| Title | : | A Daughter of the Land (Library of Indiana C) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0253333059 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780253333056 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 352 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1918 |
A Daughter of the Land (Library of Indiana C) Reviews
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Another excellent book by Gene Stratton Porter.
You can find my full review here.
Reread 5/16/2019:
Kate is conceited, but she reminds me a little of myself. I'm a lot less snobby (sorry, but I am), but we both are honest, straightforward, already blunt, and *coughs* Because I totally would have said exactly what she said to Robert at the end.
This is really a tragedy - and kinda a weird one (given the era, btw, there are some things I'm just ... not commenting on). -
A touching, moving, powerful story by Gene Stratton-Porter! This book follows Kate Bates, one of sixteen children, as she takes the wings of morning to try for independence and the life she's been denied. This book is unlike Mrs. Porter's A Girl of the Limberlost - which is a favorite of mine as well - but it's a wonderful one in a different way. The characters are quite human and flawed; at times I was inwardly begging Kate not to do such-and-such; but she had my sympathy, the story is amazing and well-written, and I teared up at the end. Won't say what happens, but the end is awesome and touching! :) This book deals with tough subjects. It shows the beauty of love and forgiveness. It shows a picture of the brokenness around us. And it shows how God can make all things work together for good and shed hope and light in the midst of the valley of the shadow.
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This is a difficult book to review, because it was just … strange, in many ways. I’d chalk that up to its being written a hundred years ago, but I didn’t get the same strange vibe with Freckles and Girl of the Limberlost, which I'd read to my daughters, or with the The Song of the Cardinal.
Kate Bates, the protagonist, is the source of much of the off-feeling this book had to me. Kate is very black-and-white in her thinking, and she certainly always thinks her way is the best. She’s very … confident? annoying? in her expression of her views as well. When her sister tries to convince Kate to splurge and buy a new hat, Kate says to her, “Get thee behind me, Satan. No. I never had anything charged, and never expect to.” Dave Ramsey would be proud, no doubt, but I’m guessing he might phrase himself a little more tactfully?
The book did keep my interest throughout its nearly 500 pages, which is a testament to Porter’s ability to tell a story. Part of my interest was due to wondering just what would happen next, and at times it seemed Porter even lost track of what she’d written earlier. Kate and her sister like each other, then don’t, then are friends again. Late in the book (spoiler alert!), I was pretty surprised to learn that a brother-in-law and Kate professed to each other that they had only ever loved each other. Somehow, I hadn’t picked up on that at all up until that point. Kate makes decisions on marriages quite suddenly, and people — “conveniently,” usually those who seem to be in her way — die often and quickly as well (can someone, and a young someone at that, “turn her face to the wall” after a deep conversation, and just die? Apparently so).
The arbitrariness of Kate that makes her a fascinating read also makes her sound like a lousy person to know in real life. She is set to marry one guy, then changes her mind seemingly based on his poor spelling in a letter to her (study your spelling, men!). She suddenly and inexplicably marries someone else, but tires of him quickly. Check out this ultimatum — I didn’t know 1915-era women talked to men like this: “I’m giving you one, and a final chance to act. This seems all that is open to us. Go to work like a man, and we will see what we can make of our last chance.” A few pages later, she ends another speech to him with “You make me sick!”
You go, girl?
I’m still a Porter fan, and I’d recommend this one perhaps as comic relief, but for true GSP greatness, I much prefer Freckles and Girl of the Limberlost. -
Kate Bates is the youngest of sixteen children, daughter of a rich but miserly and controlling father she defies his plans for her and leaves home at eighteen, looking to make her own way in life and find a man, a farm and a family.
Kate is a pretty unconventional heroine for an early 20th century romance. A strapping lass, the sister closest to her, Nancy Ellen, is considerably more beautiful. But Kate is smart and sure, a woman more than prepared to do a man's work, someone who in her own words "didn't give a flip about being overly nice", certainly not to anyone undeserving of the courtesy.
She becomes a teacher but still aims to achieve her trinity of ambitions when two men vie for her affections. George Holt is educated but essentially a waster, John Jardine is uneducated but a successful businessman. You can see which way this is going, right?
Well, I thought I did, but how wrong I was! Just under half way through, what I thought was gong to be a happy if slightly unusual romance turned into something else entirely, as some bad choices by the willful Kate led to a very different life for her.
Thereafter, the sprightliness of her youth is replaced with something closer to perseverance as disasters plague her, but she never loses her determination to live her life her own way, learning the lesson that "failure and hardship make more of a human being of folks than success."
