![]() ![]() It’s an unfinished work, of course, and merely a first draft. It’s not that Laura and Almanzo are made to seem dour here, but their life is revealed as harsh and uncertain, with little-to-no payback or progress. There are hardly any episodes even of fun and laughter. All this is reported without sentimentality or overt drama – and certainly without uplifting lessons. By contrast, in “The First Four Years” we get a succession of setbacks and tragedies: the Wilder crop is destroyed repeatedly, their house burns down, and their infant son dies. (Events that she wanted to take out but Wilder insisted on keeping include Mary’s blindness and the laborers’ riot near the Silver Lake settlement). ![]() Rose Wilder Lane wanted to tell a story of self-reliant and successful pioneers, so one thing she did was to take out certain events, like the death of Laura’s baby brother, Charles Frederick. The language is more plain, but the book feels more honest. This book, as is well known, was never edited by her daughter Rose Wilder Lane and is very different from the other Little House books. In this novel I feel like I’m reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s pure voice for the first time. ![]()
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