O Pioneers

Written by Willa Cather

Narrated by Stephanie Brush

O Pioneers! is a classic moving tale of the frontier told in a powerful style and with a strong sense of character. When Alexandra Bergson's father dies she is left with the responsibility of raising her younger brothers on their father's unsuccessful farm. Alexandra is deeply involved with life as she meets the demands of laboring on the prairie farm, and wrestling with her conflicting emotions. The unyielding land of the Nebraska Divide would be challenge enough, but a violent passion shakes this courageous young woman to her core and changes her life forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books in Motion
• Release date: Jan 15, 2000
• ISBN: 9781605486628

Willa Cather

Willa Cather (1873-1947) was an award-winning American author. As she wrote her numerous novels, Cather worked as both an editor and a high school English teacher. She gained recognition for her novels about American frontier life, particularly her Great Plains trilogy. Most of her works, including the Great Plains Trilogy, were dedicated to her suspected lover, Isabelle McClung, who Cather herself claimed to have been the biggest advocate of her work. Cather is both a Pulitzer Prize winner and has received a gold medal from the Institute of Arts and Letters for her fiction.

Reviews for O Pioneers

[melopher_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This novella was my introduction to Willa Cather, and I found it to be so much more than I thought it would be. The language was simple yet powerful, the descriptions were poetic yet clear, the theme strong and touching. The story itself was not one that I thought to find in a book written 100 years ago, and so surprised me. As far as pace goes, I was not bothered at all by the time jump that seemed to irritate many people.I really loved how beautifully, painfully, precisely Willa Cather showed how the prairie changed from it's pioneer days to it's more modern days. I don't know if I've ever before read a coming-of-age story regarding land instead of a person, but that is just what this seemed to be. The theme was so achingly apparent to me that this has become my favorite of Willa Cather's so far.

[jackiecarroll-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a wonderful novel. It's the story of a Bohemian farm girl in Nebraska who runs the family farm with her father from the time she is 12, and on her own after he dies. Her ideas make the family rich, but she isn't appreciated by her two dull-witted brothers. It's also two love stories, one between Alexandra and her childhood friend and another that involves her best friend Maria and...well...I don't want to give too much away.

[shesinplainview · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I loved this story of such a strong woman and the beautiful descriptions of prairie life. Although, the end was heartbreaking.

[Leslie Cohen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beautifully written, Willa Cather draws the reader into the hearts and minds of the characters.

[mykl8s · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I never wanted to be a pioneer, but Cather sure showed me how that sort of life could be appealing to many people.

[carltonc_5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Set in “Hanover”, Nebraska, our story starts (The Wild Land) thirty years before the book’s publication, so about 1883 and the first section describes the hard farming life of Nordic and German immigrants, with their young families. In particular, Alexandra Bergson, daughter of John who dies at 46 having tried to farm 640 acres for eleven years. Alexandra , having more agricultural and business shrewdness, is left in charge of her three brothers, two of whom are old enough to work the land.This is a mixed farm, with arable, beef, hogs, hens and a dairy cow for their own milk, with a cottage garden to provide vegetables. John had paid off the mortgage before he died, being a more successful farmer than many of his neighbours.After a couple of poor agricultural years, this section ends with Alexandra persuading her brothers not to sell up, to stay farming and to take out a new mortgage to buy more land, as many neighbours sell up to return east to easier employment (but without the possibility of improvement).I found this really engaging and interesting, as one of my grandfathers was a farmer, with three sons who became farmers, although my mother married away from the farm.The next section (Neighboring Fields) is set sixteen years after John Bergson died, so more than ten years from when the family decided to stay and buy more land.The story moves wonderfully, tragically, inexorably on, and is not surprising.But the farmland, the landscape, the land, is beautifully described, evoked, brought to life. It is this that for me lifts this story above the melodramatic.

