Book Club Picks: O Pioneers!

So as you all know I started a book club last year. I have fallen behind with my posts, but I was catching up.  I am only one behind now. 🙂

Yay!

Every month we read a book and I do a little post on the book we read and discussed. What can I say, I just love books.

There is no theme, other than with each month, a different member gets to pick a book, whichever one they want. The next one was my turn and I picked one of my favorites:

O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

This won’t be a long post as I talked about it two years ago during my 30-day book challenge (which I never finished. Oops!)

Oh, well

I love this book so much. I’m not sure what else I could add. The other day I did a post on how sad it is that Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey is so ignored when it is such a good book-and I feel the same way about this one. This is such an amazing novel! But is so ignored by people, why?

Why? Why do they treat you this way?

So the book is just under 200 pages and divided into five parts. The first part talks of the Swedish immigrants, the Bergsons, who moved to Nebraska for a better life. They find it not as they hope and after many struggles finally seem to be eking out a living. But then! The patriarch of the family, John,  is dying and decides to leave the control of everything to his daughter Alexandra.

What?

Yes, he doesn’t care about anything but what is good for the family. And he knows the only one who will keep things going right is Alexandra and she should be in charge, even though she is female.

“It was Alexandra who read the papers and followed the markets, and who learned by the mistakes of their neighbors. It was Alexandra who could always tell about what it cost to fatten each steer, and who could guess the weight of a hog before it went on the scales closer than John Bergson himself. Lou and Oscar were industrious, but he could never teach them to use their heads about their work.” pg. 15

While everything prospers for them, others aren’t doing well and selling the land to move on to “greener pastures.” One of which is the man Alexandra is in love with. He knows he isn’t a farmer and doesn’t want to use her, but wants to be her equal.

“I’ll write as long as I live…And I’ll be working for you as much as for myself, Alexandra. I want to do something you’ll like and be proud of. I’m a fool here, but I know I can do something!” pg. 34

It is so sad as you want them to be together!

It doesn’t matter to Alexandra, she doesn’t care! She loves him and wants to spend her life with him whether he has everything or nothing.

I talk about this all the time that husband calls it “the book you love”. He’ll say “I know, its like the book you love” or “you are like that girl in the book you love”, or “it’s like that book you love” etc.

Or years.

Poor Alexandra

“[To Carl’s retreating form] Since you have been here, ten years now, I have never really been lonely.” pg 35

The second section of the novel it has been sixteen years since the death of John Bergson, now being 1899. In the years that have passed much has changed. The Bergsons have thrived under Alexandra’s leadership and are very wealthy. In fact Alexandra was able to send her youngest brother, Emil off to college.

Wow

Poor Alexandra is alone still pining for her love. He comes back for a visit but still has nothing so he feels he can’t marry her.

Noooo!

I think Carl and Alexandra are just the cutest couple. Carl is so sweet to her and pretty much understands her (except for the having to prove himself thing because she does not care) and doesn’t find any measure of her odd or not right.

“I wonder whether I should ever be able to tell you all that I was thinking up there. It’s a strange thing, Alexandra; I find it easy to be frank with you about everything under the sun-except yourself!’

‘You are afraid of hurting my feelings, perhaps.’ Alexandra looked at him thoughtfully.

‘No, I’m afraid it would give you a shock. You’ve seen yourself for so long in the dull minds of the people around you, that if I were to tell you how you seem to me, it would startle you. But you must see that you astonish me.” pg. 83

Why can’t you stay Carl?!!! Why leave her alone?!!

“What a hopeless position you are in, Alexandra!’ [Carl] exclaimed feverishly. ‘It is your fate to be always surrounded by little men. And I am no better than the rest. I am too little to face the criticism of even such men as Lou and Oscar. Yes, I am going away; to-morrow. I cannot even ask you to give me a promise until I have something to offer you. I thought, perhaps, I could do that; but I find I can’t.’

‘What good comes of offering people things they don’t need?’ Alexandra asked sadly. ‘I don’t need money. But I have needed you for a great many years. I wonder why I have been permitted to prosper, if only to take my friends away from me.

‘I don’t deceive myself,’ Carl said frankly. ‘I know that I am going away on my own account. I must make the usual effort. I must have something to show for myself. To take what you would give me, I should have to be a very large man or a very small one, and I am only in the middle class.’

Alexandra sighed. ‘I have a feeling that if you go away, you will not come back. Something will happen to one of us, or to both. People have to snatch at happiness when they can in this world. It is always easier to lose than to find.” pg. 114-115

Emil ends up going to Mexico. He loves their neighbor, Marie, but she is already married and he wants to stay away. Him leaving makes Alexandra more alone than ever-she has no one.

