The Troll Garden / O Pioneers! / The Song of the Lark / My Antonia / One of Ours (Library of America)

I am reading many books about pioneer life as research for a novel I hope to write. Until I read Willa Cather I never really understood why they left their homes, gave up everything for a dream. O Pioneers is a beautiful reading experience. I look forward to the other two books of Cather's pioneer trilogy.

This book is really a great read...the title kind of put me off, but it's really good.
I had read "My Antonia" by Willa Cather and really liked it, and this one was also great.
This is how a good writer writes...funny in parts and really interesting.

Willa Cather is one of my favorite American authors. She writes with wonderful description of the late 1880s and early 1900s in the Midwest. Her characters are at the same time simple yet deep. I have used O Pioneers every year in the classes I teach in American literature.

The ebook provides a great way for my students to have the book as their own and to highlight and annotate.

O Pioneers is about love. Love of the land, family, community and between couples. It captures the dilemmas we each encounter as a result of our love. Keeping commitments, living with honor and hoping for a better life.

Willa Cather captures the personality or perhaps stereotypes of the immigrants. This book is so well written, the pages fly by.

I enjoy Willa Cather's writing style: direct ,strong and bold.There is a real sense of place in her stories. Her characters feel solid and you appreciate the mindset of those people who had to deal with life and circumstances in real time and straightforwardly. You feel what they feel and experience that time and place. There is honesty in their emotions and a practical approach to their situations. I look forward to reading more of her works.

Determination and a belief in the land determines success or failure in the tough virgin prairie for immigrants who are the roots of America - a grand tale by an often neglected major American writer.

O Pioneers is a wonderful entry point to the writings of Willa Cather. If your heritage includes Swedish emigrants to Nebraska, this story is a MUST read. I recognized my own family traits here, for better, for worse. There are many books about pioneers and the prairie, often idyllic or romantic or fantastic, but this one surpasses them for clarity and keen sense of emigrant realism, including the beautiful, the entrepreneurial, the mundane, the sorrowful and the tragic.

I really enjoyed this book. Throughout this entire book there was a certain gloom through the narrative that was extremely palpable. I'm not surprised that this is one of Willa Cather's greatest works.

Action? Not much. Plot? Not much. Story? You bet! I am surprised that I have enjoyed reading Cather as much as I have considering that the novels of hers that I have read (O Pioneers, My Antonia, Death Comes for the Archbishop) do not contain much action or deep plots. They are simply stories of people's ordinary day to day lives and their interactions with their family members and neighbors while living and growing up in rural Nebraska (O Pioneers), a harsh and rather boring country to live in at the time, particularly for young kids and teenagers growing up and looking for excitement. Yet, Cather has a way of making you feel like you know these people and that they might knock on your door at any time. I was never bored and I look forward to reading more of her works. I urge others to do the same.

Wila Cather's novel "O Pioneers!" tells the story of immigrants forging life on the hard land of the Nebraskan plains. The story revolves around Alexandra, a hardworking girl with a mind (and heart) for the land as she builds what land she has inherited from her father into a thriving and valuable farm. This is the second novel by Cather I've read, the first being "My Antonia". I picked up a copy of "O Pioneers!" because I looked forward to seeing Cather craft a heroine at the center of her stark landscapes and heartfelt tales. I was not disappointed. Alexandra provides all you could hope for from a Cather woman and then some.

It was impressive to see how challenges of an ambitious and strong woman have remained, in some ways, constant through the years. Lou and Oscar's oppressive attitudes towards Alexandra's business and strong opinions towards her in regards to Carl and Ivar ring authentic still to women struggling among men. So too are Frank Shabata's words to Alexandra concerning his wife at the end of the book. I have to admit, I didn't like the turn Alexandra took there, but all the same it was in her character and became balanced with the appearance of Carl.

All in all, this story eschews the traditional rules of novel-writing, switching POVs frequently, indulging in transcribing regional accents, and sometimes switching voice from practical and plain to sweeping and grandiose. For these reasons, I don't think I enjoyed it or found it quite as well done as "My Antonia". However, it was still well worth the read for the beautiful portrait of characters and the land.

This book precedes "My Antonia" and seems less personable, but more historic in scope. Where "My Antonia" is about two young people (children, really) in an evolving relationship, "O Pioneers!" is about a movement of people and their interactions. Like the third novel, the language is a bit more archaic but nevertheless inviting, compelling. It's a good introduction to "My Antonia". I plan to read the second novel next.

Willa Cather knows about love and knows how to write about it. This is an exemplary novel about the southwest before the dustbowl, sibling jealousies, young love, and so much more. After reading it I have recommended it many times.

Human experience on this earth, circa early 1900's, midwest America. Beautifully written, dreamlike, a memory; scenes of poverty, almost overwhelming despair, scenes of resiliancy, redemption; the conclusion is a triumph of love.

O Pioneers! provided interesting information about early life on the Divide and continued to follow the story for another generation. It told of the struggles of a girl who used her thought process to improve her life and that of her family.

Following my Road Scholar class on Willa Cather in Red Cloud Nebraska I wanted to obtain some of the scholarly materials published about Cather. This book is a fine, updated revision of the hardback Scholarly Edition. Book was in fine condition.

If you like history about the settling and expansion of the America--not about persons later deemed heroes--but by the ordinary immigrant pioneers who did the hard work and aspired for brighter futures for their children, then Willa Cather is hard to beat. Of her three books often referred to as the pioneer trilogy, I think O Pioneers and My Antonia are the better..Song of the Lark a distant third.

I enjoy her novels because they are well done and are a great insight into that time and place. We know exactly what life was like in the 1880-1920 farming Nebraska era because her novels tell us how it was. Just like Jane Austen's novels tell us exactly what life was like in upper class England during her time.

Wonderful heart warming.I enjoyed reading this story so much because some of the Characters were of Bohemian nationality. My material Grandmother was a full blooded Bohemian woman. Today I find many people do not know Bohemia was a country before there was Chech Republic. Loved, O Pioneers.

This is a wonderful classic written by one of America's great female writers and depicts a very true account of what the Pioneers went through in the settling of the western part of this country. Must reading for all those interested in great literature and our history.

This is a wonderful novel -the story resonates for readers today- My college class loved it! They are making deep connections to their own lives and learning so much about that period of history. As many students come from different countries and cultures, they understand the immigrant experience and have great admiration for those pioneers who settled on the Prairie and dug out a new existence. Alexandra is a character greatly admired...'she is a wise leader,'' counselor', and a 'real individual' who follows her own path.

I grew up in Webster County Nebraska (home of Willa Cather) and am married to someone also in the family tree of Willa Cather. I read some books growing up and recently and nostalgically read this one again...some 45 years after the Navy moved me to the west coast. It is so descriptive and true to life....back then. A great read now for history buffs, and people appreciating our ancestry, even people who appreciate good writing.