O Pioneers!
by Willa Cather · first published 1913
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"Alexandra, daughter of a Swedish immigrant farmer in Nebraska, inherits the family farm and finds love with an old friend." "The heroic battle for survival of simple pioneer folk in the Nebraska country of the 1880s. John Bergson, a Swedish farmer, struggles desperately with the soil but dies unsatisfied. His daughter Alexandra resolves to vindicate his faith, and her strong character carries her weak older brothers and her mother alng to a new zest for life. Years of privation are rewarded on the farm. But when Alexandra falls in love with Carl Linstrum, and her family objects because he is
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In the great short books category, Willa Cather’s plains trilogy books are like 150-200 pages each, they’re fast reads and the prose is excellent — I’d start with ‘O Pioneers!’
on “Ask HN: How to level up your technical writing?” ↗The first Willa Cather I read was O Pioneers. Long after college. I thought I was reasonably well read. I knew the name, Willa Cather, of course, but assumed that since I hadn't read any Cather (hadn't been induced to read any Cather as part of…
on “The Quest for Cather” ↗…other kinds of writing - e.g. A. B. Guthrie, Elmer Kelton, and the next writer. Willa Cather's novels: The "plains trilogy" (the stories are set in Nebraska and Colorado, but otherwise unrelated): "O Pioneers!" (1913) - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24 "The Song of the Lark" (1915) - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44 "My Ántonia" (1918) - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19810 And not quite a hundred…
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite classic books?” ↗…community has a claim back upon you. People within that community depend on each other and that dependencies offers opportunity to connect more deeply. In the article he blocks out a longer excerpt from O Pioneers! by Willa Cather, with this bolded bit: > Freedom so often means that one isn't needed anywhere. https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-convivial-soc...
on “Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]” ↗