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One of Ours
Cather's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel explores the life of Claude Wheeler, a young Nebraskan who refuses to settle for a life others have imagined for him. Alienated from his parents and rejected by his wife, Wheeler finally finds his destiny on the bloody battlefields of World War I.
391 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1922
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About the author
Willa Cather
820 books2,702 followersWilella Sibert Cather was born in Back Creek Valley (Gore), Virginia, in December 7, 1873.
She grew up in Virginia and Nebraska. She then attended the University of Nebraska, initially planning to become a physician, but after writing an article for the Nebraska State Journal, she became a regular contributor to this journal. Because of this, she changed her major and graduated with a bachelor's degree in English.
After graduation in 1894, she worked in Pittsburgh as writer for various publications and as a school teacher for approximately 13 years, thereafter moving to New York City for the remainder of her life.
Her novels on frontier life brought her to national recognition. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, 'One of Ours' (1922), set during World War I. She travelled widely and often spent summers in New Brunswick, Canada. In later life, she experienced much negative criticism for her conservative politics and became reclusive, burning some of her letters and personal papers, including her last manuscript.
She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1943. In 1944, Cather received the gold medal for fiction from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, an award given once a decade for an author's total accomplishments.
She died of a cerebral haemorrhage at the age of 73 in New York City.
She grew up in Virginia and Nebraska. She then attended the University of Nebraska, initially planning to become a physician, but after writing an article for the Nebraska State Journal, she became a regular contributor to this journal. Because of this, she changed her major and graduated with a bachelor's degree in English.
After graduation in 1894, she worked in Pittsburgh as writer for various publications and as a school teacher for approximately 13 years, thereafter moving to New York City for the remainder of her life.
Her novels on frontier life brought her to national recognition. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, 'One of Ours' (1922), set during World War I. She travelled widely and often spent summers in New Brunswick, Canada. In later life, she experienced much negative criticism for her conservative politics and became reclusive, burning some of her letters and personal papers, including her last manuscript.
She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1943. In 1944, Cather received the gold medal for fiction from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, an award given once a decade for an author's total accomplishments.
She died of a cerebral haemorrhage at the age of 73 in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,009 reviews
September 14, 2019
This novel is fascinating for many reasons. Published in 1922, Willa Cather won the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 – and it was well-deserved.
One of the fascinations for me is that people are people are people. Although there was a gentler and more polite tone within and between people, they still had the same thoughts and feelings and wonderings as people in our current times.
Willa Cather’s writing has a way of discovering the inner depths of people and through their thoughts and impressions, we feel their feelings and experience their thoughts. One of the old-timers who had settled this area of Nebraska many years ago . . . had watched the farms emerge one by one from the great rolling page where once only the wind wrote its story.
Much of this book centres on and through Claude’s life – his experiences as a young man determining who he is and what he is ‘here’ for. Where does he fit in his family? What is it he is meant to do? Who will he share his life with? In one sweet scene, They lingered awhile, however, listening to the soft, amiable bubbling of the spring; a wise unobtrusive voice, murmuring night and day, continually telling the truth to people who could not understand it.
In this way, we come to know the people in this novel and discover that they – their lives and sensibilities – are not so much different than our own. There is also a war emerging – WWI, as it turns out. There are many immigrants in the area who fled European homes to find a better life for themselves in a land with what appeared to be better opportunities.
Yet, then as now, war changes everything. When indiscreet or even overtly aggressive comments are made, neighbours sometimes turned on neighbours and brought charges against each other for speaking “unpatriotic” words:
Defendant: “I have nothing to say. The charges are true. I thought this was a country where a man could speak his mind.”
Judge: “Yes, a man can speak his mind, but even here he must take the consequences. Sit down, please.”
For me, it is the blend of the inner and outer worlds of her characters that truly stands out in Willa Cather’s writing. Her clear-sighted compassion, her love of nature and the many lessons it displays, the inner and outer conflicts that are sometimes soothed by the individual’s environment and other times exacerbated by that same environment. I loved reading this novel and for those who enjoy reading older prize-winning novels, this is definitely a must-read. For those who love stories that flow with wisdom and beauty amidst our human travails, this novel will bring great satisfaction, too.
One of the fascinations for me is that people are people are people. Although there was a gentler and more polite tone within and between people, they still had the same thoughts and feelings and wonderings as people in our current times.
Willa Cather’s writing has a way of discovering the inner depths of people and through their thoughts and impressions, we feel their feelings and experience their thoughts. One of the old-timers who had settled this area of Nebraska many years ago . . . had watched the farms emerge one by one from the great rolling page where once only the wind wrote its story.
Much of this book centres on and through Claude’s life – his experiences as a young man determining who he is and what he is ‘here’ for. Where does he fit in his family? What is it he is meant to do? Who will he share his life with? In one sweet scene, They lingered awhile, however, listening to the soft, amiable bubbling of the spring; a wise unobtrusive voice, murmuring night and day, continually telling the truth to people who could not understand it.
In this way, we come to know the people in this novel and discover that they – their lives and sensibilities – are not so much different than our own. There is also a war emerging – WWI, as it turns out. There are many immigrants in the area who fled European homes to find a better life for themselves in a land with what appeared to be better opportunities.
Yet, then as now, war changes everything. When indiscreet or even overtly aggressive comments are made, neighbours sometimes turned on neighbours and brought charges against each other for speaking “unpatriotic” words:
Defendant: “I have nothing to say. The charges are true. I thought this was a country where a man could speak his mind.”
Judge: “Yes, a man can speak his mind, but even here he must take the consequences. Sit down, please.”
For me, it is the blend of the inner and outer worlds of her characters that truly stands out in Willa Cather’s writing. Her clear-sighted compassion, her love of nature and the many lessons it displays, the inner and outer conflicts that are sometimes soothed by the individual’s environment and other times exacerbated by that same environment. I loved reading this novel and for those who enjoy reading older prize-winning novels, this is definitely a must-read. For those who love stories that flow with wisdom and beauty amidst our human travails, this novel will bring great satisfaction, too.
May 13, 2017
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1923. Claude Wheeler is a young man with, seemingly, everything. Well respected parents who own a good Nebraska farm that will someday belong to Claude, and he has a new wife. But Claude has bigger dreams that can't be fulfilled in this setting. His parent's are indifferent to his dreams, and his wife is only interested in her church and mission work. Then World War I comes along, and Claude sees this as his opportunity to do something meaningful with his life. I won't say what happens, but Willa Cather is a master at bringing her characters to life, and giving the reader the essence of what it was like living on the Nebraska prairie in the early 20th century. This was her home, and these were her people. The character Claude was inspired by her cousin G.P. Cather, who was born and raised on the farm next to Willas family. Like Claude, G.P. also served in WWI.
Definitely one of Willa Cather's finest achievements. Right up there with My Ántonia and O Pioneers!.
Review revised on 9/2/15.
Definitely one of Willa Cather's finest achievements. Right up there with My Ántonia and O Pioneers!.
Review revised on 9/2/15.
September 28, 2015
"Ruin and new birth; the shudder of ugly things in the past, the trembling image of beautiful ones on the horizon; finding and losing; that was life, he saw."
A mother's love for a distressed son. A son's love for his emotionally-abused and pious mother. A young man pondering life and what it has to offer. A war that has to be fought. A protagonist who feels the pull of duty to a war that summons American lives. If this is not a book about the inner turmoils of war and one's psychological battle with life, I don't know what is.
The "trembling image of beautiful ones on the horizon," this is what haunts Claude. As usual, Cather gives us a portrait of American landscape and personality, with World War I as a complementary backdrop. With male antipathy elucidated, this novel placed me within Claude's centermost thoughts, as he questioned what he deemed his lack of contribution to life, and his timidity as it related to his parents:
When we consider the brave men and women who go off to war, we consider the many factors that contribute to their decisions; it takes determination, drive, and perhaps some psychological factor that sets these individuals apart from the rest of us - this is what Cather seems to be exploring in this Pulitzer-prize-winning novel.
This is a slow-moving psychological journey I made with Claude: from naive young farmer, to worldly soldier and man. Although it takes some time to get going, the first half of the book is appealing, when the Nebraska landscape seems to move with Claude's inner thought. Disillusioned, he wonders whether the farming life is the life for him, especially since he craves the intellectual lives of his friends, the Elriches:
The last part of the novel was a disconcerting and painful read, as death was encapsulated. Although I wasn't always in concert with the war scenes and the subplots within the major war plot, I was always alongside Claude, so imagine my disappointment when he became the exemplification of disquietude. It's not too often that a main character draws you close to him and then abandons you; however, I rested assured that Claude found meaning in life. Safety and security weren't his goals, instead, he wanted his life to be a contribution to some cause greater than himself; and this it was:
The "trembling image of beautiful ones on the horizon," this is what haunts Claude. As usual, Cather gives us a portrait of American landscape and personality, with World War I as a complementary backdrop. With male antipathy elucidated, this novel placed me within Claude's centermost thoughts, as he questioned what he deemed his lack of contribution to life, and his timidity as it related to his parents:
He sneered at himself for his lack of spirit. If he had to do with strangers, he told himself, he could take up a case and fight for it. He could not assert himself against his father or mother, but he could be bold enough with the rest of the world.
When we consider the brave men and women who go off to war, we consider the many factors that contribute to their decisions; it takes determination, drive, and perhaps some psychological factor that sets these individuals apart from the rest of us - this is what Cather seems to be exploring in this Pulitzer-prize-winning novel.
