So Big, Edna Ferber (1924)
1925 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
I am beginning to marvel at how universal the American Story is. The toiling, for generations,families’ vast economic fluctuations. economically. This book show that industry without humanity is greatly lacking. Selina is real, plucky it is called, as she sets out for an adventure and finds something so different from what she expected. Isn’t that all of us?
The son as a contrast– it is interesting, I kept thinking how I wanted to be like Selina but got the sinking feeling I am more like the son, only not as outwardly successful at all. I think there is a war in me between the two and neither has won or lost. It is a great story that captures two warring sides of your soul; this is also one of the things that makes this novel seem especially American to me. And, oddly,Chicago 80 and 90 years ago seems much like Chicago today.
In terms of construction, So Big is memorable because it seems self-consciously not a formula book. The narrator says, “It would be nice to report…” the usual happy and expected plot twists, but that isn’t what happened. Such a portrayal, Selina’s success, is hard won and not the type of success every reader is going to appreciate. The ending is more a representation of real life because it ends without waving a big flourish, again something expected from this kind of story from this era. The text just stops and “The End” is printed. No car accident, no psychic/dramatic death, graveside speech or moral summary. Life that ends, just a bit after the main character has an epiphany by before he has a chance to act on it. Refrains come again and again with Selina. Her complexities and the language used to describe her presence and unconventional beauty even as hard work and poverty have made her ragged; it is a great and true characterization. And made more poignant because it is presented both through the narrator’s exposition and through the dialogue.
In the end, the most lasting theme is the idea of beauty and something greater in life. It is something we should make sure we notice, recognize, cherish. Beauty and passion and individual expression are things we can all recognize anywhere and anytime if we just bother to do it.