Finished: O Pioneers! (Cather). Such a good book, but then so heartbreaking at the end. :-( Finally, I was going along reading a book about a strong woman who survived the bleak odds and made something of herself, along with the help of her brothers. Of course, she was the brains behind the brawn. And then...I'm skating along towards the end of the book when tragedy strikes three very likable characters. Ugghh! I'm so sad...but still, it was a very good book!

O Pioneers is the story of Alexandra Bergsen, who we meet as a nearly twenty year old young woman, a Swedish immigrant who has settled in the harsh Nebraska plains with her father, mother and three brothers. Our first glimpse of the story introduces Alexandra's five year old brother, Emil, whose kitten has climbed up a pole in the middle of a wintry day in the town where the farming brother and sister have gone to speak to the town doctor. When Emil shows the frightened kitten to his determined sister, you just know that she's going to get her down, and that this determination will be one of her key character traits throughout the entire book. Alexandra finds her good friend, Carl, who is a little bit younger than she is, and he in turn, runs to get some pole spikes. He scurries up the pole and saves the kitten. We know early on that he'd do nearly anything for Alexandra, but she doesn't learn that for many, many years. Happy Emil takes his warm kitten into the town store to warm up, where he first meets the charming, endearing seven year old Marie Tovesky. She is a delightful, happy, positive child who grows up to be the same kind of young woman.

Sadly, in the opening chapter, Alexandra's father is very ill and soon passes away. Before doing so, he tells Alexandra's brothers, who are nineteen and seventeen, that despite the fact that they are following in their father's footsteps and working tirelessly to make corn grown on their several hundred acres of rough land....Alexandra is the one in the family with the head for business, for buying, for organizing. He wants them to promise him that they'll always do what she says....she will be running the farm. After he dies, there are a few years of harsh times and many neighbors are selling their farms and land to banks, etc. Even Alexandra's best friend Carl sadly tells her that his father is selling out and they are moving away. Alexandra's brothers, Oscar and Lou, want to sell out and move somewhere where it's not so hard to make a living. However, their father had made sure they were one of the only farms with the mortgage paid off before he died, so Alexandra wants to do what seems crazy and buy instead of sell! She just knows that the land will increase in value. She borrows money to buy more land, including Carl's old homestead.

When the next part of the book starts up sixteen years later, we see that she was right! Alexandra had been able to sell much of the new land she bought for huge profits. She's got a huge farm, lots of land, a beautiful home, and both Lou and Oscar each own 1/3 of what their father originally left them with nice homes and families of their own. Everyone is doing fine economically, but Lou and Oscar are jealous of young Emil who, now 21, has just had his final year at college. They are still generally very selfish and suspicious of anyone's good motives. Alexandra and Emil remain very close.

When Carl comes to visit after all those years, Lou and Oscar, who used to be friends with him, treat him horribly. They think he's just there to trick Alexandra into marrying him so he can live off of her money. Alexandra enjoys the time they spend together, but soon Carl leaves to try and make it on his own so he can come back and be "worth something" to Alexandra. Basically...Lou and Oscar run him off. Alexandra is livid with them and says they are no longer welcome in her house. Alexandra has also become good friends with the lovely Marie Tovesky, who is now married to Frank Shabata, a joyless, jealous, brute of a man. At the time they fell in love, he was more of a mysterious dandy, and now Marie is stuck in a loveless marriage. She is still very positive and makes the most of situations. The smallest things make her squeal with happiness. One person who makes her very happy is Emil. From the time they were children they have been close. Marie married Frank while Emil was off at college, not knowing that all that time Emil was really in love with her. It's not hard to see that Marie is actually in love with Emil as well, though they never tell each other or act on those feelings.

Emil has another best friend, a French immigrant named Amedee. He is also a joyful person and has been married for a year and now has a brand new son. After a fun town get together, Emil and Marie finally admit to each other that they love each other, and Emil realizes that he must go away. Marie would never betray her marriage. So a few weeks later, the night before Emil is going to go away to law school, he goes by to say goodbye to Amedee. Amedee is frantically working in his wheat fields, trying to bring the crop in, but he's also terribly sick! It turns out, he is in acute pain because he has a ruptured appendix. Shockingly, the admirable and loving Amedee dies! Reeling from the news of Amedee's death, Emil and Marie meet each other in her arbor and fall into each other's arms. Frank comes home in a brutish mood, as usual, sees Emil's horse there and takes his gun and goes looking for them. In a rage, he shoots Emil and Marie dead as they are laying together for the first time.

I said it was sad. :-( Anyway....after that, Alexandra is beyond despair and even questions whether she wants to keep living either. She sends a letter to Carl, but never hears back from him. Until...one day....Carl shows up! He never got her letter, but he had just heard the news about Emil and he dropped everything to come and be with her. The book ends with Carl and Alexandra deciding to be together and letting no one deter them this time.

Such a good book about Alexandra's strength and practicality...but so sad that three characters I liked so much met such tragic ends. Oh, and of course, Cather took her title from Walt Whitman's poem, Pioneers! O Pioneers!, and the entire poem is at the end of the book. :-)