Reviews

• Excellent livre

  Excellent livre, beaucoup de sensibilité

• La letra es pequeñísima! Font is too small!

  Al abrir el libro, me di cuenta que no iba a poder leerlo. Es demasiada pequeña la fuente para poder leer cómodamente. Desafortunadamente, ya ha pasado la fecha para poder devolver el libro. ¡Una gran decepción! The font of this print is far too small to read comfortably. Unfortunately, as I had been reading another book that came in the same order, I did not realize this fact until now,, and the return date has already passed. Very upsetting!

• A Sterling Read

  As is Cather's style, she sometimes gets lost in the skill with which she can craft words, so the story stalls for these interludes of wonder. But also as is her style, her mastery of plot and characters bring the tale home to a place where you know it has to end. A fine read!

• Incredible Character Development

  I've made a commitment to begin reading Pulitzer Prize winning novels starting with the 1920s. This book by WIlla Cather, which is about a sensitive and idealistic Nebraska farm boy--Claude Wheeler--is far better than a couple of its prize-winning predecessors. I think some of the other reviewers of this novel, in my humble opinion, got stuck on some of the devices/constructs in the book and allowed literary structure and drama to color their impressions -- at least more than I did. Any book that does justice to war is going to have tragedy and pathos. Also, books on war are, in the eyes of many, either going to be "too dramatic and gory," or they are not going to have enough military accuracy. Claude is one of those young men who truly finds himself, defines himself, when he discovers (after becoming a soldier) that ideas are more important than possessions or manufactured things. Willa Cather strategically laid the plans for Claude's moral development by making him a free-thinking humanist during college, and by bringing him together with intellectual people like the Ehrlich family in Lincoln, Nebraska. Where Willa Cather excels way beyond her contemporaries and even in the bright light of today's literary environment, is in character development. As I read this book, I felt like I was living in the Wheeler's farmhouse, feeling the emotions of Claude, his mother, and the old cook named Mahailey. I began to feel these people--as one does in reading a really good book--as my companions for a week or two, and they would cross my mind at odd moments, like friends of mine. They were very well sketched, understandable and even predictable at times (as when Claude chooses to follow his illusions about marriage and hooks up with the frigid Enid). The end of the book, while difficult, is the best culmination for those characters during that period in history. A great read.

• Overwhelmingly relevant

  A brilliant piece of work, and incredibly apt for our present times (i.e., 2022) - despite being a century old, some of its pages could have been written yesterday. A range of very different people and places are portrayed quietly and effectively, taking the reader from rural Nebraska, in the years preceding 1914, to the Western Front of 1918. Do-gooding Christians do not emerge too well from its pages, and its main contention (and conclusion) is a troubling one, namely that a host of young men could only find fulfilment from going to war and enjoying the companionship of their comrades-in-arms. Non-sensational but a moving and memorable novel, well deserving of its Pulitzer price. "Masterpiece" is not too strong a word.

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