Maybe so, but by the end I really didn't know what to make of Kate. I couldn't help but admire her independent streak, but equally I couldn't help but think she made things unnecessarily hard for herself to the extent that she effectively squandered the prime years of her life.
Judging from her biography, Stratton-Porter was more than a little unconventional herself. An amateur naturalist as well as novelist, she still has her own memorial society in her native Indiana. She was very successful, but on this evidence she did it, like her heroine Kate, her own way, not via any romance formulas.
A Daughter of the Land has much to commend it, even though Kate's decision making exasperated at times, and it was more than just a tad overlong. -
I have a love/hate relationship with Stratton-Porter. Just when I'm starting to get into the story and liking the characters, the author makes them say or do things that completely turn my crank. I was rooting for the heroine who was fighting for the right to live her life her own way. But then she starts making some odd choices (I'm still not sure why she married the guy she married in the first place), practically turns her back on her own daughter because the daughter wanted the right to live her life her own way (sound familiar? huh? huh?), and then before a young father even gets the chance to be a father, she basically steals the baby away from him. In the end I came to loathe the main character.
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The first Gene Stratton-Porter book I've read. It was moderately engaging at times, but I never got used to the way she relates the story, effectively TELLING the reader how a person thinks and what their character is like, instead of SHOWING them. Nor did I really find any of the main characters to be particularly sympathetic.
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The "Bates Way" didn't seem terribly admirable to me and I got sick and tired of Kate thinking any halfway intelligent or sensible action was somehow directly attributed to her mean miserly father's genes. Why did Kate name her son after a father who never showed her any affection or even fairness? One of many inconsistencies.
The Bates family seemed quite dysfunctional to me as evidenced by siblings who had nothing to do with Kate when she was suffering extreme financial difficulties and the mother who wouldn't have anything to do with her daughter until she wanted her for her own purposes, to take care of her in her last days. The relationship between Kate and her sister Nancy Ellen also seemed inconsistent, mortal enemies, bosom buddies, back to the cold standoff and then close friends again.
I guess I thought Kate would, through the trials of life, have her character flaws somewhat softened, like the most of the rest of us, be some what humbled, grow wise and mature. Instead, she just seemed to become more hard-headed, proud and narrow-minded. Even in the case of her daughter she barely admits in a self-justified aside that maybe she had contributed to her daughter's actions, but then goes on to explain how her daughter should have known better and acted differently. Seems the daughter took after Kate in making hasty marriages, but at least she had sense to marry a decent person who really loved her.
That Kate didn't become a better person is a fine story arc, but it seemed the author thought Kate was an ideal heroine, Porter doesn't write bent or broken stories, they're whole -- good is good and bad bad, and there's no confusing of the two. Kate revealed I think the author's black and white views of the world. -
If you have not read GSP before, skip this for now and read Girl of the Limberlost or Keeper of the Bees first, but come back to it. You have to know her and her love of transformation and redemption to appreciate this one, I believe. Kate Bates makes some ridiculous and seemingly out of character decisions in her life that could drive many people to enough frustration to abandon her as a heroine, but if you know and trust GSP, you know that there are reasons for these decisions that won't justify them, but will use them as a refining fire to transform her protagonist into a true heroine.
Despite my frustrations with Kate I loved her from the start and felt it refreshing to get to know a character that doesn't fit any typical wholesome character molds, while still being a wholesome character. She is full of flaws and often terribly misguided, but she is at the same time overflowing with courage, a love for education, and extraordinary intelligence. She has a true servant's heart, and a contagious hunger to examine herself and to know the whole truth of a matter. It takes her many years to figure some of those truths out, but that is, after all, an accurate reflection of all of us. -
The woman who I read aloud to has a bookshelf of all her old - and I mean OLD! - books that she saved from her childhood. I went up there this morning and pulled a few novels off the shelf, and she chose this one. SO far, the writing is decent and I'm on a history trip!
Update 3/3/09 - I am into this book! It's funny and surprising.
Update 3/30/09 - This book just gets better and better. What impressive storytelling! And so evocative of the pre-television and pre-cinema era.
4/28/09 - We finally finished the book. Considering it was written in 1916, the only part I took offense at was when the main character despises a woman from a lower income bracket for marrying "above her class." I also noticed that people died awfully quickly once they made up their minds to do so. Can this be a lost art? -
Not my favorite GSP book - I enjoyed the beginning, and was glad at the end, but everything in between was pretty hard work... I think she was trying for a story about a family full of "imperfect" people, which is fine - but a lot of the characters seem to make decisions that don't really make sense, except for the goal of GSP wanting to make them "imperfect". They just don't come across as genuine, believable choices I guess is what I'm saying... Glad I read this one, but probably won't be reading it again...
