Why You’ll Love Reading Edna Ferber’s Classic Novel, “So Big”
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Wallflower Journal invites its audience to “Grow gently. Ponder thoughtfully. Live beautifully.” I contend that reading quality literature is a fruitful avenue to pursue when striving to live in these intentional ways.
Moreover, a novel that arguably embodies these tenets is So Big, written by American author Edna Ferber in 1924. I first encountered this story in high school, but as I’ve matured and learned, I’ve come increasingly to appreciate the insights hidden in this unassuming book.
Like any time-worthy classic, So Big beckons the reader to reflect on consequential questions of life. This book asks: Should one pursue worldly wealth or should one sacrifice and work for what is truly fulfilling, that for which one has passion and talent? What is beauty and where do we find it? What is a true education? What is the value of living on and working the land versus living in a city? Can we accept the ramifications of our life choices?
On top of these philosophical musings, it is an engaging story with vivid, believable characters. Ferber doesn't provide the reader with a tidy, "happily ever after" conclusion but a realistic one with a character facing a precarious moment of decision about what he will do in his life.
So Big takes its colloquial title from the game parents often play with their toddlers: “How big is baby? Soooo big.” “SoBig” becomes the childhood nickname of the main character’s son and by the end of the book, the reader is left to wonder about the cost of being “sooo big” in the eyes of the world.
Set in rural Illinois and in Chicago from the late 1800s to post-World War I, the reader witnesses the deracination of the culture through industrialization and the accompanying generational shifts in people’s priorities and values. Accompanying these sweeping changes, the disillusionment among the wealthy, "gilded youth" after the war is noteworthy.
The story centers around Selina Peake Dejong, who is only nineteen when the action of the plot commences. Her father is loving and good-natured but a gambler by trade. Tragically, he becomes the accidental victim of a fatal shooting, leaving Selina alone in the world. However, he had instilled in Selina an appreciation for and love of beauty, and he had imparted this piece of wisdom: “The more kinds of people you see and the more things you do and the more things that happen to you, the richer you are. Even if they’re not pleasant things. That’s living.” He told his daughter that “life is a grand adventure.”
In order to support herself after her father’s death, Selina takes the position of a schoolteacher in the bucolic, Dutch area of Illinois known as High Prairie. She is something of a fish-out-of-water in the decidedly pragmatic and phlegmatic but welcoming community.
Yet, she accepts the challenges of her job and her new farm life as an adventure. With her characteristic eye for beauty, she exclaims upon first sight that the cabbages grown by the Pooles (the family with whom she stays) are beautiful. Her reaction raises the mirth of all her new companions, except for the Pooles’ twelve-year-old son, Roelf, whose sensitive, artistic disposition contrasts with his family but finds a kindred spirit in Selina. Selina encourages Roelf's artistic tendencies and loans him classic literature to read. We later see that her influence has profound effects on his future.
Selina eventually marries a farmer and settles on a High Prairie farm into a life she has never imagined. She has her share of hardships, including being widowed and raising her young son by herself.
Yet, she faces her trials squarely with poise, courage, intelligence, and creativity. She never loses her ideal of beauty but integrates it into all aspects of her life from how she runs her farm, to how she raises her son, to how she treats and views other people. Even years after first moving to High Prairie, she still finds the cabbages beautiful. Ferber writes, "Life has no weapons against a woman like that."
Selina possesses child-like curiosity and loving-kindness that attract other people to her. She is steady and steadfast, the "rock" of the story.
Her son Dirk, aka “SoBig,” is a different tale. Selina wants Dirk to have more opportunities than a farm life proffers. She sends him to college where he decides to study architecture. This plan elates the beauty-loving Selina. However, away from his mother's grounding influence, Dirk begins to stray from the values in which he was raised, even in how he treats those considered unpopular by the in-crowd.
When the Great War breaks out, Dirk gives up architecture for the more swiftly lucrative career of selling war bonds. He then transitions into banking after peace is declared. He falls into a restless, pleasure-seeking set of wealthy, “gilded youth” and into their insipid, homogenous lifestyle, particularly that of his friend, the conniving and unhappily married Paula. However, Dirk is never quite at ease with Paula and her cohorts.
Selina, naturally, is concerned about her son and warns him not to betray beauty, saying that beauty may no longer be there when he decides he wants her. In other words, she is exhorting him to take stock of his priorities and what he truly values personally and professionally. Despite himself, Dirk finds that he is falling for a woman named Dallas, an unpretentious, bohemian artist whose views on life are very similar to those of his mother Selina.
Dallas has much to say to Dirk, and she pointedly gives him her opinion on his character and pursuits. Dirk is left to choose in which direction he will turn.
I really cannot recommend this book enough. I truly think it deserves to be more well-known. Its questions and conflicts are as relevant and timely today, if not more so, as they were one hundred years ago.
If you are looking for both a thought-provoking and engrossing read, So Big is the novel for you.