[la2bkk · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I was disappointed in this work on several grounds. First, the character development was shallow at best. Second, although I had hoped for a compelling description of the pioneer culture, the treatment was superficial. Finally, the actual writing and storyline struck me as simplistic. In fairness, I just finished reading The Grapes of Wrath- which accomplishes all of these things on a completely different level and is a far superior work.Moderately entertaining, but I would not recommend the book as there are far better options.

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This one really resonates for me because of my Scandinavian pioneer heritage. The land is almost a character of its own in the novel and that part of of the novel really stood out for me. The doomed romance seemed a little out of character from the rest of the book, but didn't detract from the overall effect for me. Beautiful prose with a strong female protagonist.

[castlelass · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Protagonist Alexandra Bergson, daughter of Swedish immigrants to Nebraska in the 1880s, is a strong woman – resourceful, intelligent, imaginative. She is the eldest of four children and the only daughter. Her father believes she is the best hope for survival of the family’s homestead. He leaves her in charge when he dies. Neighboring families give up, but Alexandra is determined to stay. She develops the land in a way her brothers would have been unable to achieve. Sixteen years later, having attained a measure of success, she turns attention to her youngest brother, Emil, the only one of her three brothers still at home.

This book explores the relationships between people and nature as well as people with each other. The land becomes a character unto itself. Cather’s descriptive passages evoke the powerful influence of the landscape: “It fortified her to reflect upon great operations of natures, and when she thought of the law that lay behind them, she felt a sense of personal security. That night she had a new consciousness of the country, felt almost a new relation to it. Even her talk with the boys had not taken away the feeling that had overwhelmed her when she drove back to the Divide that afternoon. She had never known before how much the country meant to her. The chirping of the insects down in the long grass had been like the sweetest music. She had felt as if her heart were hiding down there, somewhere.”

Cather examines Alexandra’s willingness to make personal sacrifices for her family, and the toll it takes on her personal life. She is an unusual woman for the era in being in charge of the farm. It is filled with the triumphs and tragedies of life, along with a few surprises. It is a little gem of historical fiction. “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.”

[sriddell_8 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a beautiful book! It's hard to believe it was written over 100 years ago - it has a very modern sensibility.

The main character Alexandra emigrated from Sweden with her family at a young age. Alexandra's father dies a few years after settling the family on a homestead in Nebraska. As he's dying, the father realizes Alexandra has more business and practical sense than her brothers, so he leaves the farm in her care.

The remaining family has good times and bad times financially. They also experience both joy and tragedies. Throughout the book there's a feeling on not quite fatalism - more of a feeling that everything that happens is just as it should be. Even terrible events.

I love reading a classic like this and discovering why it's considered "classic".

[mrslee_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

At first glance, this read is a pleasant story; but like the rain, it sinks in and thoughts and understanding begin to grow. This could be the story of many of my ancestors. It could be the story of the independent women who settled the wild land and men. It could be the story of repression endured, of the strength of love, and the agony of failure. So many undercurrents are in this tale, as in life. It was a pleasant story, though it dealt with heartache, failure and depression. It is a love song to the land, and those who love the land.

[write5review · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Grit and Determination on the Plains

Willa Cather’s O Pioneers! encapsulates in one brief novel the epic story of America’s breadbasket, the immigrants who settled and transformed it into the vast productive land we know today, the challenges they confronted and overcame, the importance of and strength they derived from shared heritage and community, and the vision of some to see past their present difficulties to a brighter future. And it features as a prime mover, the one with the greatest vision, a woman of strong will, of inner fortitude, possessing the strength to set aside societal convention as she tamed the wild land as her brothers never could, Alexandra Bergson.

In the 1880s, when the novel opens, Nebraska was still a wild land, given to cattle raising. But the U.S. government wanted to spur agricultural development and to that end passed the Homestead Acts (1882), whereby Americans could receive land free with the proviso they had to live on it and cultivate it within five years. Land was also sold to immigrants who poured into the country, particularly from Scandinavia and Germany. John Bergson, the patriarch in the novel, settled near the fictional town of Hanover. John worked himself to death, literary, farming his land and upon his death left the homestead to Alexandra, going against the grain of both the times and old world tradition. He saw that she, not her brothers Lou and Oscar, had the vision and intelligence to build what he had begun into something big and prosperous. By the second part of the novel, which jumps ahead sixteen years, we see that she has accomplished just that, resisting the brothers’ fears of taking on risk and doing things differently than many around them.

