One of Ours

Review ebook One of Ours

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 t 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.
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