Exploring the Wild West... through books

It seems I’ve always been interested in the American West. As a child of about nine I bought a very tattered copy of Little House on the Prairie (Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1935) and was instantly intrigued by the life of making do in difficult situations, the resilience of those who pioneered the West, and their attachment to the land. Funnily enough I was never interested in America as an actual place to visit until recent years, during which I have met many Americans from California to New Jersey, Texas to Illinois. I suppose to me the West as a literary concept wasn’t a real country I was interested in visiting; it existed in my imagination and that was enough. It seems a fair conclusion considering the West of my imagination, of the late 19^th century, probably no longer exists, but I do wonder whether this separation of ‘the country in my head’ and ‘the country as it is’ goes further than this, as I’ve read many books centring around India (The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy; A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth) without actually wanting to travel there. I now have been there, however, and can feel the life and colour of India through writing about it much more effectively. What I’m really saying, I suppose, is that to enjoy books about different places, times, cultures, you do not actually have to have been there.

I enjoyed the Little House books for many years – and probably would still do so now if they weren’t in a box somewhere in the attic with many of my other favourites from childhood (Enid Blyton, What Katy Did etc). While at secondary school I found a book in the library: These Is My Words (Nancy Turner, 1999) which I read several times. It is now one of my favourite books and, I feel, shockingly overlooked. I now have my own copy, and I have lent it to perhaps six or seven different people, all of whom were completely captured by the spirit and passion of the story. It is the diary of a young girl – Sarah Agnes Prine – whose family have been living in the West since she can remember. Her father decides to move back East but on the way misfortune strikes. To say much more would to be giving away the story, but I think what makes it for me are the two main characters – Sarah and the man who appears in her life over and over again, Captain Jack. Sarah is an incredibly resilient, strong and humorous woman and I think there is something about her that I want to be. Captain Jack is one of the most compelling male characters I’ve ever read; discussing the book with a friend we decided a film should be made of this book starring Hugh Jackman as the Captain! Apparently there are sequels to this book, although I am still trying to get hold of copies.

The latest of my adventures in the West has been quite different. Willa Cather’s O Pioneers! (1913) is the second book she wrote, and the first where she felt ‘This was the first time I walked off on my own feet – everything before was half real and half an imitation of writers whom I admired.’ It is the first book by her which I have read, and despite my initial uncertainty it completely drew me in. It centres around a Swedish family living in the West and struggling to make the land pay. As the story opens we are shown Alexandra, the eldest of four, being left the responsibility of the farm by her dying father who has ‘spent his first five years on the Divide getting into debt, and the last six getting out’. The novel makes several skips of time, focussing eventually on a time twenty years later when Alexandra has made the farm prosperous and her youngest brother, Emil, is deciding how to make his way in the world. Alexandra, like Sarah Prine, is resilient and strong, but she does not have Sarah’s spark of brilliance and fire. This does not make her any less likeable; her deep attachment to the land and the steadiness of her character and opinions also make us sympathetic. Like many stories centring around life in the West, the book is marked with tragedy but also with hope. The prose itself is sparkling and expressive; Cather is definitely on my ‘to read more of’ list.