Alexandra, apart from running the farm, leads a lonely life. She has recurring dreams of being carried in the arms of a strong man, but keeps her closest male friend, Carl, at a distance, until the end of the novel. She establishes a close relationship with Marie Tovesky Shabata, whom both she and her youngest brother, Emil, have known since childhood. Emil and Marie are near the same ages and Alexandra encourages Emil to help out on the Shabata farm often. Marie is married to a very difficult man, a man at odds with the world, a man who dislikes his neighbors and is disliked my them in return. Emil, of course, falls in love with Marie, who is vivacious and happy, even, and perhaps in spite, of her marital plight. Her husband, among other things, is jealous of Marie and always suspicious of her. In the end, this leads to tragedy, with him killing both Emil and Marie as they talk to each other in an apple orchard. Interestingly, and a reflection of attitudes toward woman, Alexandra not only blames herself for the murders but also Emil and Marie for engaging in an affair (though emotional not conjugal). In short, Marie bears responsibility for her husbands reaction. As a result, Alexandra visits Frank, the husband, in prison in Lincoln and promises to help him secure an earlier release. This aspect of the novel might have modern readers raising their eyebrows.

In the end, Carl returns from Alaska, where he has gone to stake his claim to adventure and riches, to console her, and the two, though unsaid, marry.

Cather writes with a simplicity that will appeal to most readers. Reminding oneself of American origins, in particular how immigrant groups clung together before blending into the American landscape, is a strength, especially given current times. The portrayal of a strong woman able to succeed to the world of business is another strength. However, some readers may be less accepting of certain ideas more in line with traditional expectations for women, especially as they relate to emotional spousal abuse and finger pointing for a crime of a passion. The Signet Classic mass paperback edition contains a fine introduction by Elizabeth Janeway, and for this reason is the recommended edition.

[lynnb_64 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is my second Willa Cather novel, and will probably be my last. She writes extremely well about places, but her character development leaves something to be desired. In this book, we can see the very different ideas of morality that existed a century ago. Marie and Emil are more at fault than the man who shoots them. Alexandra was, in many ways, an early feminist. But, she still lived for her youngest brother and ended up married. Given that the book was written in 1913, I found these ideas more "interesting" than upsetting...in a "times have changed" kind of way. So, a good story about duty: to the land, to your father and ultimately to yourself.

[bookconcierge · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Cather’s first novel follows one family over decades as they settle the great plains of Nebraska. The heroine is Alexandra Bergson, who comes to the prairie near Hanover, NE, as the only girl in a family of brothers. Yet it is Alexandra who grows up to take over the farm from her father and ensure the family’s prosperity. I loved Alexandra, despite her blind spots. This is a strong woman! Her love of the land is evident, but she is no romantic. Her eyes are wide open to potential disasters, but her shrewd instinct and even handedness in the way she husbands resources and manages both the land and the farm workers help her avoid disaster and recover from set-backs. In addition, Alexandra is also completely dedicated to her family and to helping her younger brother, in particular, achieve his dreams. Her devotion, however, comes with a price, and she foregoes more than one chance at her own personal happiness. And yet, the story encompasses triumph as well as tragedy. Cather’s writing is gloriously descriptive. I can smell the scent of freshly turned earth, hear the animals, feel the dusty grit. Her work evokes in me a kind of nostalgia for a simpler time, and at the same time, great relief that I do not have to perform that hard work today.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

