[ZTG]≡ PDF One of Ours Willa Cather 9781600969799 Books

One of Ours Willa Cather 9781600969799 Books

Download As PDF : One of Ours Willa Cather 9781600969799 Books

One of Ours Willa Cather 9781600969799 Books

Willa Cather is a marvel! Authors are often told to show and not tell. This book is a wonderful example of that art put into practice. Highly recommended for all writers and readers too!


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One of Ours Willa Cather 9781600969799 Books Reviews

I was curious to read One of Ours because the author’s My Antonia was required reading for me in 10th grade Literature. One of Ours made me feel a constant longing for the protagonist to find happiness. When he didn’t find it with his wife or even with another woman, he found it with his country. Still, I had the fulfilling ending all planned out. Alas, it didn’t happen that way at all. I hoped to hear news of a character change in the other major character but that was left hanging. I can easily see why this book won the Pulitzer Prize.
I just finished reading Willa Cather’s novel,”One of Ours,” for the next Harmony book group meeting. This novel won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1923. It’s not Cather’s best work but it is thought provoking. Claude Wheeler is the son of a prosperous Nebraska father; his father owns a lot of land and leases it to other farmers. Claude’s mother is a devout Christian. Claude attends a Christian college very grudgingly; his professors are poor instructors and Claude is convinced that his intellect and interests would be challenged at the State school. One semester he takes a class at the state school and begins to enter a larger world, one where he fits in and feels comfortable. Claude becomes friends with some brothers in an impoverished German-American family and sees that they manage to live life large despite their limited income. His father calls Claude back to take care of the family farm. Claude gives up on his own personal wants and returns to the family farm. He has a close relationship with his mother and the family servant but even they see that Claude is suffocating intellectually. Claude marries a childhood friend, Enid Royce, but they have no common ground or empathy for each other. Enid goes to China to care for her sister, a missionary who is in ill health. She disappears from the story after that. The first half of “One of Ours” sings along in a kind of literary Impressionism. Nobody writes prairie better than Willa Cather. Claude is unhappy because he is constantly looking for something or someone he can believe in. He finds his purpose as a soldier during World War 1. His idealistic nature finds an answer in fighting for a higher purpose and his intellectual passion for contributing to the common good is fully realized. The second part of the book, set in France, does have some weaknesses. Claude’s battalion eat regularly even while fighting in the trenches and that would not seem congruent with soldiers’ experiences in “All Quiet on the Western Front.” This book will make for an excellent discussion. I find myself wondering how Claude’s fervent idealism could really survive the onslaught of horrific conditions and violence so prevalent in that war. I can’t imagine that to be an accurate experience for any soldier and so I’m troubled by the ending.
If you're from the midwest, you'll probably understand this book. If you've never understood an agrarian form of life, you may not like the start. Time rolls slower where the earth and sky meet. Doesn't mean it has less meaning, on the contrary. It usually means that nuances have meanings and those meanings create desires that must be met. Sacrifice is part of that life. Not all things that we desire are good for us, and things we don't always like aren't necessarily bad for us. Depends on how you use it to learn about yourself. Rarely would I suspect that people are deeply introspective without quiet and time away from the bustle. I liked the book.
I've made a commitment to begin reading Pulitzer Prize winning novels starting with the 1920s. This book by WIlla Cather, which is about a sensitive and idealistic Nebraska farm boy--Claude Wheeler--is far better than a couple of its prize-winning predecessors. I think some of the other reviewers of this novel, in my humble opinion, got stuck on some of the devices/constructs in the book and allowed literary structure and drama to color their impressions -- at least more than I did. Any book that does justice to war is going to have tragedy and pathos. Also, books on war are, in the eyes of many, either going to be "too dramatic and gory," or they are not going to have enough military accuracy.

Claude is one of those young men who truly finds himself, defines himself, when he discovers (after becoming a soldier) that ideas are more important than possessions or manufactured things. Willa Cather strategically laid the plans for Claude's moral development by making him a free-thinking humanist during college, and by bringing him together with intellectual people like the Ehrlich family in Lincoln, Nebraska. Where Willa Cather excels way beyond her contemporaries and even in the bright light of today's literary environment, is in character development. As I read this book, I felt like I was living in the Wheeler's farmhouse, feeling the emotions of Claude, his mother, and the old cook named Mahailey. I began to feel these people--as one does in reading a really good book--as my companions for a week or two, and they would cross my mind at odd moments, like friends of mine. They were very well sketched, understandable and even predictable at times (as when Claude chooses to follow his illusions about marriage and hooks up with the frigid Enid).

The end of the book, while difficult, is the best culmination for those characters during that period in history. A great read.
Willa Cather is a marvel! Authors are often told to show and not tell. This book is a wonderful example of that art put into practice. Highly recommended for all writers and readers too!