The debris of human life was more worthless and ugly than the dead and decaying things in nature. Rubbish, junk...his mind could not picture anything that so exposed and condemned all the dreary, weary, ever-repeated actions by which life is continued from day to day...he could not help thinking how much better it would be if people could go to sleep like the fields; could be blanketed down under the snow, to wake with their hurts healed and their defeats forgotten.
This is a slow-moving psychological journey I made with Claude: from naive young farmer, to worldly soldier and man. Although it takes some time to get going, the first half of the book is appealing, when the Nebraska landscape seems to move with Claude's inner thought. Disillusioned, he wonders whether the farming life is the life for him, especially since he craves the intellectual lives of his friends, the Elriches:
Could it really be he, who was airing his opinions in this indelicate manner? He caught himself using words that had never crossed his lips before, that in his mind were associated only with the printed page.
The last part of the novel was a disconcerting and painful read, as death was encapsulated. Although I wasn't always in concert with the war scenes and the subplots within the major war plot, I was always alongside Claude, so imagine my disappointment when he became the exemplification of disquietude. It's not too often that a main character draws you close to him and then abandons you; however, I rested assured that Claude found meaning in life. Safety and security weren't his goals, instead, he wanted his life to be a contribution to some cause greater than himself; and this it was:
To be assured, at his age, of three meals a day and plenty of sleep, was like being assured of a decent burial. Safety, security; if you followed that reasoning out, then the unborn, those who would never be born, were the safest of all; nothing could happen to them.
September 4, 2022
3.5 stars, rounded up.
The first half of this novel is Willa Cather in her element. She knows the plains and its people, and as long as Claude was on the farm and in his small town, I found each word true and compelling. The second half of the novel, which takes place in France during WWI, does not ring as true and loses its grip on the characters somewhat. The horrors of the trenches of WWI are well-known and any idea that a man could feel happy to be there seems far-fetched. Happy to go, yes, happy to stay, no. With so much death and destruction around you, how could you not look back at your life and family with a bit of longing and nostalgia. As a matter of fact, I should have thought that Claude would find a much deeper appreciation of his life in the States by being in France at this moment in time.
Cather won the Pulitzer for this novel, and I think it is one of those selections that must be put into the context of the time. Having recently emerged from WWI, I think the world was anxious to look at the war as something worthwhile and the men who died there (and those who came home in pieces) as having been enhanced by the experience. This novel might be more of a case of how we “want” to see things than a case of how they actually were.
I did enjoy this story, found it particularly appealing as a coming of age tale in the portions that take place before the war. I would have liked a different ending or at least one that made a different statement. But, this is Cather’s tale, not mine. When I had finished, I went and pulled a photograph of a WWI soldier that I happen to have in my possession. I looked at his face and those of his simple, farming family. He stands proudly in his uniform, and I tried to impose Claude’s thoughts onto him...it wouldn’t work for me. I think Hemingway got the war right; I think Cather did not.
The first half of this novel is Willa Cather in her element. She knows the plains and its people, and as long as Claude was on the farm and in his small town, I found each word true and compelling. The second half of the novel, which takes place in France during WWI, does not ring as true and loses its grip on the characters somewhat. The horrors of the trenches of WWI are well-known and any idea that a man could feel happy to be there seems far-fetched. Happy to go, yes, happy to stay, no. With so much death and destruction around you, how could you not look back at your life and family with a bit of longing and nostalgia. As a matter of fact, I should have thought that Claude would find a much deeper appreciation of his life in the States by being in France at this moment in time.
Cather won the Pulitzer for this novel, and I think it is one of those selections that must be put into the context of the time. Having recently emerged from WWI, I think the world was anxious to look at the war as something worthwhile and the men who died there (and those who came home in pieces) as having been enhanced by the experience. This novel might be more of a case of how we “want” to see things than a case of how they actually were.
I did enjoy this story, found it particularly appealing as a coming of age tale in the portions that take place before the war. I would have liked a different ending or at least one that made a different statement. But, this is Cather’s tale, not mine. When I had finished, I went and pulled a photograph of a WWI soldier that I happen to have in my possession. I looked at his face and those of his simple, farming family. He stands proudly in his uniform, and I tried to impose Claude’s thoughts onto him...it wouldn’t work for me. I think Hemingway got the war right; I think Cather did not.
March 19, 2009
Leave it to Willa Cather to write the most peaceful book about war I have ever read. One of Ours is not my favorite story about World War I or my favorite Cather, but it is truly beautiful. Cather's description of the destruction caused by war and America's participation in global economy is fascinating, and I was surprised to find a perspective that I think of as common in post-Vietnam writing in a book published before the Great Depression.
One of the characteristics I love most about Cather as a writer is her ability to give her characters positions or traits that she obviously disagrees with, and still be compassionate towards them. This story was no exception. Although Claude, the hero of the novel, makes the wrong decision every time he comes to a crossroads, it does not make me (or, I felt, Cather) like him less, and I don't feel like she's beating me over the head with the fact that he's wrong. It makes me so uncomfortable to read a story where the author is mean and petty to the characters. That is not to say life is always a cheery place in Cather's books, but I never feel like she has a vendetta against people she includes in her story, or like she manipulates events to pull the rug out from under them. Maybe because that is such a pet peeve of mine, I appreciate authors who seem unconditionally comfortable with their characters.
One of the characteristics I love most about Cather as a writer is her ability to give her characters positions or traits that she obviously disagrees with, and still be compassionate towards them. This story was no exception. Although Claude, the hero of the novel, makes the wrong decision every time he comes to a crossroads, it does not make me (or, I felt, Cather) like him less, and I don't feel like she's beating me over the head with the fact that he's wrong. It makes me so uncomfortable to read a story where the author is mean and petty to the characters. That is not to say life is always a cheery place in Cather's books, but I never feel like she has a vendetta against people she includes in her story, or like she manipulates events to pull the rug out from under them. Maybe because that is such a pet peeve of mine, I appreciate authors who seem unconditionally comfortable with their characters.
September 22, 2020
Published in 1922, One of Ours by Willa Cather won the 1923 Putlizer Prize for the Novel. It carried Cather’s fine prose, especially when the object was the Nebraska landscape and life on the prairie. However, this story dominated by the atrocities of World War 1 and its significance to the protagonist’s sense of purpose was not palatable reading and I was not convinced by its line of thought or indeed the suggestion that a dull life can be saved by war.
Claude Wheeler is a farmer’s son who wishes to go to university but is bound by family obligations to till the land. He marries a girl he loves and who evidently cares for him, but who would much rather become a missionary. Poor Claude is intensely unhappy. In some ways, he reminds me of John Williams’ Stoner, also a farmer’s son who has loftier aspirations. Whereas Stoner finds purpose in literary studies and eventually academia, Claude discovers his self-worth in taking up arms and fighting in WWI. To his buddy, David Gerhardt, Claude said, ‘... I never knew there was anything worth living for, till this war came on. Before that, the world seemed like a business proposition.’ Becoming a lieutenant in the army opens up Claude’s limited social circle and gives him a new purpose for living. Both Stoner and Claude have wives who shun physical intimacy and made marriage a death bed. However, this is where their similarity ends. Whereas Stoner explores the worthy life in a deeply moving and persuasive manner, One of Ours holds up an ideal that rings a bit hollow.
Of the sound of the guns, Claude reflects, ‘What they said was, that men could still die for an idea; and would burn all they had made to keep their dreams. He knew the future of the world was safe...’ It is another way of saying, 'dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.' At no point in his five-year involvement in the warfront in France did he once spare a thought for his mother and housekeeper who loved him dearly. Long marches, trench warfare, constant bombardment, broken limbs, rotting corpses, including an epidemic that claimed the lives of many comrades, hunger, starvation, certainty of death – these are the harsh realities of war. Yet Claude did not once long for home. In fact, Claude comes across wooden and his affections muted. He has comrades in arms whom he admires and loves, but when they are blown to smithereens, Claude greets their loss impassively. All this adds up to a hero who seems distant and hard to warm up to. And because the story was told from Claude’s point of view, it fell flat for me.
This is the first Willa Cather book that left me dissatisfied, and yet it won Cather a Putlizer. I must not have read it in the spirit it was intended. Maybe, my friends can enlighten me.
Claude Wheeler is a farmer’s son who wishes to go to university but is bound by family obligations to till the land. He marries a girl he loves and who evidently cares for him, but who would much rather become a missionary. Poor Claude is intensely unhappy. In some ways, he reminds me of John Williams’ Stoner, also a farmer’s son who has loftier aspirations. Whereas Stoner finds purpose in literary studies and eventually academia, Claude discovers his self-worth in taking up arms and fighting in WWI. To his buddy, David Gerhardt, Claude said, ‘... I never knew there was anything worth living for, till this war came on. Before that, the world seemed like a business proposition.’ Becoming a lieutenant in the army opens up Claude’s limited social circle and gives him a new purpose for living. Both Stoner and Claude have wives who shun physical intimacy and made marriage a death bed. However, this is where their similarity ends. Whereas Stoner explores the worthy life in a deeply moving and persuasive manner, One of Ours holds up an ideal that rings a bit hollow.
Of the sound of the guns, Claude reflects, ‘What they said was, that men could still die for an idea; and would burn all they had made to keep their dreams. He knew the future of the world was safe...’ It is another way of saying, 'dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.' At no point in his five-year involvement in the warfront in France did he once spare a thought for his mother and housekeeper who loved him dearly. Long marches, trench warfare, constant bombardment, broken limbs, rotting corpses, including an epidemic that claimed the lives of many comrades, hunger, starvation, certainty of death – these are the harsh realities of war. Yet Claude did not once long for home. In fact, Claude comes across wooden and his affections muted. He has comrades in arms whom he admires and loves, but when they are blown to smithereens, Claude greets their loss impassively. All this adds up to a hero who seems distant and hard to warm up to. And because the story was told from Claude’s point of view, it fell flat for me.