O Pioneers by Willa Cather was originally published in 1913 and is written in her trademark spare yet lyrical prose as it explores themes of destiny, chance, love and steadfastness. The setting is that of a farming community in Nebraska which brings a sense of neighbourliness and family ties. Over and above all is the land which these people homesteaded, saw through the lean and difficult years and now are reaping it’s rich benefits. The central character is Alexandra Bergson, the only daughter and oldest child of Swedish immigrants. She holds the family together and to the land when her father passes away unexpectedly. She more than proved herself worthy and made her family one of the most prosperous landowners in the region. Of course there was a price for this success, she gave up any chance of a personal life in order to help the family. Of course, her brothers aren’t always at ease with Alexandra and in later years they try unsuccessfully to control her which causes them to fall out. The tragedy of the story is her youngest brother, Emil, whom Alexandra has basically raised. She wants him to have choices and advantages that the rest of the family didn’t have, but she cannot control his heart which he has given to Marie, a married woman from the town’s French community. Although I haven’t read Willa Cather’s Prairie Trilogy any particular order, O Pioneers is a wonderful addition. Her strong simple characters go about their lives in this descriptive Nebraska setting in a natural manner. There is drama and action but it never feels artificial or forced. I found this to be an excellent read, and it will be one that I remember.

[lkernagh · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I should probably start off this review by admitting that I have not been reading Cather’s Prairie Trilogy in order, having read My Antonia around this time last year. Cather’s strength – IMO anyways – is her wonderfully descriptive prose. She knew how to paint a picture with words! Like My Antonia, Oh Pioneers! gives readers a strong female protagonist, this time in Alexandra Bergson, the eldest child of a Swedish immigrant family who takes over the running of the family farm when the father dies. Like other women in Cather’s stories, Alexandra is an individual with grit and determination, valuable characteristics to have to survive and thrive in the American frontier of the early nineteenth century. Alexandra faces family struggles as her younger brothers side with societal views of the time period and feel that it is inappropriate for Alexandra to be free to do as she pleases, so very much a story about a woman claiming her rights outside of the bounds of traditional social norms of the time period. While a short novel – more a novella – the story only hits a couple of stutters/lurches to the otherwise even flow of the story. A common theme I have found in the Cather stories I have read so far is her ability to communicate to the reader the spiritual connection of land and people. Her characters are grounded, driven with a purpose and not flighty as one might find in some other novels. For me, the high points of this story are the strong female protagonist, the mosaic of immigrant characters from the “old country” that would have populated the American frontier of the time period and Cather’s wonderful, descriptive prose, written in plain, accessible language.

[bell7_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When her father dies, Alexandra takes over the running of the farm in Nebraska. Over the years and told in a series of vignettes, we get to see Alexandra's successes and challenges, and get to know the community of pioneer and immigrant folk who work hard and love the land.My first impression of the book was that the land itself was the most interesting character, and that feeling never quite abandoned me though I was impressed with how much Cather was able to convey about the community in a series of short vignettes that cover a few decades. Did I enjoy the book? It's hard to say. I admired Cather's writing to some extent. I liked some characters and the fact that it was about a woman running a farm. I was disappointed by the side story of Marie and Alexandra's brother Emil. They love each other but of course their love is ill-fated and Marie's jealous husband, Frank, kills them in a fit of passion. It was presented as almost inevitable but it made me mad. The descriptions were sometimes quite lovely. Yet it didn't completely grip me, and I most likely would not read it again.

[larryerick · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I always had in the back of mind while I was reading this book that it had been written in a much more conservative time. I suspect that it pushed the limits more back then than it feels to be doing now, especially in regard to women's rights. I was struck by how undated the writing was, not stiff in any way, but not exactly free-spirited either. At times, the narrative is quite eloquent, but it had too many wordy, bland passages for me to forgive its variable quality. For the most part, I chock that up to this being an early work for a gifted writer. I expect to enjoy My Antonia even more.

[melissalenhardt · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Uncharacteristically, I managed to read more than half of this novel without reading the back of book blurb. When I did and saw the word "murder" I laughed. How could such a quiet, deliberate book lead to such a harsh, unforgiving word? Masterfully, it turns out.

