Winner of the 1924 Pulitzer Prize, "So Big" is widely regarded as Edna Ferber's crowning achievement. A rollicking panorama of Chicago's high and l...
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Jan 16, 2012
Amber
rated it: 
In the three years I've worked in a bookstore, I've had ZERO customers ask for books by Edna Ferber.
Dude. That is going to change.
I am going to start by recommending it to everyone I know (Andrew's mom is reading it next, then Andrew) and then I am going to recommend it to customers.
It's about Selina DeJong, a gambler's daughter-turned schoolteacher in a dutch village just outside of Chicago. It is definetely interesting to think that there was so much farmland in Selina's da More...
Dude. That is going to change.
I am going to start by recommending it to everyone I know (Andrew's mom is reading it next, then Andrew) and then I am going to recommend it to customers.
It's about Selina DeJong, a gambler's daughter-turned schoolteacher in a dutch village just outside of Chicago. It is definetely interesting to think that there was so much farmland in Selina's da More...
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Dec 17, 2009
Steve
rated it:
This was a very different, very enjoyable read for me. Thanks for nudging this now forgotten little gem my way, Susan. Your instincts for what I would like were, as always, unerring.
So Big was Edna Ferber’s Pulitzer Prize winning book from 1924. Despite the accolades I didn’t know what to think going into it. For one, I imagined the language would seem a little dainty and old-fashioned. For another, it was mostly set on a vegetable farm – not exactly promising. The first few More...
So Big was Edna Ferber’s Pulitzer Prize winning book from 1924. Despite the accolades I didn’t know what to think going into it. For one, I imagined the language would seem a little dainty and old-fashioned. For another, it was mostly set on a vegetable farm – not exactly promising. The first few More...
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Apr 20, 2010
Joyce
rated it:
Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction for 1925.[return][return]In 1889, Selina Peake, orphaned daughter of a sophisticated gambler who loves books, the theater, art, and life, takes up a teaching post in the Dutch farming country town of High Prairie, Illinois, 10 miles outside of Chicago. As the farmer with whose family she is to stay drives her out to the farm, Selina looks at the rows and rows of vegetables and exclaims "How beautiful the cabbages are!" Klas Poole, the stolid Dutch fa
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Aug 02, 2011
Michael
rated it: 
"So Big" follows Selina Peake DeJong whose father was a gambler and was killed by mistake.
Selina was only nineteen at the time in 1888 and she surprises her friends when she decides not to go to Vermont and live with her two aunts. Instead, she shows her independence and determination to succeed on her own. She gets a job as a teacher at the Dutch school in High Plains, ten miles outside of Chicago.
At her first social event, she makes a picnic lunch that will be More...
Selina was only nineteen at the time in 1888 and she surprises her friends when she decides not to go to Vermont and live with her two aunts. Instead, she shows her independence and determination to succeed on her own. She gets a job as a teacher at the Dutch school in High Plains, ten miles outside of Chicago.
At her first social event, she makes a picnic lunch that will be More...
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Aug 12, 2010
megan
rated it:
I came across this book by chance in a rare trip to the bookstore meant entirely to "browse" for something to read on our road trip from San Diego to San Francisco. I found this book buried in the fiction section of Barnes & Noble--don't know why I picked it up or why I really decided to buy it; just dumb luck. How very fortunate because it really was a fantastic read.
The book essentially details the life of a woman, Selina DeJong, who by fate and life circumstances, h More...
The book essentially details the life of a woman, Selina DeJong, who by fate and life circumstances, h More...