This is the first Willa Cather book that left me dissatisfied, and yet it won Cather a Putlizer. I must not have read it in the spirit it was intended. Maybe, my friends can enlighten me.
August 22, 2023
“He is convinced that the people who might mean something to him will always misjudge him and pass him by. He is not so much afraid of loneliness as he is of accepting cheap substitutes; of making excuses to himself for a teacher who flatters him, of waking up some morning to find himself admiring a girl merely because she is accessible. He has a dread of easy compromises, and he is terribly afraid of being fooled.”
This is a quote taken from the story. It describes the central protagonist—Claude Wheeler. He is an idealist without ideals. He is perpetually dissatisfied with himself and ponders the futility of life.
If you are looking for a happy story with a happy ending, this is not a story for you. I find it sad that Claude only finds happiness in life through war. Such a way of looking at life is disagreeable to me. Yet still, I like this book a lot.
Why? The ending is as it should be and the prose is beautiful. Willa Cather has a remarkable talent for describing nature and places and people. Faces, she draws them so you can see not just what is visible but also what lies underneath. An individual’s personality is shown in the jutting of a chin. Heavy hooded eyes are not the same as eyes that twinkle with merriment, and they describe people with different temperaments. Similarly, how a person holds their shoulders indicates the kind of person that person is. Cather draws people so we know who they are underneath. Landscapes and nature and places are drawn with a similar flair. The atmosphere of a time and place is drawn, which is more than what is seen. Cather has observed and gives back to us what she has seen so we too recall and appreciate past remembrances. Not only the color of flowers but also how they move and bend in the wind or hold droplets of moisture are details captured in the prose. Cather’s descriptive prose is lovely. The landscapes described are in Nebraska.
Then Claude goes off to war, and he is in France. It is the First World War and war is not pretty, and Cather draws it as it is. She does not draw a pretty story. That isn’t to say that the red and blue of poppies and cornflowers don’t color the countryside. The yellow sun shines in the dazzling blue sky. The horror of what man does in war is there beside the beauty of nature that lies alongside. The contrast becomes more gripping because of the contrast itself. The story is kept simple. This too is as it should be.
Kirsten Underwood narrates the audiobook. She reads slowly and clearly. I particularly appreciate the lengthy pauses that are inserted; this allows the listener to appreciate the lyrical prose. The American soldiers in France struggle with French words. This makes Underwood’s school-French work just fine. The narration performance I have given four stars.
**********************
My Ántonia 5 stars
One of Ours 4 stars
O Pioneers! 3 stars
Sapphira and the Slave Girl 2 stars
A Lost Lady 2 stars
Death Comes for the Archbishop TBR
This is a quote taken from the story. It describes the central protagonist—Claude Wheeler. He is an idealist without ideals. He is perpetually dissatisfied with himself and ponders the futility of life.
If you are looking for a happy story with a happy ending, this is not a story for you. I find it sad that Claude only finds happiness in life through war. Such a way of looking at life is disagreeable to me. Yet still, I like this book a lot.
Why? The ending is as it should be and the prose is beautiful. Willa Cather has a remarkable talent for describing nature and places and people. Faces, she draws them so you can see not just what is visible but also what lies underneath. An individual’s personality is shown in the jutting of a chin. Heavy hooded eyes are not the same as eyes that twinkle with merriment, and they describe people with different temperaments. Similarly, how a person holds their shoulders indicates the kind of person that person is. Cather draws people so we know who they are underneath. Landscapes and nature and places are drawn with a similar flair. The atmosphere of a time and place is drawn, which is more than what is seen. Cather has observed and gives back to us what she has seen so we too recall and appreciate past remembrances. Not only the color of flowers but also how they move and bend in the wind or hold droplets of moisture are details captured in the prose. Cather’s descriptive prose is lovely. The landscapes described are in Nebraska.
Then Claude goes off to war, and he is in France. It is the First World War and war is not pretty, and Cather draws it as it is. She does not draw a pretty story. That isn’t to say that the red and blue of poppies and cornflowers don’t color the countryside. The yellow sun shines in the dazzling blue sky. The horror of what man does in war is there beside the beauty of nature that lies alongside. The contrast becomes more gripping because of the contrast itself. The story is kept simple. This too is as it should be.
Kirsten Underwood narrates the audiobook. She reads slowly and clearly. I particularly appreciate the lengthy pauses that are inserted; this allows the listener to appreciate the lyrical prose. The American soldiers in France struggle with French words. This makes Underwood’s school-French work just fine. The narration performance I have given four stars.
**********************
My Ántonia 5 stars
One of Ours 4 stars
O Pioneers! 3 stars
Sapphira and the Slave Girl 2 stars
A Lost Lady 2 stars
Death Comes for the Archbishop TBR
September 12, 2017
I'm crying as I write this review??? And it was a book for class????
This book is set during World War I, but the first half of this book talks about the main character's life at home and how he feels discontent with working on the farm and discontent with the marriage he fell into and discontent with living a life that was meaningless. I thought his inner struggle was so compelling and even somewhat relatable, and I adored his personality as well.
The latter half of this book is when he is deployed to France, a section I felt was a bit dryer because the descriptions grew a lot more geographical and clinical descriptions of machinery and war and I wish it had stayed as character-based. By the end of the book, I couldn't remember which generals/lieutenants/colonels were who. Nevertheless, there were some very powerful passages at the end that just tore me up, even though I don't entirely understand what exactly just happened. Maybe after we discuss this in class tomorrow it'll be able to sit better with me, but I feel as if I'm wanting a little bit more?
Regardless, it's a gorgeously crafted story that goes beyond a war narrative to explain the troubles in his home life and his inner personal struggle, which I loved. I totally get why it won the Pulitzer.
This book is set during World War I, but the first half of this book talks about the main character's life at home and how he feels discontent with working on the farm and discontent with the marriage he fell into and discontent with living a life that was meaningless. I thought his inner struggle was so compelling and even somewhat relatable, and I adored his personality as well.
The latter half of this book is when he is deployed to France, a section I felt was a bit dryer because the descriptions grew a lot more geographical and clinical descriptions of machinery and war and I wish it had stayed as character-based. By the end of the book, I couldn't remember which generals/lieutenants/colonels were who. Nevertheless, there were some very powerful passages at the end that just tore me up, even though I don't entirely understand what exactly just happened. Maybe after we discuss this in class tomorrow it'll be able to sit better with me, but I feel as if I'm wanting a little bit more?
Regardless, it's a gorgeously crafted story that goes beyond a war narrative to explain the troubles in his home life and his inner personal struggle, which I loved. I totally get why it won the Pulitzer.
February 6, 2021
3,5 stars
This won Cather the Pulitzer Prize in 1923. It has been dubbed her war novel and was heavily criticised by Sinclair, Hemingway and Menken to name a few. Of course that at least convinced me to give it a chance! It starts in Nebraska and ends in France, following the life and adventures of Claude Wheeler.
The novel has a broad sweep. There is something of a follow on from the Pioneer novels. Claude is the son of a pioneer and there is a sense of the ending of an era. Claude feels other pulls which don’t sit easy with his family and roots. He gets some education and wants to go to university. He doesn’t and ends up managing the farm on which he grew up, out of sorts, but competent enough. He goes on to marry a woman he does not love and who does not love him and is more interested in missionary work. The war intervenes and Claude signs up, gaining a sense of purpose. The novel moves from pioneer to pandemic. On the troop ship crossing the Atlantic there is an outbreak of influenza which kills many of the soldiers on board. Then there is France and the war. There are some pretty horrific descriptions of trench warfare and Cather seems quite obsessed with gases escaping from dead bodies. It’s true that the writing about warfare doesn’t compare with those who had been there. There is also a fair amount about comradeship between men. Cather also comments on the inability of many men so fit back into society leading to a number of suicides:
“Some do it in obscure lodging houses, some in their office, where they seemed to be carrying on their business like other men. Some slip over a vessel’s side and disappear into the sea.”
The character of Claude seems rather aimless until he finds purpose in the war. The purpose seems to begin when he is on the boat and the flu epidemic starts. Claude is an officer, a lieutenant and he starts to have a sense of duty towards his men:
“This grey wall, unshaken, mighty, was the end of the long preparation, as it was the end of the sea. It was the reason for everything that had happened in his life for the last fifteen months. It was the reason why Tannhauser and the gentle Virginian, and so many others who had set out with him, were never to have any life at all, or even a soldier’s death. They were merely waste in a great enterprise, thrown overboard like rotten ropes. For them this kind release,—trees and a still shore and quiet water,—was never, never to be. How long would their bodies toss, he wondered, in that inhuman kingdom of darkness and unrest”
On the whole this is a mixed bag and I have been ambivalent about Cather (still am), but there is an aspect to this which surprised me. Claude develops a close relationship with David, a fellow officer. There is a scene near the end of the book when I suddenly realised that this was more than a friendship. The clues are all there. Most unexpected.
I will admit to enjoying this despite its flaws.
This won Cather the Pulitzer Prize in 1923. It has been dubbed her war novel and was heavily criticised by Sinclair, Hemingway and Menken to name a few. Of course that at least convinced me to give it a chance! It starts in Nebraska and ends in France, following the life and adventures of Claude Wheeler.