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I have no idea how many times I have read this book. It's definitely a favorite. I much prefer Kate Bates as a model of strong womanhood to the heroines of modern novels that I've read.
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Another good book by an excellent author. I didn't like everything she wrote. The author was a product of her time.
You probably won't enjoy every book she wrote but this is one of the good ones. -
This book was an emotional roller coaster, and I’m not certain about my five star rating either. There were some outdated ideas about “good blood,” and I would have liked to see the Christian themes carried a little further, but my overall impression walking away is favorable.
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Was that Gene Stratton-Porter? Real, honest-to-goodness Stratton-Porter? Because it in no way read like her.
Exceptionally longwinded review to come. 2.5 stars. -
Ok, this one is not Stratton-Porter, this is like the experience, such as I have had, with Bess Streeter Aldrich. So very typical, it seems, of books from that time, but not Gene's trademark loveliness.
If the world is generally full of Phillip Ammons, Margaret Camerons, Duncans, or even Billys, (which is of course debatable) with one Kate Comstock in each social circle, then this book is a world of Kate Comstocks with one or two Margaret Sintons or Edith Carrs to try and balance out the good/evil palette, which is more depressing, even if some would argue that's more realistic from their experience.
It wouldn't surprise me, though, if this book was the link between Laddie and its style, and the better books. I hadn't known Laddie was written earlier until recently, but it makes sense, and I can then only say, perhaps in the writer's changing style, we see her changing character. Laddie was quite good, as books like this one go, but when I first read it, I felt like I had been taken for a ride; and this book isn't that good. Thankfully things must have happened for Gene to make her want to write better stuff. -
When I first read this, as a teenager and huge fan of several other Porter titles ("Freckles", "Girl of the Limberlost", "Harvester"), I was shocked and turned off by what I felt was the darker tone of the writing and the generally gloomy events. Even a second read, in my 20s, left me with the same impression.
Since I have an anthology of Porter's novels on my Nook, I decided to re-read "A Daughter of the Land" while on vacation, and was quite surprised to find that it was humorous, and that as a character study it ranks--in my opinion--as her most original and realistic writing. Kate is headstrong and impulsive, and much of the trouble and heartache of her life is partly of her own making. The ending is actually quite uplifting and happy and sweet. I've upped my rating from one star to three. It will still never be my favorite, having several such despicable characters in it that they are hard to even read...but this one is less preachy than some of her others, while still providing positive insights into filial, marital and parental relationships. -
Porter-Stratton applies the same template story of a protagonist who must overcome adversity before achieving contentment. In this case Kate, the youngest of a large brood from hard working (and miserly) farmers, defies her father to stay nearby and teach. As a result she is banned from the house and she must make her way in the world.
Even though her father is an overbearing bully, Kate’s stubbornness lands her in some tough spots and she ends up with a hard life for many years.
At times it is easy to root for her due to unfair circumstances; however, there are other times when it is difficult to bear her choices and attitudes.
GPS knows how to craft a story and this one has echoes of Freckles and Girl of the Limberlost, yet Kate very much has her own tale.
It is old-fashioned in its technique of telling and not showing, and some of its diction is stiff, but it is rich with layers of story of how contentment is found on leaning how to soar on the wings one is given.
A contender for a one sit reading. -
Certainly not the most entertaining book and somewhat depressing. However, if you are wanting to see real life people that have real life problems and human weakness this is your book. This book shows how a family that has no God in their lives and behaves poorly to each other yields lives that have appropriately negative consequences. But the elders recognize their weakness, the children break the cycle, and the grandchildren get it figured out. This book would be a great book to compare against characters found in "Laddie." Very opposite families that have opposite results. But it is redemptive, our heroine finds God and finds peace.
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I always loved The Girl of the Limberlost by Stratton-Porter. But with the kindle I have discovered more of her books. This one was great. You cannot imagine how much more bad luck could follow the main character. Despite it all she never gave up. Wonderful book.
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Not what I expect in a novel. It was slow at times but the prose is very engaging. I wanted to find out what happened to Kate even when I felt that she couldn't make this worse. Take-away: TALK to the people in your like otherwise you could waste years of misunderstanding.
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Well, yes I believe this story is supposed to be uplifting and all. I guess I'm supposed to learn to persevere through the worst, stay married to a bum, and find God, too. However, this is just as much fantasy as the stuff with elves and fairies.
