If you noticed the Google homepage over the weekend, you probably saw images of William Shakespeare, in honor of the anniversary of his death on April 23. But another famous voice in literary history also passed away this weekend many years ago. Willa Cather (1873-1947) was one of the greatest writers in American history, and she deserves a few moments of remembrance too.
Though she is perhaps most famous for My Antonia, my favorite work is O Pioneers! In that short novel, she gives us my favorite female in all of American literature, Alexandra Bergson. Representative of so many Europeans that immigrated to this country around the turn of the twentieth century and settled in the heartland, Alexandra is tough, smart, determined, and generous. She has dreams, yet she is a realist. She is demanding, yet also forgiving. She has experienced hard times, yet she never complains. She is just an awesome American woman.
We most clearly see her strength as she deals with her idiotic brothers. They resent her for their father giving her charge of their land on his deathbed, and they anticipate (as do many of their neighbors) a coming collapse in real estate and want to sell their property while they still can. Alexandra, on the other hand, has not followed her father's and brothers' misguided notion that land itself is valuable--it's what you do with it that creates value. She reads and learns and seeks expert advice and sees new methods for farming the land and increasing production, where others do not. Instead of selling, she buys. And when the market turns upward, she sells some and pays down debts, and buys some more. She is one of the smartest business operators in all of literature. She shows her brothers to be fools, yet never rubs it in their faces, even after vastly improving the family's wealth over the next ten years.
Alexandra is a rugged individualist, much like Cather herself. Very few authors, especially females in the male-dominated early 1900s, depict heroism and personal initiative--in their works and in their lives--the way she does. She has the perfect voice for romantic idealism caught up in the chaos of modernism. Cather is also most known for Death Comes for the Archbishop, which is good, but I also like The Song of the Lark and One of Ours. Nearly all of Cather's work is worth checking out, but if you need a place to start, I suggest O Pioneers! for its grit and its heart, its delicate poetry and its straightforward message. Remember Willa Cather this week, and pick up one of her books. You'll be glad you did.
Though she is perhaps most famous for My Antonia, my favorite work is O Pioneers! In that short novel, she gives us my favorite female in all of American literature, Alexandra Bergson. Representative of so many Europeans that immigrated to this country around the turn of the twentieth century and settled in the heartland, Alexandra is tough, smart, determined, and generous. She has dreams, yet she is a realist. She is demanding, yet also forgiving. She has experienced hard times, yet she never complains. She is just an awesome American woman.
We most clearly see her strength as she deals with her idiotic brothers. They resent her for their father giving her charge of their land on his deathbed, and they anticipate (as do many of their neighbors) a coming collapse in real estate and want to sell their property while they still can. Alexandra, on the other hand, has not followed her father's and brothers' misguided notion that land itself is valuable--it's what you do with it that creates value. She reads and learns and seeks expert advice and sees new methods for farming the land and increasing production, where others do not. Instead of selling, she buys. And when the market turns upward, she sells some and pays down debts, and buys some more. She is one of the smartest business operators in all of literature. She shows her brothers to be fools, yet never rubs it in their faces, even after vastly improving the family's wealth over the next ten years.
Alexandra is a rugged individualist, much like Cather herself. Very few authors, especially females in the male-dominated early 1900s, depict heroism and personal initiative--in their works and in their lives--the way she does. She has the perfect voice for romantic idealism caught up in the chaos of modernism. Cather is also most known for Death Comes for the Archbishop, which is good, but I also like The Song of the Lark and One of Ours. Nearly all of Cather's work is worth checking out, but if you need a place to start, I suggest O Pioneers! for its grit and its heart, its delicate poetry and its straightforward message. Remember Willa Cather this week, and pick up one of her books. You'll be glad you did.