Cather's strength is description. Her descriptions of nature are especially detailed and evocative. But, she's at her best when she is underplaying events, using a few well chosen words to pinpoint emotions. Beautiful and surprising, O Pioneers! will stay with me for a while.

[katherinegregg · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

O Pioneers is the story of Alexandra Bergsons, the daughter of Swedish immigrants who settle in Nebraska at the turn of the century. Farming life is hard work and when Alexandra’s father passes away, she is left in charge of the household and the land. Alexandra works hard to turn the farm into a successful business and put Emil, her youngest brother through college. As a result, Alexandra sacrifices her social life and finds herself alone. Many years later, Alexandra is reunited with Carl, a childhood friend who comes back to Nebraska from the big city to visit. Having achieved success, Alexandra finds that she yearns to share her life with Carl. Carl has always been in love with Alaexandra but feels he must go to Alaska to seek his fortune before asking for Alexandra’s hand. Alexandra waits patiently for his return. In the meantime, Emil has returned from a year in Mexico and finds himself still hopelessly in love with Marie, a childhood friend who is now married. News of a tragic event cause Carl to return to Nebraska where he is reunited with Alexandra, this time for good.

[dandelionroots · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

At the turn of the last century, Alexandra, a first generation Swedish immigrant, shoulders the responsibility of managing a farm in the vast erasure of flat land and endless sky that is Nebraska and raising her three brothers after the untimely death of their parents. She sees and capitalizes upon the potential of the land where others find despair. Frontierswomen are my favorite."Isn't it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before."

[browner56 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

O Pioneers! tells the story of Alexandra Bergson, a first-generation immigrant to whom falls the arduous task of managing her family’s farm in turn-of-the-last-century Nebraska. After her parents die prematurely, Alexandra is left in charge of her three brothers—one still a young child—who prove to be little help in running the day-to-day operations of the business. Nevertheless, she manages to find great joy in the simple things she finds around her, such as relationships with long-time friends, planning for her youngest brother to “escape” the hardscrabble life and go to college, or the wild beauty of the rugged land where she lives. However, as skillful and fortunate as she is at farming, her personal life leaves a lot to be desired. Still, Alexandra never loses her fundamental romantic view of the world.As the first novel of Willa Cather’s celebrated Prairie Trilogy, this slender volume does a wonderful job of capturing the struggles, heartbreaks, and occasional joys of daily life in that often bleak, inhospitable time and place. In Alexandra, the author has created one of the great heroines in literature: a strong, smart, and resourceful person who perseveres against some very long odds. In spare but evocative language, Cather paints a compelling portrait of a woman whose vision and commitment are realized, but at a considerable personal cost. The novel is also a loving portrait of the land itself; the descriptions of the remote country as it evolves through the seasons and over the years were simply beautiful. This book was a joy from start to finish and it deserves to remain a treasured classic by each new generation of readers.

[lorisbook · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Life on the divide is tough. We know this as it is written, " The records of the plow was insignificant, like the feeble scratches of time left by prehistoric races, so indeterminate that they may, after all, be only the markings of glaciers, and not a record of human strivings.John Bergson is dying and he tells his daughter Alexandra he wants her to run the farm when he is gone. She has 3 brothers Emil, Lou and Oscar but everyone knows that it is Alexandra who expresses herself best in soil. John passes on and the family farm prospers for three years after his death but then hard times come. Families around them are selling out and leaving the divide but Alexandra goes down south to look at land and she comes back and talks her brothers into mortgaging the farm so they can buy up more land. Sixteen years after Johns death his wife dies. The farms are now prosperous so the inheritance is divided among the 4 children. Sadly, the coveting expressed in childhood extends into adulthood and ends in tragedy. And, the story comes full circle as Carl is there at the end to help Alexandra, just as he was in the beginning.

[charlie68_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An engrossing story to lose yourself in, well read.