 

The rest of the book is just as good and sad. You need to read it for yourself. You’ll love it just like my book club did.

Alexandra is the best character. She has extreme intelligence but also enjoys doing housework, baking, and as beautiful as she is brainy. She kind, caring, compassionate, and doesn’t live her life following the rules and dictates of other people.

“Don’t come to me again telling me what people say. Let people go on talking as they like, and we will go on living as we think best. ” pg. 60

For more book club picks, go to Book Club Picks: This Present Darkness

For more on O Pioneers, go to People Have to Snatch at Happiness When They Can in This World. It is Always Easier to Lose Than to Find: O Pioneers!

Keep Moving Forward

One thing that is prevalent with the holiday hope, is the holiday blues. So often people get depressed and sad at this time. They feel alone, unsure of the future, brokenhearted, etc. Often when such feelings arise we look to the past, thinking if only we could have stayed on that course. If only we could have done something different. A thousand if onlys.

We want to return to a moment in our life where everything was good.

But we can’t go back. The past is solid, written in stone. Instead we must move forward, no matter how painful it is.

After all:

As hard as it may be, keep moving forward.

For more quotes, go to Growing Up is Hard to Do

On a happier note, I decided to end my post with the Christmas Carol, All I Want for Christmas is You by Mariah Carey. It was written by her for her Christmas album, as they say in Love Actually a must for any struggling artist, and was released in 1994. Since then it has been in countless movies and covered by many artists.

I just love the upbeat tone and to sing along when I hear it.

To start 25 Days of Christmas Carols from the beginning, go to Inner Beauty

For the previous post, go to Angels We Have Heard on High

Fiction or Reality? I Choose Fiction

Yep, the fictional world can be so much better than the real one. Especially in a certain department:

After reading certain books, watching some shows, viewing my favorite movies; no real man can compare.

I mean its like:

And you know what:

This is probably why I’m going to end up alone.

Oh, well. At least I’ll have my books to keep me company.

For more on the fictional men I’m in love with, go to Old Fandoms and New Fancies

For more bookish posts, go to Sleep is Not Important

For more quotes, go to All That Glitters Is Not Gold

Avengers Assemble

So I’m sure some of you are wondering what happened to the fandom posts? Why have I stopped doing them?

Well, I wanted to do a post on how great I think Cecilia Gray is. She not only liked my review of her book Fall For You (Jane Austen Academy #1). After that I stopped as I was feeling kind of under the weather.

I was feeling tired all the time, but that grew into a headache and sore throat. But then on Thursday morning I couldn’t hear out of my right ear.

That’s it, I need to go to the doctors. I wanted to put it off as I hate doctors, but figured I’d better go and get it looked at.

I know it takes forever!! So I had to wait, and wait and wait and wait and wait…….

Finally the nurse saw me and it turned out that I had an ear infection and a fever of 100.3. It was funny as after the nurse took my temperature, she asked me if I knew I had been running around with that high a fever.

When I was younger I used to get fevers of 103 & 104. 100.3 is nothing.

So the doctor finally saw me and gave me a prescription and sent me on my way. I had been waiting forever, but the actual time of the doctors was like 10 minutes. How is that fair?

And then you have to wait an hour for the pharmacy. Yuck.

So there was one big problem with being sick. I had tickets to see the Avengers: Age of Ultron, the midnight showing.

Oh yeah!

But you know what? Being sick wasn’t going to stop me, yep I was going to see that movie even though I had a fever and could hear out of only one ear!

That’s because I’m a true geek and hardcore fan.

When I got to the theater, I was the only one in my party. You see, since I’ve moved back home I don’t really see people my age. There was one guy I befriended, but he wanted to move on to dating, and I wasn’t really interested in him. So there was no one else I knew who’d be down for a midnight showing.

When I went to turn in my receipt from buying the ticket online, they guy asked me all shocked like-“only one?”. I felt sooooo embarrassed.

So embarressed

Like Josie in Never Been Kissed when she wants to go on the ferris wheel. It made me feel like a loser.

But that was short lived as I’m okay being alone.

And I was really excited to see the movie.

So now you are probably wondering what I thought of it. There were some things I had a problem with (one particular death of which I won’t say but thought was stupid to have!!!!), but on the whole I loved it and am seeing it again tonight.

I actually am reserving the rest of my thoughts for a later post. As Tony Stark and Bruce Banner create not one but two creatures, you can argue that this is a horror film, mad scientists creating monsters. So I will be bringing back the Avengers: Age of Ultron in October, during Horrorfest IV.