The novel has a broad sweep. There is something of a follow on from the Pioneer novels. Claude is the son of a pioneer and there is a sense of the ending of an era. Claude feels other pulls which don’t sit easy with his family and roots. He gets some education and wants to go to university. He doesn’t and ends up managing the farm on which he grew up, out of sorts, but competent enough. He goes on to marry a woman he does not love and who does not love him and is more interested in missionary work. The war intervenes and Claude signs up, gaining a sense of purpose. The novel moves from pioneer to pandemic. On the troop ship crossing the Atlantic there is an outbreak of influenza which kills many of the soldiers on board. Then there is France and the war. There are some pretty horrific descriptions of trench warfare and Cather seems quite obsessed with gases escaping from dead bodies. It’s true that the writing about warfare doesn’t compare with those who had been there. There is also a fair amount about comradeship between men. Cather also comments on the inability of many men so fit back into society leading to a number of suicides:
“Some do it in obscure lodging houses, some in their office, where they seemed to be carrying on their business like other men. Some slip over a vessel’s side and disappear into the sea.”
The character of Claude seems rather aimless until he finds purpose in the war. The purpose seems to begin when he is on the boat and the flu epidemic starts. Claude is an officer, a lieutenant and he starts to have a sense of duty towards his men:
“This grey wall, unshaken, mighty, was the end of the long preparation, as it was the end of the sea. It was the reason for everything that had happened in his life for the last fifteen months. It was the reason why Tannhauser and the gentle Virginian, and so many others who had set out with him, were never to have any life at all, or even a soldier’s death. They were merely waste in a great enterprise, thrown overboard like rotten ropes. For them this kind release,—trees and a still shore and quiet water,—was never, never to be. How long would their bodies toss, he wondered, in that inhuman kingdom of darkness and unrest”
On the whole this is a mixed bag and I have been ambivalent about Cather (still am), but there is an aspect to this which surprised me. Claude develops a close relationship with David, a fellow officer. There is a scene near the end of the book when I suddenly realised that this was more than a friendship. The clues are all there. Most unexpected.
I will admit to enjoying this despite its flaws.
April 2, 2022
ویلا کاتر نویسنده زن آمریکایی بوده که به خاطر نگارش کتاب یکی از ما برنده جایزه بسیار معتبر پولیتزر شده ، آنچه در مورد معروفیت خانم کارتر گفته شده نگارش کتابهایی در مورد جنگ جهانی اول و توصیف مردمانی پاکدل و روستایی و یا آمریکاییانی ساده دل و خوش قلب بوده است .
در کتاب یکی از ما خواننده هر دو این عناصر را می بیند ، جوانی کشاورز و روستایی که از زندگی درروستا راضی نیست و به دنبال تغییر در شیوه زندگی خود بوده و جنگ جهانی اول و پیوستن او به ارتش آمریکا فرصت تغییر را برای او فراهم کرده .
کتاب را می توان به دو بخش زندگی در روستا و قسمت جنگیدن در فرانسه تقسیم کرد ،در بخش اول نویسنده با توصیفات زنده و جاندار زندگی در طبیعت بی انتها و وحشی آمریکا را با مهارت مجسم کرده ، کشاورزی و دامداری که آسان نیست و البته تحمل این سختیها هم قرار نیست کلود قهرمان داستان را به جای خاصی برساند .
اما خانم کاتر در وصف مصیبت جنگ دست کم هنر چندانی نشان نداده ، داستان او مایه ضد جنگ بسیار کم رنگی داشته و به هیچ عنوان نمی توان آنرا با آثاری مانند به امید دیدار در آن دنیا و یا در غرب خبری نیست مقایسه کرد ، پایان داستان هم به سادگی قابل پیش بینی ایست .
در پایان یکی از ما را می توان کتابی ساده و خوشخوان دانست ، با مردمانی خوش قلب و پاکدل و البته خط داستانی عادی و معمولی
در کتاب یکی از ما خواننده هر دو این عناصر را می بیند ، جوانی کشاورز و روستایی که از زندگی درروستا راضی نیست و به دنبال تغییر در شیوه زندگی خود بوده و جنگ جهانی اول و پیوستن او به ارتش آمریکا فرصت تغییر را برای او فراهم کرده .
کتاب را می توان به دو بخش زندگی در روستا و قسمت جنگیدن در فرانسه تقسیم کرد ،در بخش اول نویسنده با توصیفات زنده و جاندار زندگی در طبیعت بی انتها و وحشی آمریکا را با مهارت مجسم کرده ، کشاورزی و دامداری که آسان نیست و البته تحمل این سختیها هم قرار نیست کلود قهرمان داستان را به جای خاصی برساند .
اما خانم کاتر در وصف مصیبت جنگ دست کم هنر چندانی نشان نداده ، داستان او مایه ضد جنگ بسیار کم رنگی داشته و به هیچ عنوان نمی توان آنرا با آثاری مانند به امید دیدار در آن دنیا و یا در غرب خبری نیست مقایسه کرد ، پایان داستان هم به سادگی قابل پیش بینی ایست .
در پایان یکی از ما را می توان کتابی ساده و خوشخوان دانست ، با مردمانی خوش قلب و پاکدل و البته خط داستانی عادی و معمولی
March 20, 2022
One of our Ours seems to be perceived as just another World War I novel but the truth is that the war is one of many settings in this novel that are used by Cather to tell a humanistic story. The book brings to life the beliefs of humans, the realities formed out of these beliefs, and their consequences. Specifically, she focuses on the people of small towns in rural America and one young adult who is in search of who he should become while living in a sea of strong-minded family and friends. While the time period is inclusive of WWI, the book only devotes about a quarter of its pages to an actual presence in Europe and of these pages only a handful are used to describe actual acts of war. The war is simply just another tool that the author uses to move her character through life experiences that are just as real today as they were when this book was written in 1922.
Other points of merit that flood my thoughts include the writing skills of Willa Cather. She uses metaphor sparingly but effectively; and her selection of words creates pages of narrative and dialog that are intricate and tender. In searching for a past reading experience of equally beautiful style, I keep coming back to Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett. The tempo of the story is also used by Cather to add a sense of feeling to her settings. Life in rural America, where little changes with time, is written patiently; life in transit to an imagined destiny is compressed into a period of days; and the critical scenes of war require only minutes to change lives.
Least and foremost, One of our Ours formed a sort of harmony in my mind that brought back the relative melody of two books with more overt plots. The first was Main Street by Sinclair Lewis and the second (of course) was All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria. This harmony created a more complete picture of the worlds that were originally experienced during my prior readings of these two books and will forever link One of Ours to these stories.
Other points of merit that flood my thoughts include the writing skills of Willa Cather. She uses metaphor sparingly but effectively; and her selection of words creates pages of narrative and dialog that are intricate and tender. In searching for a past reading experience of equally beautiful style, I keep coming back to Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett. The tempo of the story is also used by Cather to add a sense of feeling to her settings. Life in rural America, where little changes with time, is written patiently; life in transit to an imagined destiny is compressed into a period of days; and the critical scenes of war require only minutes to change lives.
Least and foremost, One of our Ours formed a sort of harmony in my mind that brought back the relative melody of two books with more overt plots. The first was Main Street by Sinclair Lewis and the second (of course) was All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria. This harmony created a more complete picture of the worlds that were originally experienced during my prior readings of these two books and will forever link One of Ours to these stories.
August 19, 2018
I didn't enjoy this book as much as My Ántonia and O Pioneers!. Willa Cather's writing about farm life, etc. is beautifully done but this story was very slow and somewhat boring to me. I'll definitely read more by her but for me, this book wasn't her best. 😕
January 2, 2025
Book I: 5*/ Book II: 3* = 4*
One of Ours was one of Willa Cather’s most popular books and even enjoyed a greater readership than her earlier Great Plains Trilogy (O Pioneers!; The Song of the Lark; and My Antonia). However, it did not receive the critical acclaim that those books did, even though it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1923.
Some critics praised the first half of the book, which was set in the plains of Nebraska, an area that Cather knew well, for that was where she lived from age nine until adulthood.
Sinclair Lewis, for one, had nothing but praise for that portion of the book. However, he did not like the second half, most of which took place in France during World War I. Even Cather once commented that she thought the ending of the book “was rather thin and might have been a mistake.”
I had not read the criticisms before I read the book, but when I left Book I, as the first portion was titled, and began Book II, I felt that I was not reading a second section, but that I was reading a totally different book, perhaps a sequel, for from a host of characters in the first section only one is portrayed in the second.
In Book I, during the early 20th century, young idealist Claude Wheeler seeks and fails to find the kind of fulfillment that would help him find his purpose in life, whatever that might be – a struggle that he did not think he could win in Nebraska while working on his wealthy father’s ranch.
In Book II, which takes place during World War I, Claude volunteers for the army even before the United States enters the war, and it is only then that he found the peace of mind that he had sought but could not acquire on the family ranch. He is the one character who made the transition from the first book to the second (His mother did make a brief appearance at the end of the second book, but it is a brief one.).
Cather modeled Claude Wheeler on a cousin who did struggle as a youth to find his way in life and who also volunteered for military service in World War I. The problem with that second half, however, is that Claude and his unit doesn’t engage in very much fighting until the book’s last scenes. I don’t know if Cather didn’t feel comfortable writing about combat because she had never experienced it or been a witness, or – as she once said – she did not consider it to be a war story.
At any rate, I thought Book I was Cather at her best, while Book II was somewhat disappointing, partly, I suppose, because she set the bar so high in Book I.