Jun 05, 2011
Esther
rated it: 
I'm going to say right off that I wasn't in the mood for this book. It deserves more than 2* because it's very well-written, and the theme is great - but I expected it to be something different than it was, and couldn't get past my disappointment. My bad. Anyway, the theme is compelling, and I didn't have any difficulty reading through the whole book, so I'd say that is a result of clearly excellent writing. If you're interested in a story about an American woman looking for beauty and worth in
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May 11, 2011
Mitsuyasu
rated it:
I was hospitalized when I read. Fine. Although not in a powerful context for all I know, this is something I like best in this novel: "Good Lord, no! Some day I'll probably marry a horny-handed son of toil, and if I do it'll be the horny hands that will win me. If you want to know, I like 'em with their scars on them. There's something about a man who has fought for it - I don't know what it is - a look in his eye - the feel of his hand. He needn't have been successful - though he probably
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Nov 29, 2011
Carolyn
rated it: 
"How big is baby?" "So big!" Hence this books title, and how I rated it.
The heroine, Selina, had so much depth and personality. She really was cutting edge for her time, even though being a farmer is not the most prestigious job now or back then. Selina first became independent at a young age when her father was accidentally shot at, and killed in a poker game. However, Selina decides to stay in Chicago and make a life for herself. She went to college (not very co More...
The heroine, Selina, had so much depth and personality. She really was cutting edge for her time, even though being a farmer is not the most prestigious job now or back then. Selina first became independent at a young age when her father was accidentally shot at, and killed in a poker game. However, Selina decides to stay in Chicago and make a life for herself. She went to college (not very co More...
Jan 14, 2010
Jennie
rated it:
I thought I wasn't going to like this book, but I ended up enjoying it a lot. Selina is a really engaging character--the kind of girl I always wanted to be when I was growing up, but that I was decidedly not, and the kind of woman I would love to be, except I know that I am far too lazy and judgmental. And of course my reading of the Little House books as a small child gave me a perverse love of farms, even farms that try to break your soul. I liked seeing a new perspective on the old relatio
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Feb 11, 2012
Cindy
rated it:
This book was written almost 100 years ago, and yet I feel like I can really relate to Selina, the mother of the title character. The struggles of being a mom and wanting the best for your child have not changed. I loved when Selina was discussing this with her friend and the father of her friend. She goes on about "Beauty" and how she wants her son to have it. "Yes. All the worth-while things in life. All mixed up. Rooms in candle-light. Leisure. Colour. Travel. Books.
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Aug 17, 2007
Susan
rated it:
So wonderful, so honest, so enduring. A classic that brought Edna Ferber the Pulitzer Prize in 1924, each sentence is filled with truth and insight, all cheerfully wrapped up in beautifully descriptive prose. Yet another great story that I just happened to pick up off the shelf.
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Oct 24, 2011
Amy
rated it:
I enjoyed reading this book for two reasons: 1. I enjoyed following the life story of Selina DeJong, a hard-working woman who believes being successful means creating something beautiful. I love that making money has nothing to do with her definition of success. 2. I liked learning about Chicago of the early 1900s. I've never actually visited Chicago, but the author effectively took me to a completely different place and time. This is not a page-turner of a book, yet I enjoyed it. I'll admit tha
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Mar 27, 2010
Andrea
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
Sep 28, 2009
Kristine
rated it:
finally, a book club book that i liked! this won the pulitzer in 1924, and i really liked reading about the turn of the century in chicago and its outlying farmland (which, even though it took hours to travel from the farm to the city via horse-drawn wagon, i still think that the area is closer to downtown than where my house is). kinda sentimental but also with some really great descriptions of people of that era (the flappers especially, how they dressed and spoke) and of chicago during its
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May 20, 2011
Amy
rated it:
I enjoyed the message of this book that beauty is something to be sought and treasured. An idealistic teen father dies leaving her at 18 or 19? to become a school teacher in a small farming community. She marries after a year and becomes a farm wife, after her husband dies she free to run the farms in her own way - based on "foolish" book learning instead of the traditions passed down father to son. She sacrifices too much so her son can go to school and experience beauty - but he beco
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Jan 24, 2008
Amy
rated it:
I love the heroine in this book. So Big is one of my fiction favorites.
