Take All to Nebraska by S. K. Winther (1976. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9780803258310)
As part of my involvement with the blog, Rural Lit R.A.L.L.Y., an organization that has its purpose in preserving and studying rural-flavored novels from the late 1800s and early 1900s, I was asked to read and dialogue about Take All to Nebraska on the blog site, http://rurallitrally.org/. This is the fourth or fifth book that I have read and discussed with my fellow board members and others interested in prairie literature of the past. Here’s my take on Take All.
I found the language of “Take All to Nebraska” less lyrical in voice than the works by Ostenso and Krause. To me, Winther was trying a bit too hard to write in a simple, immigrant’s voice even in the narrative sections of the book and the overall tone of the story seemed to lack the poetry of “O River Remember!” by Ostenso and Krause’s best works, “The Thresher” and “Wind Without Rain”. The author certainly portrays the efforts of the immigrant Danes in this story with authenticity but, as stated, I wasn’t “swept away” by the prose.
I was also a bit distracted by Winther’s odd literary slight of hand in not laying out the Grimsen children by name and birth order at the beginning of the tale. I found myself constantly trying to remember which child fit in where and what that character’s traits were. Even after closing the book’s cover upon finishing, I was still unsure of how many children populated the story and what their names were.
Additionally, Peter Grimsen, like so many of the male protagonists in hard times/prairie immigrant literature, finds himself thrust into a struggle with the owner of the land he’s farming. Yet, while this conflict between the haves and the have nots should be a major component of the story, the tension between tenant and landlord gets little attention and, in fact, seems to disappear as a part of the plot after being advanced to the stage. I wanted to read more about Grimsen’s travails and his relationship with the human forces that held him captive through the tenant farmer system dictating the direction of his life.
In the end, “Take All to Nebraska” was a bit simplistic and not nearly as engaging as the other works I’ve read as part of my involvement with Rural Lit R.A.L.L.Y.
3 and 1/2 stars out of 5.