In that first section, she indicates, as she always does, a high regard for the varied immigrant families that had settled Nebraska, which included Scandinavians, French, Irish, and Mexicans. Claude Wheeler’s boyhood best friend is a Bohemian, whose family migrated from Czechoslovakia, and while attending college in Lincoln he became a virtual member of a German family.
In fact, the Cather name is Welsh and Willa was born Wiella Sibert Cather which she later simplified to Willa Sibert Cather.
And the land ... the land, always a character in Cather’s books that are set in the American West, plays a prominent role in Book I. For example:
“Every morning the sun came up a red ball, quickly drank the dew, and started a quivering excitement in all living things.”
“As he looked out and saw the grey landscape through the gently falling snow, he could not help thinking how much better it would be if people could go to sleep like the fields; could be blanketed down under the snow, to wake with their hurt healed and their defeats forgotten.”
One of Ours was one of Willa Cather’s most popular books and even enjoyed a greater readership than her earlier Great Plains Trilogy (O Pioneers!; The Song of the Lark; and My Antonia). However, it did not receive the critical acclaim that those books did, even though it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1923.
Some critics praised the first half of the book, which was set in the plains of Nebraska, an area that Cather knew well, for that was where she lived from age nine until adulthood.
Sinclair Lewis, for one, had nothing but praise for that portion of the book. However, he did not like the second half, most of which took place in France during World War I. Even Cather once commented that she thought the ending of the book “was rather thin and might have been a mistake.”
I had not read the criticisms before I read the book, but when I left Book I, as the first portion was titled, and began Book II, I felt that I was not reading a second section, but that I was reading a totally different book, perhaps a sequel, for from a host of characters in the first section only one is portrayed in the second.
In Book I, during the early 20th century, young idealist Claude Wheeler seeks and fails to find the kind of fulfillment that would help him find his purpose in life, whatever that might be – a struggle that he did not think he could win in Nebraska while working on his wealthy father’s ranch.
In Book II, which takes place during World War I, Claude volunteers for the army even before the United States enters the war, and it is only then that he found the peace of mind that he had sought but could not acquire on the family ranch. He is the one character who made the transition from the first book to the second (His mother did make a brief appearance at the end of the second book, but it is a brief one.).
Cather modeled Claude Wheeler on a cousin who did struggle as a youth to find his way in life and who also volunteered for military service in World War I. The problem with that second half, however, is that Claude and his unit doesn’t engage in very much fighting until the book’s last scenes. I don’t know if Cather didn’t feel comfortable writing about combat because she had never experienced it or been a witness, or – as she once said – she did not consider it to be a war story.
At any rate, I thought Book I was Cather at her best, while Book II was somewhat disappointing, partly, I suppose, because she set the bar so high in Book I.
In that first section, she indicates, as she always does, a high regard for the varied immigrant families that had settled Nebraska, which included Scandinavians, French, Irish, and Mexicans. Claude Wheeler’s boyhood best friend is a Bohemian, whose family migrated from Czechoslovakia, and while attending college in Lincoln he became a virtual member of a German family.
In fact, the Cather name is Welsh and Willa was born Wiella Sibert Cather which she later simplified to Willa Sibert Cather.
And the land ... the land, always a character in Cather’s books that are set in the American West, plays a prominent role in Book I. For example:
“Every morning the sun came up a red ball, quickly drank the dew, and started a quivering excitement in all living things.”
“As he looked out and saw the grey landscape through the gently falling snow, he could not help thinking how much better it would be if people could go to sleep like the fields; could be blanketed down under the snow, to wake with their hurt healed and their defeats forgotten.”
September 29, 2019
The 1923 Pulitzer doesn't exactly stand out from Cather's other works, but there are some things she does more intensely here than anywhere else. She slows the story down, relying more on her storytelling mastery, and she brings in critical research and eye-witness interviews.
This is a World War I book, and Cather is quoted as hating that classification. But it's here she takes us to France, into the trenches and so on. Inspired by a close neighbor who was a casualty of war, Cather, the one time news reporter, went to France and walked the battle fields, and interviewed numerous veterans. And, of course, she partially grew up in Nebraska. Claude Wheeler, her main character, is partially her neighbor, and, apparently, partially Cather herself.
There is nothing about WWI in the opening, and no foreshadowing, no hint. Cather is again writing about Nebraska and, again, from a different perspective. Claude is the son of a prosperous farmer who has the money to send him away to school, in Lincoln Nebraska, but not the interest. So Claude, who never seems to get anything right, suffers through a second-rate religious school run by close-minded ministers who he can see through, and then comes home and works the farm, with a few other characters, all wonderfully drawn. Claude's dad is especially curious, outwardly kindly, inwardly sharp, calculating and all business. Claude will see through some of this, but still get worked over by his father, then stumble into a marriage without the awareness of what he's doing, and then have to figure out what to do next. Seems he never is able to see too far ahead, and neither are we.
All this takes half the book. Cather takes us through casually, and it's terrific. Of course, this is a WWI book, and Claude will volunteer and leave little behind beyond a compromised mother who is happy to see him off (another terrific and complicated character).
I'm going to leave this review off here because WWI has its own draw, and an effort at an accurate depiction will draw in whomever it does, and, as always, leave us readers wondering what is rosy and what is real. I think it's safe to say Cather doesn't flinch from anything, but she is hopelessly in love with atmosphere and landscape and she couldn't possibly keep herself in those trenches without a walk around. Also, her last page is worth the rest of book. I can't keep myself from adding that Homer and Virgil seem to be in every book I read recently. The simple tricks Homer uses in the Odyssey to keep the listener's attention as the story switches gears, toying with the underworld, arguably the central part of Virgil's Aeneid, and have their echo here too. Travel in general and the underworld, specifically, with its mixed awful and cleansing properties, seem to be cornerstones in all literature.
Cather so far comes recommended by me in all forms. Here is another. Terrific stuff.
-----------------------------------------------
44. One of Ours by Willa Cather
published: 1922
format: Kindle book (roughly ~350 pages)
acquired: August
read: Sep 2-21
time reading: 13 hr 52 min, ~2.4 min/page
rating: 4½
This is a World War I book, and Cather is quoted as hating that classification. But it's here she takes us to France, into the trenches and so on. Inspired by a close neighbor who was a casualty of war, Cather, the one time news reporter, went to France and walked the battle fields, and interviewed numerous veterans. And, of course, she partially grew up in Nebraska. Claude Wheeler, her main character, is partially her neighbor, and, apparently, partially Cather herself.
There is nothing about WWI in the opening, and no foreshadowing, no hint. Cather is again writing about Nebraska and, again, from a different perspective. Claude is the son of a prosperous farmer who has the money to send him away to school, in Lincoln Nebraska, but not the interest. So Claude, who never seems to get anything right, suffers through a second-rate religious school run by close-minded ministers who he can see through, and then comes home and works the farm, with a few other characters, all wonderfully drawn. Claude's dad is especially curious, outwardly kindly, inwardly sharp, calculating and all business. Claude will see through some of this, but still get worked over by his father, then stumble into a marriage without the awareness of what he's doing, and then have to figure out what to do next. Seems he never is able to see too far ahead, and neither are we.
All this takes half the book. Cather takes us through casually, and it's terrific. Of course, this is a WWI book, and Claude will volunteer and leave little behind beyond a compromised mother who is happy to see him off (another terrific and complicated character).
I'm going to leave this review off here because WWI has its own draw, and an effort at an accurate depiction will draw in whomever it does, and, as always, leave us readers wondering what is rosy and what is real. I think it's safe to say Cather doesn't flinch from anything, but she is hopelessly in love with atmosphere and landscape and she couldn't possibly keep herself in those trenches without a walk around. Also, her last page is worth the rest of book. I can't keep myself from adding that Homer and Virgil seem to be in every book I read recently. The simple tricks Homer uses in the Odyssey to keep the listener's attention as the story switches gears, toying with the underworld, arguably the central part of Virgil's Aeneid, and have their echo here too. Travel in general and the underworld, specifically, with its mixed awful and cleansing properties, seem to be cornerstones in all literature.
Cather so far comes recommended by me in all forms. Here is another. Terrific stuff.
-----------------------------------------------
44. One of Ours by Willa Cather
published: 1922
format: Kindle book (roughly ~350 pages)
acquired: August
read: Sep 2-21
time reading: 13 hr 52 min, ~2.4 min/page
rating: 4½
July 20, 2013
Who's the GREAT American writer ? Not Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Wharton, Faulkner. Here she is : Willa Cather.
January 30, 2019
One of Ours is another in a long line of beautiful works by Willa Cather, and the one she won a Pulitzer for. If you’re a Cather fan already, well, you’re used to her stories generally going not much of any place in particular. If you’re new to her work, prepare for a languorous, yet profound, journey through the lives of remarkably ordinary people. One of Ours hews to her style of magnificently in-depth characterizations and elegiac descriptions of the early twentieth century American West.
This book centers around a second generation Nebraska farmer who’s just entering his twenties and discovering that the life his family, and convention, have mapped out for him doesn’t hold the promise for learning and adventure that his own spirit seems to harbor. He knows and loves a wonderful cast of characters in his hometown but he can’t seem to shake the nagging feeling that there’s more, somewhere out there, waiting for him.
To say that Willa Cather is a master of characterization seems to sell her short, somehow. She has the ability to, time and again, shine a brilliant, honest light deep into the soul of just about every character she brings to life. In describing a father contemplating what advice to impart upon a young man who’s asked for his daughter’s hand in marriage, she told it thusly:
Gradually, One of Ours brings World War I to the Nebraskan heartland and Cather tenderly takes the reader on a journey through the highs and lows felt by a young man who's already experiencing what are likely to be his life's greatest glories. His realization of this stark fact is immensely powerful, and Cather portrays it with masterful grace and compassion. One of Ours is not a war story, however. Rather, it's simply another superb exploration of the most basic hopes and dreams and fears of our fellow travelers, delivered with typical virtuosity by Willa Cather. And it's one that’s well worthy of the prize it earned.