[benuathanasia · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A character piece. What happens in this book isn't particularly interesting, but the people it centers around is. There isn't anything particularly mesmerizing about any of the characters - they're just so real and wholesome and pleasant that I'd like being friends with them, but they have conflict just enough that they're intriguing to watch from afar as well. I love Alexandra most, of course. A feminist icon.

[lycomayflower · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Meh, Cather. I read My Antonia sometime in my teens and didn't care for it. Read O! Pioneers in masters degree school and didn't care for it. And I still don't care for it. The descriptions of the land are pretty amazing, and I like some of the characters okay, but for the most part I'm just not gripped or intrigued or fascinated or angered or annoyed or anything really until the end, when Frank shoots his wife, Marie, and Emil and Alexandra is all "well, you know, it's more their fault than yours, Frank, because, you know, carrying on and doing the what-not." Aside from my general "sorry, can't" re: "it's okay to murder your wife and her lover because adultery," Alexandra's reaction to it given her otherwise quite (proto-) feminist attitudes about everything else make me all verhoodled in my brainmeats. This is one of those books I feel is far more important to literature than it ever will be entertaining, enlightening, or appealing to me.

[romonko · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was written in 1913, but it is set in 19th century Nebraska. At that time, a large number of immigrants had made their way to the United States and they came because they knew that land was being offered for free to settlers. This particular settlement is Hanover, Nebraska, and the book is about the Bergstrom family who were immigrants from Sweden. Hard work is definitely not foreign to these people and Alexandra and her family (mother, father, three brothers, and Alexandra herself), Alexandra's father is taken from the family at a fairly young age, but he leaves a sizeable homestead and a house for his family, and he entrusts his daughter to look after it all. He recognizes that she is the most capable of the lot. Alexandra faces this challenge head-on, and she increases her landholdings, and ensures that her family are much better off than when she began. She does this at great sacrifice to her own personal life. This is a story about the strength of the human race; about love and loss; and about great tragedy. It's a wonderful and realistic portrayal of colonial life in the untamed American prairie. I highly recommend this book.

[composingcomposer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Alexandra is incredible. She was strong, and suffered at the hands of all of her brothers. The story was beautiful, even in it's sadness. The writing was poetic and kept me reading.

I loved the ending. The scene where Alexandra realizes it was Jesus who she had been dreaming about for much of her life. I loved it. I was still happy when Carl came back and they agreed to get married, but I also liked the idea of Alexandra becoming a nun (it was implied that was what she was considering this.)

The one thing that I didn't like was the victim blaming. Frank Shabata hurt his wife, not physically, but emotionally, for years and years. It was wrong of her and Emil to commit adultry, but two wrongs make more wrong, and I didn't like that first Frank, and then Alexandra essentially blamed Emil and Marie for Frank's murdering them. Besides the fact that this action was a mortal sin for Frank, it also prevented the two of them from repenting their own. Whether he had a temper or not, Frank should not have kept saying that it was her fault for letting him catch them. It was his fault for letting himself become bitter and suspicious. It was his fault for trying to make Marie as bitter as he. It was his fault for taking the gun with him to the orchard when he did not truly think that there were any intruders. And it was his fault for raising the gun to his shoulder and firing. The murder may not have been premeditated, but it was murder none the less. Ivar believes that the Emil and Marie are in Hell for their actions. I don't know whether they are (or whether non-fictional people in their place would be,) but they didn't deserve to die so quickly and without the chance to ask for God's forgiveness.

So, basically I really enjoyed the book, but I didn't like the fact that Marie and Emil were blamed for their own murders. They were to blame for the sins they committed, yes, but not for the sins Frank committed. I do think I will be reading more Willa Cather in the future.

[scerakor-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I feel obligated to say that it wasn't by any means due to the writing, references, or classic applicability of this book that it got a two star rating (I'm calling it a 2.5). It is simply because, although interesting, it was hard pressed to keep my attention for long periods of time. I would still recommend it if you are interested in early colonial mid-west historical fiction!

[nx74defiant · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The story of a strong female pioneer. It must have really hurt to have her brothers dismiss her contribution because she was a women.