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Jun 07, 2011
Linden
rated it:
I think cabbages are beautiful, too. This book was frank, charming, and candid in a way that I never expect of older books, and so I am regularly surprised. So Big maintains throughout the important message of finding beauty in the mundane, and cultivating vitality even in the least expected places. It's a book about not taking things for granted, and for striving for one's beliefs, yet it's not schmaltzy. It has some of the same feel as A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but over a span of an entire lif
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Jan 26, 2012
K.M.
rated it:
Although you can see glimmers of some of Ferber's later works, such as Show Boat (as well as Willa Cather's O, Pioneers!), this early novel is undoubtedly one of her best and most whole. Strong characters, strong themes, and an adamance against sentimental cliche raise it into a thought-provoking, ultimately triumphant story of pain, loss, struggle, and determination. Strangely enough, I vividly remember reading an excerpt (the basket auction scene) in high school literature. I always wanted to
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Jan 24, 2012
Liza
rated it:
This was my second Edna Ferber novel (the first being "Giant"). And it feels like I've discovered a well-kept secret of the literary world.
"So Big" is a great story about a young woman who grows up in various American cities, only to be disillusioned with what life "should be" after getting married to a poor Dutch farmer and toiling in the fields. But it's not just that: It's about believing that life is a grand adventure, "so much velvet." And More...
"So Big" is a great story about a young woman who grows up in various American cities, only to be disillusioned with what life "should be" after getting married to a poor Dutch farmer and toiling in the fields. But it's not just that: It's about believing that life is a grand adventure, "so much velvet." And More...
Jan 08, 2012
Melissa
rated it:
4.5 Stars
“Cabbages are beautiful!”
Once these words are uttered, you are intimately aware of Selina Peake DeJong’s view of life and the world around her.
Raised by a father who taught her that life was an adventure – Selina takes a job as a country teacher in High Prairie, a farming community that serves the bustling metropolis of Chicago at the turn of the century. She meets Dutch settlers who work the rich earth south of Chicago to feed the expanding populat More...
“Cabbages are beautiful!”
Once these words are uttered, you are intimately aware of Selina Peake DeJong’s view of life and the world around her.
Raised by a father who taught her that life was an adventure – Selina takes a job as a country teacher in High Prairie, a farming community that serves the bustling metropolis of Chicago at the turn of the century. She meets Dutch settlers who work the rich earth south of Chicago to feed the expanding populat More...
Jan 03, 2012
Lee Anne
rated it:
This is the second Edna Ferber book I've read, and I can't wait to read many more. Ferber can craft a phrase so perfect, so original, that I will literally gasp with pleasure at her writing.
This book, the story of Selina DeJong, a gambler's daughter turned country schoolteacher turned farmer's wife in turn of the century Chicago, is full of all the standard fare of "the American Experience," rendered with amazing detail and talent. There is the struggle of the farmer, the More...
This book, the story of Selina DeJong, a gambler's daughter turned country schoolteacher turned farmer's wife in turn of the century Chicago, is full of all the standard fare of "the American Experience," rendered with amazing detail and talent. There is the struggle of the farmer, the More...
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Mar 31, 2009
Sharon
rated it:
Edna Ferber, where have you been all my life? I was surprised at how modern 'So Big' is despite its age. Women are still struggling and sacrificing to balance their wants with society's expectations. People are still choosing money over art. People are still looking down on the poor and downtrodden. Things are so same that it's scary. The ending is what keeps me from giving the book 5 stars. I think it's too ambiguous compared to the rest of the novel. I would have liked to have seen more redemp
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Feb 16, 2012
Lizzie
rated it:
I guess I should admit that I was hoping this book would feel ahead of its time. It sounds so much like it will be: a woman becomes independent, successful, and respected (!) in a man's job, isn't super involved in romance, and critiques the lifestyle of capitalists. However, to read it, it falls very much into the historical middle ground: being an enlightened story for its period, but disappearing as such once its audience is changed by real-world progress (many) decades later.
I th More...
I th More...
