I was rather bored with Honey in the Horn which deals with Oregon at the turn of the last century just as Now in November by Josephine Johnson, fellowI was rather bored with Honey in the Horn which deals with Oregon at the turn of the last century just as Now in November by Josephine Johnson, fellow Pulitzer winner the previous year. But, where Johnson describes homesteading in the eastern part of the state during a drought, Davis deals more with western Oregon a few years later. The protagonist Clay is rather one-dimensional and, at least I found, not remarkably likable. He has an on-again, off-again relationship with the daughter of a horse trade which I found unconvincing. There were passages of beautiful writing describing the mountains and coastline, but I was not enamored with the characters and found the plot to be rather inconsistent in terms of rhythm.
"He went back to making pelt-stretchers, and refused to take any money for his sardines and barley and crackers. It was hard to think how long he would go on sitting outside listening to the ocean he had never seen with his wife locked upstairs with the blinds down, hating the country about which neither of them had ever really learned anything, and how all the good their fidelity to one another had done was to keep both of them from doing what they wanted to. It seemed an unjust piece of punishment against two people who had never done anything except love and stay faithful and need each other. If that was all a couple got for practicing what was commonly looked upon as a virtue, a man was a lot better off going it alone." (p. 179)
This passage bothered me: "They were dark for Indians, their complexions running to brown rather than red. All were fat, and their faces had the same combination of stupidity and covetousness that one sees among the peasants of Normandy." (p. 188). First off, Clay would probably not even be able to find Normandy on a map (or France for that matter) much less know dumb (and inaccurate) stereotypes about Norman peasants. This seemed very anachronistic to me.
On the other hand, I felt this observation was relevant even now: "Different though all these people's histories were, there was one thing to be noticed about them. None of them told stories about things they had heard or read about other people having done. They considered nothing worth telling unless they had seen and performed in it themselves. It was true that they preferred telling about what they had done to getting out and preparing for what they intended to do. Winter, for instance, was the time to have rounded up their cattle, which were then pasturing the low brush close to the sea where they were easy to get at. But the men refused to disturb them until spring, when they had drifted back into the deep timber following the new grass. The fresh-foliaged brush made them hard to find, the good feed made them hard to catch, and the settlers had over a month of extra work rounding enough of them to pay for the wagons needed to move it." (p. 212) I think that for much of humanity, this lackadaisical attitude is still prevalent despite its obvious and predictable disadvantages.
This completes my reading of the first 20 years of Pulitzers. My best discoveries during this period were the writing of Willa Cather about pioneer life in One of Ours which I found wonderful, the humorous fictional depictions of the medical industry by Sinclair Lewis in Arrowsmith, and the fascinating descriptions of life on a farm in China in Pearl S Buck in The Good Earth My least favorite was clearly Scarlet Sister MaryScarlet Sister Mary. Looking at other books published these years, but not rewarded by the Pulitzer Committee, I found that I was less in agreement with them for these early years. Granted that there as less being published, so the choices were reduced, I think that they missed the mark, particularly with having missed out on awarding early works by Hemingway and Faulkner and ANY work by Fitzgerald was quite a shame.
[image]Sobig is a spoiled kid sort of like the protagonist in The Magnificent Ambersons by Tarkington, but far more enjoyable as a character. His adve[image]Sobig is a spoiled kid sort of like the protagonist in The Magnificent Ambersons by Tarkington, but far more enjoyable as a character. His adventures in rural (soon to be suburban Chicago) Illinois with his fascinating and exuberant mother were delightful to read if peppered with some period racism (Japs, darkies). This won the Pulitzer in 1925 and looking into it, other than the posthumous publishing of Billy Budd by Melville, it was not a banner year for American literature with no output from heavyweights Dos Passos, Fitzgerald, Lewis, or Hemingway. While it is a fun book full of a mother's love and the foibles of youth, it is not necessarily an epic book. I think its interest lies in the complicity of the two protagonists and in the evolution of the countryside near Chicago as the industrial economy overran and demolished the small farmers. I find the theme of a dying rural America is quite common in this early Pulitzers probably cumulating in the epic The Grapes of Wrath, winner in 1940.
This Pulitzer winner is both a frontier/pioneer story and a World War I story. It features Claude who never quite fits into farm life in Nebraska and This Pulitzer winner is both a frontier/pioneer story and a World War I story. It features Claude who never quite fits into farm life in Nebraska and goes off to die heroically in the trenches of the Somme (or Marne?) It was chosen over Main Street by Sinclair Lewis which caused not a little bit of consternation and controversy at the time. Stay tuned, I plan to read Main Street soon before I read Arrowsmith for which Lewis won but turned down a Pulitzer several years later. On its own, One of Ours is an entertaining, if somewhat depressing, read. It was, however, not my favorite by Cather. I preferred My Antonia written between O Pioneers and this one.
This was a hard book to track down. Its somewhat melodramatic theme and uneven writing quality probably account for its relative obscurity despite havThis was a hard book to track down. Its somewhat melodramatic theme and uneven writing quality probably account for its relative obscurity despite having won the Pulitzer Prize. It is a Civil War-era story about Wully's ill-fated return from the Civil War finding his sweetheart pregnant and compromised and his failed attempts to deal with it. He accepts Chiristine (yes, that is how it is spelled) and lies to the family about the true father of the kid (the bad Peter who is run off and predictably returns for the denouement). The book is also the story of Scottish immigration into Iowa (like those of Norweigan and Swedish immigrants in the Cather books or Dutch immigrants in Ferber) which adds an interesting cultural twist. However, don't know yourself out trying to find this one. It was OK, but I am uncertain that it truly deserved a Pulitzer.
This was my first book by Willa Cather and I found it a light and entertaining read. It features Alexandra, a strong, independent woman on the ContineThis was my first book by Willa Cather and I found it a light and entertaining read. It features Alexandra, a strong, independent woman on the Continental Divide and her family's life on the farm. Full of descriptions and not a little melodrama, it is a great place to start in appreciating the pioneer phase of Cather's career....more
This was my favorite Willa Cather read with such a lively description of life in Nebraska among several families of immigrants. In fact, what struck mThis was my favorite Willa Cather read with such a lively description of life in Nebraska among several families of immigrants. In fact, what struck me in Cather's books (also in So Big by Ferber and in The Able McLaughlins by Wilson) was how incredibly diverse the ethnicities were on the 19th century frontier. The now hardcore red, anti-immigrant parts of the US were almost entirely populated by 1st generation immigrants from Norway, Sweden, Germany, Czech, Slovakia, Holland, France, Scotland, Ireland...We often think of Ellis island as contributing to the NYC and New England population explosion of the early 20th century, but it is remarkable to see that many of the immigrants headed west all the way to the limits of the american push (and thus all benefiting from the genocide of the indigenous AmerIndian population that preceded and accompanied Manifest Destiny). In fact, there is a stunning silence in all these books as to the previous nomadic inhabitants of the great plains and so forth. I think we imaging the red barns and large porches of the prototypical American farm as these permanent fixtures of the midwest landscape, but in fact that image is barely 100 years old. The farm houses of the first generations of pioneers were mud huts, caves, and stand-tos. It took until the early 20th century for there to be enough wealth and infrastructure for truly large farms to stabilize and develop as the smaller farmers died off or were driven off by the banks and predatory bigger farms. We see this at a bit of a distance, perhaps more so in So Big than in My Antonia. What I loved about My Antonia was the vivacity of the Antonia and her friend Nina whose paths diverge but for whom the protagonist always carries a weakness. It is a breathless tale of adventure and survival and, for me, the best of Cather. ...more
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