This book centers around a second generation Nebraska farmer who’s just entering his twenties and discovering that the life his family, and convention, have mapped out for him doesn’t hold the promise for learning and adventure that his own spirit seems to harbor. He knows and loves a wonderful cast of characters in his hometown but he can’t seem to shake the nagging feeling that there’s more, somewhere out there, waiting for him.
To say that Willa Cather is a master of characterization seems to sell her short, somehow. She has the ability to, time and again, shine a brilliant, honest light deep into the soul of just about every character she brings to life. In describing a father contemplating what advice to impart upon a young man who’s asked for his daughter’s hand in marriage, she told it thusly:
What he wanted to do was hold up life as he had found it, like a picture to his young friend; to warn him, without explanation, against certain heart-breaking disappointments. It could not be done, he saw. The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the young.
Gradually, One of Ours brings World War I to the Nebraskan heartland and Cather tenderly takes the reader on a journey through the highs and lows felt by a young man who's already experiencing what are likely to be his life's greatest glories. His realization of this stark fact is immensely powerful, and Cather portrays it with masterful grace and compassion. One of Ours is not a war story, however. Rather, it's simply another superb exploration of the most basic hopes and dreams and fears of our fellow travelers, delivered with typical virtuosity by Willa Cather. And it's one that’s well worthy of the prize it earned.
May 25, 2011
The story of Claude Wheeler, a college-age farmer's son in Nebraska, just before and during World War I. I try to put my finger on what is so appealing about Cather's prose, besides the sensitive and subtle presentation of her characters and her vivid descriptions of the physical world. I guess it's her non-judgmental choice of words--she presents some pretty repellent characters, but she never describes them in a way to prejudice the reader; she lets other characters be repelled by them. What she actually thinks can only be inferred from the twists and turns she places on the plot. Most of this novel is about the dissatisfied meanderings of the main character, who thinks his life is useless and suspects/distrusts almost everyone he meets, assuming that they are out to embarrass or get the better of him in some way. He makes a disastrously heartbreaking marriage and seems destined to live out his life in irritation at his unlucky lack of prospects. The war breaks out, he enlists, and the last third of the novel describes his adventures in France and in the trenches. Cather apparently took some criticism for presenting the war in too positive a light; but I can't imagine more horrifying details than she presents. Far worse than anything shown in Saving Private Ryan, same place, different war. She does, however, try to show that a heroic and selfless enterprise can have its positive effect on a man like Claude. I was inspired to read this because of an epigraph in a Lawrence Block novel: "Even the wicked get worse than they deserve." The quote comes from a scene on a troop ship en route to France, the soldiers stricken with influenza, dysentery, and God knows what. The doctor, with insufficient supplies, some of which have been stolen for his own use by the chief steward, finds that the steward himself is stricken and will die painfully in a few days. He remarks that "in normal life" he's a Presbyterian, and he'll probably be one again, but right now he feels not Calvinistic, but pitying, even of wicked men like the steward. The troop ship is named The Anchises, a reference to Virgil's Aeneid, Cather's favorite poet and poem. I have never read another author who so thoroughly "gets" the whole Virgilian sense of "lacrimae rerum"--the tears of things.
August 10, 2021
Molto soddisfatta della lettura: quattro stelle e mezza. E dire che in un primo momento ero perplessa, al primo impatto la scrittura sembrava un po' scialba e imprecisa. Al solito, bisognerebbe sapere se c'è (e nel caso, quanto è) il concorso di colpa della traduzione, resta il fatto che non mi suonava proprio una scrittura da urlo come ci si aspetterebbe da un premio Pulitzer.
Il protagonista andava delineandosi in maniera pericolosamente assomigliante a Stoner di Williams - cosa che dal mio personalissimo punto di vista ha valenza negativa poiché Stoner non l'ho amato particolarmente - però a differenza di Stoner che rimane perennemente avvolto in un bozzolo di nebbia, anzi diciamo pure annebbiato, questo Claude Wheeler si rivela per lo meno attento; se non è sempre il più sveglio, sembra avere per lo meno l'intenzione di battersi e dibattersi per uscire dal sopore della fattoria paterna e di uno stile di vita che gli va stretto o che comunque non condivide appieno. Balugina nel suo subconscio il desiderio di una vita che si sfami più di conoscenza e cultura che non di mero possesso materiale, più esperienza e contatto con altri esseri umani che non una mera accettazione dei precetti della religione; balugina nel suo subconscio anche un germe di socialismo laddove osserva che lì, nelle pianure del Nebraska, coloro che possiedono la terra sono come schiavi di essa e coloro che non la possiedono sono schiavi di quegli altri che possiedono. E d'altro canto, tra le tante voci presenti nel racconto, si insinua presto il rombo dei cannoni della prima guerra mondiale, a dimostrazione che le somiglianze con Stoner sono limitate ai singoli dettagli della trama in quanto entrambi romanzi di formazione.
Parlavo di "tante voci presenti" non perché si tratti di un romanzo corale, e non perché ci sia una pluralità di protagonisti: la voce narrante è una sola, esterna ed onnisciente, e si concentra quasi esclusivamente sul protagonista Claude. Però riesce ad abbracciare ed intrecciare tante tematiche, tanti filoni, tante considerazioni, tanti piani di lettura. In un formato ultra-classico (come era ovvio aspettarsi da un romanzo che sta per compiere i cento anni) si trova tutta la complessità e la profondità di un'opera postmoderna: dal momento in cui mi sono resa conto di questa ampiezza di vedute, ho iniziato a gustarmelo sempre di più; e tutti quei dettagli che mi parevano semplici assonanze o somiglianze con Stoner o con la trilogia di Holt, visti in una prospettiva diversa mi hanno fatto capire che qui ho trovato quel che avevo solo sperato di trovare in quelle precedenti letture, ho trovato in maggiore quantità così come in migliore qualità l'espressione della profonda provincia americana.
Il romanzo è alquanto celebrativo, anzi si può dire auto-celebrativo: l'autrice americana celebra l'esercito di giovani americani, lì per lì sembra banale, ma mi pare le si possa concedere il lusso di essere patriottica, specialmente se si pensa che noi ancora oggi, per tutto quel che riguarda le guerre, ci culliamo nella pia illusione del "italiani brava gente".
La guerra si profila da lontano e infine compare in diretta solo nel capitolo conclusivo del libro, che è per certi versi anche il più stiracchiato, eppure è la guerra la cosa che dà significato a tutto il discorso. Quale significato? Press'a poco lo stesso de La vita in tempo di pace di Pecoraro: il protagonista e gli altri ragazzi che compaiono in questa storia proveranno la dolcezza ed il significato di una vita in tempo di pace solo e soltanto in rapporto all'esperienza della guerra, vivranno veramente la pace solo quando questa si anniderà nei piccoli spazi e nei piccoli momenti di quiete tra una trincea e l'altra.
Letto a circa cento anni di distanza dalla sua stesura e dalla pubblicazione, il romanzo assume inoltre una particolare valenza storica: vi si descrive un mondo stranamente più contemporaneo di quanto mi sarei aspettata.
E ancora: similmente a quanto accade con I fratelli Ashkenazi di Israel Singer, che mostra una sorta di "istantanea" degli anni e dei meccanismi che precedono le guerre in Polonia, allo stesso modo qui si mostra cosa c'è dietro, cosa c'è appena un passo prima della colossale tragedia della prima guerra mondiale. Non proprio l'anatomia di una carneficina, ma quasi. Altro punto in comune: in entrambi i romanzi si parla di sanare una vita sprecata e percepita come mal spesa, trovare rifugio e/o consolazione e/o riparazione dal senso di fallimento.
Romanzo scoperto solo grazie allo spelucco in home page qui su GR, ma consigliatissimo e attualissimo e che meriterebbe miglior visibilità.
Il protagonista andava delineandosi in maniera pericolosamente assomigliante a Stoner di Williams - cosa che dal mio personalissimo punto di vista ha valenza negativa poiché Stoner non l'ho amato particolarmente - però a differenza di Stoner che rimane perennemente avvolto in un bozzolo di nebbia, anzi diciamo pure annebbiato, questo Claude Wheeler si rivela per lo meno attento; se non è sempre il più sveglio, sembra avere per lo meno l'intenzione di battersi e dibattersi per uscire dal sopore della fattoria paterna e di uno stile di vita che gli va stretto o che comunque non condivide appieno. Balugina nel suo subconscio il desiderio di una vita che si sfami più di conoscenza e cultura che non di mero possesso materiale, più esperienza e contatto con altri esseri umani che non una mera accettazione dei precetti della religione; balugina nel suo subconscio anche un germe di socialismo laddove osserva che lì, nelle pianure del Nebraska, coloro che possiedono la terra sono come schiavi di essa e coloro che non la possiedono sono schiavi di quegli altri che possiedono. E d'altro canto, tra le tante voci presenti nel racconto, si insinua presto il rombo dei cannoni della prima guerra mondiale, a dimostrazione che le somiglianze con Stoner sono limitate ai singoli dettagli della trama in quanto entrambi romanzi di formazione.