Nov 14, 2009
Linda
rated it:
You could dismiss this as a story that takes place on a farm on the prairie. If you did, you would be overlooking not only the fact that the "prairie" is the outskirts of Chicago that are basically now suburbs, but also that the whole point of the book is how we find art and beauty in life despite and because of where we find ourselves.
Selina knows what's up. She was raised by her imperfect single father to know about theater, gambling, travel, and other life adventures, More...
Selina knows what's up. She was raised by her imperfect single father to know about theater, gambling, travel, and other life adventures, More...
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Nov 01, 2009
Shana
rated it:
In my quest to read classics I've never read, So Big is a confirmation of why I need to continue this effort.
A simple, short novel, So Big was a pleasure to read from a literary and historical point of view. Starting in the 1890s, Ferber tells the story of Selina DeJong - her childhood with a gambler father, her sudden move to become a teacher in a Dutch truck farm community (somewhere south/west of Chicago - you Chicago folks I'm sure can tell me exactly where this was), her marria More...
A simple, short novel, So Big was a pleasure to read from a literary and historical point of view. Starting in the 1890s, Ferber tells the story of Selina DeJong - her childhood with a gambler father, her sudden move to become a teacher in a Dutch truck farm community (somewhere south/west of Chicago - you Chicago folks I'm sure can tell me exactly where this was), her marria More...
Nov 26, 2011
Brooke
rated it:
I really, really enjoyed this well-written, slight novel. My copy had an epilogue that spoke to Ferber's popularity in the 20s and 30s, and how that may have affected her posterity. People dismissed popular and prolific writers then as they do now (think Stephen King or Lionel Shriver). The critics of her day and mine did not include her in epic must-read lists. Her screenplay Giant, James Dean's last movie may be remembered, but her Pulitzer-Prize winning novel sits unnoticed on the shelf,
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Aug 31, 2008
Corinne
rated it:
I regret that I have waited so long to read this magnificent book.
Selina's unusual upbringing by a roving gambler in the late 19th century imbues her with a love of life and adventure. Her heart's desire to truly live leads her to say farewell to Chicago for the "High Prairie" where she takes a job as a teacher in a school full of farm children. As different as it is from the city, Selina finds beauty and a certain strength in the landscapes and the Dutch farmers she intera More...
Selina's unusual upbringing by a roving gambler in the late 19th century imbues her with a love of life and adventure. Her heart's desire to truly live leads her to say farewell to Chicago for the "High Prairie" where she takes a job as a teacher in a school full of farm children. As different as it is from the city, Selina finds beauty and a certain strength in the landscapes and the Dutch farmers she intera More...
Apr 12, 2010
Kara
rated it:
This was an early 1900's story about a strong women and the choices she makes through life that enriches her life compared to her son who is given every opportunity to make those same kinds of choices and ends up taking the easy route through life. In the end the son realizes what could have been different. I was endeared to the main character because the author developed her so well and I loved her devotion, commitment and character.
Jul 06, 2009
Lisa
rated it:
I don't really know what I want to say about this book. I really liked parts of it, but then other parts drove me mad (like the ending). It was very interesting and while parts of the story were so insipiring, other parts of it were very disheartening. Reading this book as a mother, knowing that I can't live my kids' lives for them, was hard. Mothers want so much for their children and this is just a very clear example of that.
It reminded me a lot of the book A Lantern in Her H More...
It reminded me a lot of the book A Lantern in Her H More...
Jan 23, 2010
April
rated it:
Seemed a bit like a combination of _My Antonia_ and _The Fountainhead_. Not as good as either, but pretty darn good. Have I mentioned the Goodreads scale was from 1-100 instead of 1-5? On my imaginary 1-100 Goodreads scale, I'd probably give So Big hmmm a 72. Whereas four stars should equal 80. But there are a lot of books I read that would fall between 60 and 80, and most don't deserve to be downgraded to a 60 (three stars). Enough about me and my issues.
