Reading Journal

I finished this year's reading of O! Pioneers in the gym while trying (but failing) to help my team win the cardio challenge. Every year I read it, I find myself identifying with different characters or situations than I did the last time. This year, it was the Emil-Marie relationship I found most parallelling my own. Granted, not everything aligns up perfectly and I've discovered it's possible to feel a connection to characters with seemingly opposing points of view.

Without getting into much detail, either personal or plot related, here are a couple of selections affirming my parallel.

"She sighed despondently. "Everything I say makes you cross, don't it? And you never used to be cross to me."
Emil took a step nearer and stood frowning down at her bent head. He stood in an attitude of self-defense, his feet well apart, his hands clenched and drawn up at his sides, so that the cords stood out on his bare arms. "I can't play with you like a little boy any more," he said slowly. "That's what you miss, Marie. You'll have to get some other little boy to play with." He stopped and took a deep breath. Then he went on in a low tone, so intense that it was almost threatening: "Sometimes you seem to understand perfectly, and then sometimes you pretend you don't. You don't help things anyby pretending. It's then that I want to pull the corners of the Divide together. If you won't understand, you know, I could make you!"
Marie clasped her hands and started up from her seat. She had grown very pale and her eyes were shining with excitement and distress. "But, Emil, if I understand, then all our good times are over, we can never do nice things together any more....And, anyhow, there's nothing to understand!" She struck the ground with her little foot fiercely. "That won't last. It will go away, and things will be just as they used to....I pray for you, but that's not the same as if you prayed for yourself."
...
"I can't pray to have the things I want," he said slowly, "and I won't pray not to have them, not if I'm damned for it."
p.80

"When she reached the stile she sat down and waited. How terrible it was to love people when you could not really share in their lives!"
p. 131


And, as always, I reccomend this book to everyone who enjoys reading. It's an easy read, pretty light, a good balance of exposition and dialogue and I have the most amazing time with character analysis while reading this. Cather really gets a grip on this, and it's why she's probably the closest thing I have to a favorite author.