Parlavo di "tante voci presenti" non perché si tratti di un romanzo corale, e non perché ci sia una pluralità di protagonisti: la voce narrante è una sola, esterna ed onnisciente, e si concentra quasi esclusivamente sul protagonista Claude. Però riesce ad abbracciare ed intrecciare tante tematiche, tanti filoni, tante considerazioni, tanti piani di lettura. In un formato ultra-classico (come era ovvio aspettarsi da un romanzo che sta per compiere i cento anni) si trova tutta la complessità e la profondità di un'opera postmoderna: dal momento in cui mi sono resa conto di questa ampiezza di vedute, ho iniziato a gustarmelo sempre di più; e tutti quei dettagli che mi parevano semplici assonanze o somiglianze con Stoner o con la trilogia di Holt, visti in una prospettiva diversa mi hanno fatto capire che qui ho trovato quel che avevo solo sperato di trovare in quelle precedenti letture, ho trovato in maggiore quantità così come in migliore qualità l'espressione della profonda provincia americana.
Il romanzo è alquanto celebrativo, anzi si può dire auto-celebrativo: l'autrice americana celebra l'esercito di giovani americani, lì per lì sembra banale, ma mi pare le si possa concedere il lusso di essere patriottica, specialmente se si pensa che noi ancora oggi, per tutto quel che riguarda le guerre, ci culliamo nella pia illusione del "italiani brava gente".
La guerra si profila da lontano e infine compare in diretta solo nel capitolo conclusivo del libro, che è per certi versi anche il più stiracchiato, eppure è la guerra la cosa che dà significato a tutto il discorso. Quale significato? Press'a poco lo stesso de La vita in tempo di pace di Pecoraro: il protagonista e gli altri ragazzi che compaiono in questa storia proveranno la dolcezza ed il significato di una vita in tempo di pace solo e soltanto in rapporto all'esperienza della guerra, vivranno veramente la pace solo quando questa si anniderà nei piccoli spazi e nei piccoli momenti di quiete tra una trincea e l'altra.
Letto a circa cento anni di distanza dalla sua stesura e dalla pubblicazione, il romanzo assume inoltre una particolare valenza storica: vi si descrive un mondo stranamente più contemporaneo di quanto mi sarei aspettata.
E ancora: similmente a quanto accade con I fratelli Ashkenazi di Israel Singer, che mostra una sorta di "istantanea" degli anni e dei meccanismi che precedono le guerre in Polonia, allo stesso modo qui si mostra cosa c'è dietro, cosa c'è appena un passo prima della colossale tragedia della prima guerra mondiale. Non proprio l'anatomia di una carneficina, ma quasi. Altro punto in comune: in entrambi i romanzi si parla di sanare una vita sprecata e percepita come mal spesa, trovare rifugio e/o consolazione e/o riparazione dal senso di fallimento.
Romanzo scoperto solo grazie allo spelucco in home page qui su GR, ma consigliatissimo e attualissimo e che meriterebbe miglior visibilità.
September 30, 2017
Me fastidia que no me haya gustado más. Hay partes que me han maravillado, pero otras en cambio me han parecido incluso algo aburridas.
Y no es porque Willa Cather no sea una maestra en lo que escribe. Es maravilloso cómo describe cada paisaje y la vida en el campo. Consigue transportarte allí. Y parecerá increíble, pero me interesaba más la aburrida vida del protagonista en su granja que su odisea en la Primera Guerra Mundial. Entiendo al final lo que quiere conseguir la autora, y en ese final todo tiene sentido, pero se sentía a veces un poco inconexo todo, como si Willa Cather fuera improvisando la historia por momentos.
De todas formas, no se corta a la hora de narrar y describir la crudeza, tanto de la vida en el campo, como de la guerra. No lo maquilla, no lo hace más bonito. Los personajes puede que idealicen su situación por cómo son o cómo piensan, pero la autora deja claro que no es una situación ideal.
En cierta manera, me recordaba a Stoner de John Williams (o sería mejor decir que ésta recuerda a aquella, pues es posterior), si el personaje principal no se hubiera quedado en la universidad y hubiera marchado a la Primera Guerra Mundial.
En definitiva, una novela contemplativa, que intenta describir esa generación que, imbuída por el Destino Manifiesto, quiso dejar su impronta en la Historia y elevaría (o condenaría) a Estados Unidos a ser el imperio homogeneizador que es hoy en día.
Y no es porque Willa Cather no sea una maestra en lo que escribe. Es maravilloso cómo describe cada paisaje y la vida en el campo. Consigue transportarte allí. Y parecerá increíble, pero me interesaba más la aburrida vida del protagonista en su granja que su odisea en la Primera Guerra Mundial. Entiendo al final lo que quiere conseguir la autora, y en ese final todo tiene sentido, pero se sentía a veces un poco inconexo todo, como si Willa Cather fuera improvisando la historia por momentos.
De todas formas, no se corta a la hora de narrar y describir la crudeza, tanto de la vida en el campo, como de la guerra. No lo maquilla, no lo hace más bonito. Los personajes puede que idealicen su situación por cómo son o cómo piensan, pero la autora deja claro que no es una situación ideal.
En cierta manera, me recordaba a Stoner de John Williams (o sería mejor decir que ésta recuerda a aquella, pues es posterior), si el personaje principal no se hubiera quedado en la universidad y hubiera marchado a la Primera Guerra Mundial.
En definitiva, una novela contemplativa, que intenta describir esa generación que, imbuída por el Destino Manifiesto, quiso dejar su impronta en la Historia y elevaría (o condenaría) a Estados Unidos a ser el imperio homogeneizador que es hoy en día.
February 12, 2021
A moving novel about human restlessness and search for purpose. Claude Wheeler is born into a prosperous farming family in Nebraska at the turn of the century. Finding dissatisfaction in work and marriage, Claude finally finds purpose while serving in France during WWI. A well-drawn character portrait and portrait of the time.
August 8, 2025
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
What a wonderful book, and I am not surprised. Willa Cather is probably my favorite author from the early 1900's.
In this novel, Claude Wheeler is a young man growing up on a farm in Nebraska. He is very close to his mother and to the old cook, Mehailey, who admires Claude immensely for his desire to learn all that he can, especially book learning, Claude has always questioned where he belonged. He is plagued by insecurity and self-doubt and is not sure where he is headed in life. When WWI breaks out, but the US is still watching from the sidelines, Claude enlists. He begins to feel that he is a valuable part in a greater struggle. He meets friends who inspire him greatly. He serves honorably as a lower ranked officer overseas in France.
I read on-line that Claude's character was partially based on Willa Cather's cousin, Grosvenor "G.P." Cather, who died while serving in WWI.
This book deservedly won the Pulitzer prize in 1923, I fully intend to read everything this great author has written.
2025 ATY Summer Reading Challenge
Prompt 3c - Mustard - A book with a military character (serving, retired, or adjacent)
What a wonderful book, and I am not surprised. Willa Cather is probably my favorite author from the early 1900's.
In this novel, Claude Wheeler is a young man growing up on a farm in Nebraska. He is very close to his mother and to the old cook, Mehailey, who admires Claude immensely for his desire to learn all that he can, especially book learning, Claude has always questioned where he belonged. He is plagued by insecurity and self-doubt and is not sure where he is headed in life. When WWI breaks out, but the US is still watching from the sidelines, Claude enlists. He begins to feel that he is a valuable part in a greater struggle. He meets friends who inspire him greatly. He serves honorably as a lower ranked officer overseas in France.
I read on-line that Claude's character was partially based on Willa Cather's cousin, Grosvenor "G.P." Cather, who died while serving in WWI.
This book deservedly won the Pulitzer prize in 1923, I fully intend to read everything this great author has written.
2025 ATY Summer Reading Challenge
Prompt 3c - Mustard - A book with a military character (serving, retired, or adjacent)
August 19, 2020
Without realizing it I have quite a few WWI books coming up on my TBR list. Usually I space out historical novels but I think I'll read these as a group. This is the first. I got this for free on Amazon for kindle about a year ago.
This won the Pulitzer in 1923, although it's not listed on the 1001 books to read before you die list.
As with Cather's other books, this starts out on a farm in Nebraska (and the farm life continues for 75% of it). Claude doesn't fit in and has those "what's it all about Alfie" thoughts until he's called to serve (and actually goes before he needs to). He serves as the perfect solider and in fact scolds another man who breaks down crying by saying, "don't shame us."
Those looking for a mention of the Spanish flu won't be disappointed. The only footnote of the book explains that she inserted it a few months earlier than when it occurred.
Interesting tidbits from Wiki--
Cather's cousin Grosvenor (G.P. Cather) was born and raised on the farm that adjoined her own family's, and she combined parts of her own personality with Grosvenor's in the character of Claude. Cather explained in a letter to Dorothy Canfield Fisher:
"We were very much alike, and very different. He could never escape from the misery of being himself, except in action, and whatever he put his hand to turned out either ugly or ridiculous.... I was staying on his father's farm when the war broke out. We spent the first week hauling wheat to town. On those long rides on the wheat, we talked for the first time in years, and I saw some of the things that were really in the back of his mind.... I had no more thought of writing a story about him than of writing about my own nose. It was all too painfully familiar. It was just to escape from him and his kind that I wrote at all.
Grosvenor was killed in 1918 in Cantigny, France. Cather learned of his death while reading the newspaper in a hair salon. She wrote:
"From that on, he was in my mind. The too-personal-ness, the embarrassment of kinship, was gone. But he was in my mind so much that I couldn't get through him to other things ... some of me was buried with him in France, and some of him was left alive in me."
He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and a Silver Star citation for bravery under fire, of which Cather wrote:
"That anything so glorious could have happened to anyone so disinherited of hope. Timidly, angrily, he used to ask me about the geography of France on the wheat wagon. Well, he learned it, you see."
