers!

O Pioneers!
O Pioneers
Author: Willa Cather
ISBN-13: 9780812520767
ISBN-10: 0812520769
Publication Date: 2/15/1992
Pages: 192
Edition: Mve Tie in
Rating:
  • Currently 4.3/5 Stars.
 8

4.3 stars, based on 8 ratings
Publisher: Tor Classics
Book Type: Paperback
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

14 Book Reviews submitted by our Members...sorted by voted most helpful

corar avatar reviewed O Pioneers! on + 33 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
O Pioneers! is the story of the Nebraska prairie at the turn of the century. It follows Alexandra Bergson from a young lady, whose father leaves the failing family farm in her hands, to a successful, mature business woman. Along the way, the author describes the people who settled and tamed the land. The story is uplifting and tragic at the same time. Cather writes some strong, yet flawed, female characters. I felt if I really knew the characters, even those with smaller rolls in the novel. I definitely recommend the book to anyone with an interest in American history and westward expansion.
reviewed O Pioneers! on + 137 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Willa Cather is actually a pioneer. One of the first highly acclaimed female authors of our time, her words are jewels and reading her work is a slow, sweet pleasure. This is a book I cannot give up, so it lives in my "secret stash" and will be re-read from time to time. If you have never read this, you MUST.
reviewed O Pioneers! on + 236 more book reviews
This classic story of the Nebraska prairie tells of a remarkable woman, Alexandra Bergson, the daughter of immigrant farmers, whose devotion to the land sustains her through life's calamities.
Grnemae avatar reviewed O Pioneers! on + 451 more book reviews
I so wanted to like this book as I have had people tell me for years what a great book it was. Just did not do it for me.

The 1988 foreword added to the 1913 book almost made me just toss the book. Doris Grumbach wrote the foreward and I found it to be long, boring and filled with unneeded information (at least for me) about Willa Cather's method of writing characters and novels.

I did not see anything out of the ordinary about the novel itself. Any family that has had immigrant farmers in their family history know a similar story of the struggles to survive and if lucky to prosper.

Alexandra Bergson was the only daughter of a Swedish family trying to make a living on the plains of Nebraska. Her father realizes that she better than her 2 older and 1 younger brother was the one who needed to manage the farm after he passed. Alexandra is an excellent stewart of the land and often over the many objections of her older brothers she over the years grows the investment of the family and herself, becoming very prosperous.

The summer her younger brother returns from college things change. Emil is a hard worker but he wants to do more than farm and live on Alexandra's homestead. An old friend of Emil's and one of Alexandra's come back into their lives and nothing will ever be the same again.
reviewed O Pioneers! on + 34 more book reviews
A very good classic, Cather is an amazing author. Its been awhile since I've read this book but I will always remember its entrancing family values.
Readnmachine avatar reviewed O Pioneers! on + 1474 more book reviews
Cather's classic novel of a young woman who takes over the family farm after her father's death, is a beautifully-written paean to the European immigrants who brought America's midwest into bloom.
reviewed O Pioneers! on + 100 more book reviews
From Amazon.com:
The land belongs to the future... that's the way it seems to me....I might as well try to will the sunset over there to my brother's children. We come and go, but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it -- for a little while."

O Pioneers! (1913) was Willa Cather's first great novel, and to many it remains her unchallenged masterpiece. No other work of fiction so faithfully conveys both the sharp physical realities and the mythic sweep of the transformation of the American frontier -- and the transformation of the people who settled it. Cather's heroine is Alexandra Bergson, who arrives on the wind-blasted prairie of Hanover, Nebraska, as a girl and grows up to make it a prosperous farm. But this archetypal success story is darkened by loss, and Alexandra's devotion to the land may come at the cost of love itself.

At once a sophisticated pastoral and a prototype for later feminist novels, O Pioneers! is a work in which triumph is inextricably enmeshed with tragedy, a story of people who do not claim a land so much as they submit to it and, in the process, become greater than they were.
reviewed O Pioneers! on + 171 more book reviews
This is the 3rd book by Willa Cather that I have read, and is my favorite thus far. The character of Alexandra Bergson is well developed, but still mysterious. The Nebraska prairie comes under human control, but human nature cannot always be controlled. Consider that this book was written in 1913 - so a woman heroine in a novel was not the norm. The descriptions in the book invite you to slow down and re-read some passages because they are so wonderful.
teaqueen avatar reviewed O Pioneers! on
Willa Cather is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors. I had never read her before this year when I read My Antonia. Anxious to continue with her Prairie trilogy I read O Pioneers. Memorable book full of diverse characters, each with a story to tell, The protagonist, Alexandra, is what the story turns on and she is amazing!
reviewed O Pioneers! on + 612 more book reviews
I recommend this book to anyone
reviewed O Pioneers! on + 8 more book reviews
Willa Cather rules as do the women in her books. Loved it.
reviewed O Pioneers! on + 2 more book reviews
Read it in a weekend. I'm a big city girl and it had me longing for the plains.
arh8 avatar reviewed O Pioneers! on + 2 more book reviews
I read "My Antonia" a few weeks ago, and loved it so much that I immediately ordered this book. It, too, was amazing, and I couldn't put it down. Beautifully written.
reviewed O Pioneers! on + 193 more book reviews
Wasn't what I expected, but all in all it was a prety good read