For more Avengers, go to Fanning All Over the Place

For more things I’m a fan of, go to Back to the Fandoms

For more of my everyday life, go to A Spot of Trouble

A Family Affair

So I already did a post on the opening line of Sense and Sensibility, you should go here if you want to check that out. So Sense and Sensibility is far different from Pride & Prejudice. In Pride & Prejudice we have a basic introduction to the family-5 daughters, and their mother’s need to marry them off.

Sense and Sensibility is a little different.

We get a big family entanglement of who’s who in the family and who’s inheriting. It can be a bit much.

It’s not as bad as Love Actually or He’s Just NOT Into You, but it is pretty knotted. But lucky for you all, that’s what I’m here for. I shall untangle it for you.

So it’s always about the property and land right?

And in this case it’s the same. But the one in question here is Norland Park, belonging to Mr. Dashwood.

Now Mr. Dashwood was a confirmed bachleor, and shared his house with his sister who managed everything for him. Both of them grew older, and Miss Dashwood died. Mr. Dashwood found himself alone and didn’t enjoy it. So he decided to invite his nephew, Mr. Henry Dashwood.

Now Henry is where things become a bit more complicated. Henry has two families.

Now I don’t mean that he was married to two women at the same time, this isn’t Sister Wives. And he wasn’t a conman either. He was a widower who remarried. This might not sound too complicated right now (I mean with how high the divorce rates are today, things are far more complicated,) but it does cause some legal issues I’ll get into later.)

So we have Mr. Dashwood’s first family. This includes his son John, horrible daughter-in-law Fanny,

and awful grandson.

I hate these people. Absolutely HATE THEM.

But more on that later.

And his second family consists of the new Mrs. Dashwood, Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret.

So here we are.

John being older and married was the one that didn’t move into the family homestead. But he and his family visited all the time. The three girls however, joined Old Mr. Dashwood. They take good care of him and greatly amuse him in his old age.

Only one problem.

Ugh

One thing my drama director always told us:

“Never work with kids or animals. They’ll steal the show.”

It’s true. Kids and animals are too cute, and they don’t even try. They’ll do something that will cause all others to be overlooked.

And here it’s no different.

Yes, the little spoiled brat steals away all the love of his grandfather.

“…this child, who, in occasional visits with his father and mother at Norland, had so far gained the affections of his uncle. by such attractions as are by no means unusual in children of two or three years old, an imperfect articulation, an earnest desire of having his own way, many cunning tricks, and a great deal of noise, as to outweigh all the value of all the attention which, for years, he had received from his niece and her daughters.”

Duh!

 

Yep, just another case of those who slaved and cared being pushed aside for something “cuter”.

Ugh

So the old Mr. Dashwood dies. And leaves things unpleasant. He entails all his money and estate to his grandnephew.

Entailment!

Replace Rothbart with entailment

Entailment sucks!!!!!!!

Entailment was something that was done a lot in the 18th-20th centuries. All the money, property, the whole shebang was entailed to the next male heir. So this is good and bad. It means that Henry will have everything, but only for as long as he is alive. When he dies it will be passed on to John, and then to the kid. This means that the female Dashwoods will receive nothing. The old Mr. Dashwood gave them £1000, but that won’t be near enough for them to marry well.

So I’m sure you are wondering about Mr. Henry Dashwood. I mean he doesn’t have to entail his personal money. Or Mrs. Dashwood’s money. Right?

 Well you’re half-right. He wouldn’t have to if he had any. Yep, you see Mr. Dashwood has no money.

He had status and married wealthy. His first wife had a fortune!

Unfortunately, she died.

And left all her money to her only child, John.

When he remarries it’s for love and his second wife is poor. They have only £7000. (I’m not sure if that’s a year or what, but it’s not enough for taking care of his family long-term).

And then he hopes to get the inheritance, but winds up with basically nothing.

To rub salt further in the wound, John doesn’t even need the money. You see John not only has all that dough from his mom, but when he married he increased his net worth tenfold.

Yep, he’s rolling in dough.

So the Dashwoods got the shaft.

But then Henry decides maybe it’s not such a bad thing after all. He is not an old man, he’s still has plenty of years left in him and he could start setting money aside to take care of his family. After all it’s not like he is going to die any day.

For more on Sense and Sensibility, go to A Sense of Sense and Sensibility

For more on the Dashwood family, go to Opening With…

For more on how entailment sucks, go to Fantastic Fantasies

For more on Gone With the Wind, go to At the End of the Rainbow