Cather was unhappy that the novel "will be classed as a war story", which was not her intention. She departed from her previous practice of writing about the western life she knew well to write this story set partly in military life and overseas only because "it stood between me and anything else.
This won the Pulitzer in 1923, although it's not listed on the 1001 books to read before you die list.
As with Cather's other books, this starts out on a farm in Nebraska (and the farm life continues for 75% of it). Claude doesn't fit in and has those "what's it all about Alfie" thoughts until he's called to serve (and actually goes before he needs to). He serves as the perfect solider and in fact scolds another man who breaks down crying by saying, "don't shame us."
Those looking for a mention of the Spanish flu won't be disappointed. The only footnote of the book explains that she inserted it a few months earlier than when it occurred.
Interesting tidbits from Wiki--
Cather's cousin Grosvenor (G.P. Cather) was born and raised on the farm that adjoined her own family's, and she combined parts of her own personality with Grosvenor's in the character of Claude. Cather explained in a letter to Dorothy Canfield Fisher:
"We were very much alike, and very different. He could never escape from the misery of being himself, except in action, and whatever he put his hand to turned out either ugly or ridiculous.... I was staying on his father's farm when the war broke out. We spent the first week hauling wheat to town. On those long rides on the wheat, we talked for the first time in years, and I saw some of the things that were really in the back of his mind.... I had no more thought of writing a story about him than of writing about my own nose. It was all too painfully familiar. It was just to escape from him and his kind that I wrote at all.
Grosvenor was killed in 1918 in Cantigny, France. Cather learned of his death while reading the newspaper in a hair salon. She wrote:
"From that on, he was in my mind. The too-personal-ness, the embarrassment of kinship, was gone. But he was in my mind so much that I couldn't get through him to other things ... some of me was buried with him in France, and some of him was left alive in me."
He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and a Silver Star citation for bravery under fire, of which Cather wrote:
"That anything so glorious could have happened to anyone so disinherited of hope. Timidly, angrily, he used to ask me about the geography of France on the wheat wagon. Well, he learned it, you see."
Cather was unhappy that the novel "will be classed as a war story", which was not her intention. She departed from her previous practice of writing about the western life she knew well to write this story set partly in military life and overseas only because "it stood between me and anything else.
July 26, 2019
At one point, an army officer thinks about scolding his soldiers for mixing with French women who had been living in a territory just freed from Germans but decides not to because it would be like scolding birds. You could basically say the same about reviewing Cather. There is no defining why exactly I love her writing so much. You could say she writes about Prairies or rural life so beautifully and you could say, about this particular book, that she created a magnification character in Claude - an idealist whose wish for an idealist world was left unfulfilled in an increasingly materialist (thanks to indsutrial revolution and consumerism) world, who seems like a man born in a wrong era and yearns for good old days when there were proper social connections, a man who feels the dullness of inactivity of Utopia-like happy Society he is forever to live in .... until the world war I comes in giving him an opportunity to fight for his ideals; to show to him that there are people still willing to die for an idea (His need for a war, to be able to play the hero, the lack of purpose he would feel in peace he fights for all kind of reminds one of Captain America) ..... But saying all that is still not doing justice enough to Cather. She writes far more like poetry and the poetry is made of material of emotions that, unlike words, refuting analysis in their purest forms. In Father's case, the emotion used as material in three books by her I have read is same .... Longing.
February 20, 2017
The Nebraska half of the novel is good. I just couldn't get behind what Cather had to say about the experience of war once Claude goes to France. I have no doubt that many, many wonderful people find a home and a meaningful life in the military. I just struggle with the message that World War I trench combat made anyone's life whole. I've never been a soldier and I've never been in a war, but I've read the stories of many talented writers who've lived that experience and this story didn't ring true.
December 23, 2022
One of Ours is a novel by Willa Cather that won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel. It tells the story of the life of Claude Wheeler, a Nebraska native in the first decades of the 20th century.
I have read at least three other of the author's works and this one is easily the best. Told in five parts, we meet Claude when he is in school, see him leave school to run the farm as his father and younger brother go to Colorado to run a new acquisition, see him courting Enid, see his marriage disintegrate, and see his experiences in WWI.
The writing is superb and the story flows linearly. (I do get tired of multi-time line books). I have recommended this book to others. One has already read and finished it and said it was the best book she has read this year.
I found this information on SuperSummary:
In the army, Claude finally feels he is “one of ours”: a valuable part of a greater struggle. He meets friends that stimulate and inspire him, such as Victor Morse and David Gerhardt. His realization of purpose, however, is bittersweet, as he slowly comes to realize that he can never return home. If he survives the war, he will never find the same sense of fulfillment there.
Claude’s character is partially based on Willa Cather’s cousin, Grosvenor “G.P.” Cather, who lived on an adjoining family farm near Cather’s own in Nebraska. Claude’s character combines traits from Grosvenor’s wartime experiences, narrated to Cather in letters, and Cather’s own personality.
One 'spoiler': We know the marriage will not succeed almost immediately. Enid pronounces his name 'Clod'.
5 stars
I have read at least three other of the author's works and this one is easily the best. Told in five parts, we meet Claude when he is in school, see him leave school to run the farm as his father and younger brother go to Colorado to run a new acquisition, see him courting Enid, see his marriage disintegrate, and see his experiences in WWI.
The writing is superb and the story flows linearly. (I do get tired of multi-time line books). I have recommended this book to others. One has already read and finished it and said it was the best book she has read this year.
I found this information on SuperSummary:
In the army, Claude finally feels he is “one of ours”: a valuable part of a greater struggle. He meets friends that stimulate and inspire him, such as Victor Morse and David Gerhardt. His realization of purpose, however, is bittersweet, as he slowly comes to realize that he can never return home. If he survives the war, he will never find the same sense of fulfillment there.
Claude’s character is partially based on Willa Cather’s cousin, Grosvenor “G.P.” Cather, who lived on an adjoining family farm near Cather’s own in Nebraska. Claude’s character combines traits from Grosvenor’s wartime experiences, narrated to Cather in letters, and Cather’s own personality.
One 'spoiler': We know the marriage will not succeed almost immediately. Enid pronounces his name 'Clod'.
5 stars
October 6, 2012
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this is the story of Claude Wheeler, an American farm boy who grows to manhood convinced that there is something more “splendid about life” than the quotidian existence he sees around him, that will be his future. Frustrated at his inability to attend anything but a small religious college, and entranced by glimpses of a more daring family who engage in intellectual debate and love the arts, he gets married but finds that his wife, too, lives only for Christian missionary work; sex and making a family mean nothing to her. He volunteers when World War I breaks out, and finds what he is looking for overseas. He becomes convinced he has found his true place in the world when he reaches the French countryside, despite the fierce fighting and disease that he faces.
It’s a slow-moving, lyrical novel, a portrait of a rural, agricultural, unsophisticated, isolationist, labor-intensive America, an America on the cusp of modernity, with no more wilderness to tame but without the worldliness and comforts of the post-WWII boom. I believe the book has been criticized for its third-hand scenes of war, but I found nothing particularly jarring or awkward about them as a reader; indeed, I was impressed with Cather’s ability to write so easily about this very male world. In all it’s a good book, perhaps a bit dated now and so not apt to change the reader’s life; but this very American tale of redemption and risk, of a man making his own way in a stifling world, is enhanced by Cather’s strong, romantic prose.
It’s a slow-moving, lyrical novel, a portrait of a rural, agricultural, unsophisticated, isolationist, labor-intensive America, an America on the cusp of modernity, with no more wilderness to tame but without the worldliness and comforts of the post-WWII boom. I believe the book has been criticized for its third-hand scenes of war, but I found nothing particularly jarring or awkward about them as a reader; indeed, I was impressed with Cather’s ability to write so easily about this very male world. In all it’s a good book, perhaps a bit dated now and so not apt to change the reader’s life; but this very American tale of redemption and risk, of a man making his own way in a stifling world, is enhanced by Cather’s strong, romantic prose.
November 20, 2019
Willa Cather has been one of my favorite authors since I was a kid. I'm a Nebraskan, it's a law that we love Willa. I picked this one up at the library without knowing much about and was quite pleased with what I found. "One of Ours" is the story of Claude Wheeler, a small town boy at the turn of the century. The first half of the book moves at a deliberate pace and shows how Claude became the man he would ultimately be. The second half is all about Claude's time fighting in WWI. Cather does a fantastic job of putting the reader in such a specific time and place. I believe this is what it would have truly been like to be a soldier at the time. You make friends, some you lose track of and never see again, some are killed, some grow old. While the writing was beautiful, this one doesn't quite rise to the level of some of my favorites of hers but that would be quite a high bar! A fantastic book.
February 1, 2021
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.
My rating of all the Pulitzer Winners: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
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.
My rating of all the Pulitzer Winners: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
December 5, 2017
I love Cather so much. Her writing is so pure and lyrical and really takes to the heart of wherever she is writing about; you feel what the people in the story are feeling and what they are seeing etc. This book is no exception. So well written, so heartbreaking on so many levels; I totally see how this won the Pulitzer - it is so worthy of that prize. A MUST read for any Cather fan.
Read
July 19, 2024I wasn't able to finish this novel because I have a personal inability to read about the suffering on the Western Front in WWI. I am rather heartbroken about it in this case because I'm not sure how Claude's story ends, but this is a personal reading boundary I really must stick to. I know my bookish friends who will be in our end-of-the-month discussion will have mercy on me and tell me how it ends!
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