Synopses & Reviews
Although the land on which the Nebraska farm boy Claude Wheeler lives is settled, he himself has inherited the pioneer spirit of adventure, the frontiersman's purpose, and the settler's sense of idealism. In One of Ours, Willa Cather explores the dissonance between Claudes attitudes and his physical reality and studies how this conflict affects him. Drawing on her own familys experience of the war through her cousin G. P. Cather, who fought in World War I, Cather observes how an otherwise misdirected young man could find purpose and meaning in war and how his death would affect his familys memories of him. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1922, One of Ours paints Claude as a young man who seeks an escape from a conventional and unfulfilling life through the realization of “something splendid” in his military experience in Europe. This Willa Cather Scholarly Edition puts One of Ours in a new and revealing context. The novel is edited according to standards set by the Committee for Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association and presents the full range of biographical, historical, and textual information on the novel.
Synopsis
1922. Cather won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, One of Ours, about a midwestern American's journey to the front of World War I. Claude Wheeler, the sensitive, aspiring protagonist of this beautifully modulated novel, resembles the youngest son of a peculiarly American fairy tale. His fortune is ready-made for him, but he refuses to settle for it. Alienated from his crass father and pious mother, all but rejected by a wife who reserves her ardor for missionary work, and dissatisfied with farming, Claude is an idealist without an ideal to cling to. It is only when his country enters the First World War that Claude finds what he has been searching for all his life. In One of Ours Willa Cather explores the destiny of a grandchild of the pioneers, a young Nebraskan whose yearnings impel him toward a frontier bloodier and more distant than the one that vanished before his birth. In doing so, she creates a canny and extraordinarily vital portrait of an American psyche at once skeptical and romantic, restless and heroic. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.
Synopsis
Although the land on which the Nebraska farm boy Claude Wheeler lives is settled, he himself has inherited the pioneer spirit of adventure, the frontiersman's purpose, and the settler's sense of idealism. In One of Ours, Willa Cather explores the dissonance between Claude’s attitudes and his physical reality and studies how this conflict affects him. Drawing on her own family’s experience of the war through her cousin G. P. Cather, who fought in World War I, Cather observes how an otherwise misdirected young man could find purpose and meaning in war and how his death would affect his family’s memories of him. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1922, One of Ours paints Claude as a young man who seeks an escape from a conventional and unfulfilling life through the realization of “something splendid” in his military experience in Europe. This Willa Cather Scholarly Edition puts One of Ours in a new and revealing context. The novel is edited according to standards set by the Committee for Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association and presents the full range of biographical, historical, and textual information on the novel.
About the Author
Richard C. Harris is a professor and the director of humanities at the Webb Institute in Glen Cove, New York. Frederick M. Link is a professor emeritus of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the textual editor of Cathers Obscure Destinies, The Professors House, and Shadows on the Rock. Kari A. Ronning is an assistant editor for the Willa Cather Scholarly Edition series at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.