Getting better with each chapter...

It's a little hard to know what to think about this novel. As one character said (basically to the reader) it is a tragedy. The novel is about a woman from Illinois who marries a man from Boston who is an abolishionist. They move to the territory of Kansas and the historical events that ensued as Missouri attempted to claim Kansas as a slave state and the abolishionists resisted are woven through the narrative. Through Lidie, Smiley envisions what it would have been like to be a simple person trying to live a normal life in the midst of all of that violence and upheaval. Lidie was not raised as an abolishionist, but she is at heart a kind person. As the tensions mount, she is forced through a number of confusing emotions. She is angry at the proslavery forces for what they have taken from her, but she is sympathetic and friendly to individual proslavery people and slaveowners. She yearns to help the slaves in distress, but she is distressed at the concept of the kind of violence that would be required to overturn an entire way of life.

Every time I read one of these books I am amazed that the Civil War happened at all. It was an amazing accomplishment to overturn an entire way of life, for one way of looking at things to completely overpower another way of looking at things. Maybe that's why we can't seem to get anything done now, because the amount of certitude and sheer force of will required to convince someone else to accede to your way of thinking is too much. Take gun control. We exhaust ourselves talking about it (as they exhausted themselves in the novel talking about slavery) and then we propose changes and talk some more and realize that the political conviction and courage required to do anything is simply beyond us. That feeling is really captured in the book. The realization of what it would take to change the other side is simply overwhelming to the characters. They lack the courage of their convictions, they seem to even lack convictions, and it is just easier not to try. The message almost seems to be that one person really can't do much to effect change and that the kind of person who can throw themselves into the kind of fight that does loses a little of his humanity, his ability to relate other people. It was strange to read that sentiment in a book about slavery, which is about as evil an institution as you can think of.

I guess my problem with Lidie is that I find it easy to choose sides and believe passionately in my point of view. I understand that you have to live with people and judging them based on their politics is difficult, but some issues define you and I would think your attitude about slavery would be one of them. I don't have any white nationalist friends and I think I would struggle to recognize their humanity considering that they struggle to recognize other people's. I can see the value in trying to understand somebody like Lydie who has to straddle both worlds, but it is difficult. On the other hand, it is a very well told story and I'm glad I read it.

Jane Smiley is an american treasure.

I read some reviews that talk about the second half of the book not being historically plausible. I don't know if that's so andI'm not sure I really care. It's a great story!

I really like the main character of Lidie Newton, and was interested in the history of Kansas in the 1850s, but there was maybe too much history in this novel. Parts of it seemed like a dray history book and were kind of boring. By the end, I started to feel like Lidie's life got into too many twists and turns, and she didn't seem like the character I'd liked in the beginning. Still, a well-done historical novel about Kansas and Missouri and the dispute about slavery in these two states. Also, it was fun to be reminded of a time when Illinois was called "the west!"

This is a scarier and more grown-up version of Little House on the Prairie. A couple of abolitionists head out to stake a claim in Bleeding Kansas, and meet up with calamity upon calamity. It was a great history lesson--something your usual high school history class glosses over--but got to be very tedious in the first half with its political and philosophical discussions. After the Big Murder (alluded to in the jacket notes, so not really a spoiler), the action picked up a bit, but it was overall very depressing. I don't think a single good thing happened to anyone in the story; probably a historical reality for that time and place, but it would have been nice for SOMETHING good to come of Lidie's awesome tough-chick demeanor. Otherwise, it seems like almost like an anti-feminist warning...act out of place, and evil will befall you.

I did enjoy, for the same reasons I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder's stories, reading about the details of the pioneer life. I think I was designed for that life.

Really enjoyed this book set in the Kansas Territory of the 1850's.

It was stunning at times. I did wonder why the author chose to use "g --" & "d---" instead of spelling those words out while she used several idioms of "the N word" straight out. I still struggle with that. I can see where the main character may have made that choice if these had actually been her writings, or maybe I can't?
I seem to remember reading "true life" narratives from writers who were black, and some who were former slaves, written in the 19th century, and the use of the "N-word" was deplorable to them. I got the impression that a person freed from slavery made negative judgements of a white person saying it in similar ways that it is considered to this day. Why wouldn't Lidie have picked up that information before she wrote her narrative? She was so observant of how people used language and how they reacted to different uses of language.
Otherwise, I think I loved every bit of it.