O Pioneers! - Willa Cather

Willa Cather is quickly becoming a favorite author for me. Once I started reading this book I found it impossible to put down and I read it all in one sitting. As with My Ántonia, the characters fairly leap off the page they seem so real. That isn't to say I like them all, just that they seem very alive to me. The writing is beautiful, and I feel like it influenced John Steinbeck's descriptive writing, although that's based on sort of a gut feeling more than any hard evidence. There's some wonderful foreshadowing that I'd love to have written a paper about; maybe someday I'll win the lottery and become the nerdy, studious version of Van Wilder and do just that. And once again the author has captivated me with descriptions of the wild Nebraska prairie that make me truly understand why some of the characters are so attached to their land. I can't wait for next year's Back to the Classics Challenge so I can read another one of Cather's books. Highly recommended.