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This sprawling novel is a far departure from my two favorite of Stratton-Porter's novels, The Keeper of the Bees and The Girl of Limberlost. Unlike the likable protagonists of these tales, Kate is strong-headed, wildly impulsive, and thinks too concretely in white and black (and her way is usually the only way). It was difficult to root for her when she seemed to be so hard-headed and refused help or wise advice from anyone, only plowing ahead with her schemes. I hoped she would learn from her mistakes in the decades that spanned from the beginning to end of the story, but it was very slow-going change. Her family's lack of support and love for her through her many hardships the first three-quarters of the book helped me have more grace for her and understand why she was so hard around the edges and set in her ways. It isn't often that I enjoy the plot but dislike the characters, but Stratton-Porter just has such a gift with crafting an engaging story. Though there wasn't much to learn from Kate, it was a good reminder to learn from her mistakes and flaws: seeking an attitude of humility rather than pride and thinking my way is the only way, seeking wise counsel before making big decisions, seeking reconciliation rather than letting years pass with broken relationships, and seeking fairness and love between all my children (her dad was a hard, cruel man who preferred his sons over his daughters and didn't plan on leaving hardly anything to them once he died. Later on, she preferred her son over her daughter). It was a very long book, but so much kept happening (usually bad things to Kate) that it kept me interested and curious what else could fall apart and how she'd recover, which reminds me that what I did appreciate about Kate was her resourcefulness and eagerness to provide for her children and turn bad situations around. Also, her ambition for farming and her overall work ethic were also admirable.
Content rating: G -
Since I had read an enjoyed several other books by this author, I was expecting to enjoy this one. I ended up with very mixed feelings.
What I liked:
I really enjoyed the writing style. There is just something about the way the older authors wrote that appeals to me.
I did like Kate (main character), and I wanted to help her in her desire to be more than a "slave."
What I didn't like:
The fact that there was no real reliance on the Lord, no praying about what to do, no real Christian to share the love and forgiveness of Christ, made me want to rewrite the story.
The doctrine, such as was there, was weak, wishy-washy and so full of holes and errors that I was left feeling confused and pitying the characters.
I didn't enjoy the fact that one major choice Kate made was poor because she just jumped into it without thought and allowed someone to talk her into a life altering decision when she knew she wasn't thinking clearly.
I have not read a book in a long time that had this many people die! And not only that, but most of them died with no hope of salvation.
There were multiple times the whiteout had been used (for which I was grateful!)
All in all, this is not one I will be reading again. -
Everything is not perfect with the Bates family. Sure, their father is looked upon as a wealthy land owner in their farm community, and the family is large and spreading their work ethic past the original homestead; however, there are serious issues.
The youngest daughter, Kate, inherits the good with the bad and sets off to forge her way in life. It seems that the impetus to set her off is being told that she must sit back and wait. Sometimes the decisions she makes in a split second are wise decisions, and often times they are poor. She has the ability to look around and see the result of her hasty judgements, keep any promises made, and yet use the results to try to make better decisions in the future.
The plot has unexpected twists and turns. It is a real life love story, not only in terms of romance, but also love of family and love of the resources found in working the land. -
I guess they can't all be gems?
Kate has worked like a dog for her father since she was four, with no chance of ever owning any of that land. I think that starts to eat away at her brain.
So she sets about getting the life she wants. Which I applaud her for. But she had no bend. She wanted that 200 acres more than she wanted happiness.
So when real happiness is staring her in the face but isn't wrapped up in the exact ribbon she wants she shoves it away with both hands.
And goes right to the thing that she knows deep down won't. What a ninny.
Still she holds out for that darn farm.
I'm a huge Gene Stratton-Porter fan but this book was a hard slosh. Even if you are a die hard fan, I'd say skip this one, or at least read it last. -
A Tale of Hard Labor and True Love
Stratton-Porter is a wonderful story teller. Kate is the last child of a large family and knows the meaning of hard work. She wants a chance at life while her Father desires that she stay home and continue work there. Kate leaves and her family disowns her! She has a hard life and endures many a setback before things finally turn around for her. An exceptional story that will make you laugh and cry. This book is another reason Stratton -Porter is one of our finest authors. -
After reading "The Harvester" last Spring I picked up this book assuming, from its title, that it would be as gloriously filled with Gene Stratton-Porter's deeply beautiful descriptions of trees, flowers, and growing things, just as all of that was blooming outside in April. Well she expounded very little on nature (besides that of human). First of all, the story is about a young woman and I never can make myself like the leading lady in Gene Stratton-Porter's books! I much prefer her books with a virtuous male protagonist.
