Another good one in this trilogy. Old time slang makes it interesting, but sometimes not politically correct anymore. Good story. ( )

The Fields is the second volume in Conrad Richter’s trilogy The Awakening Land. In The Trees, Sayward Luckett arrived in the wilds of Ohio, where the forest was so thick it blocked out the sun, and the family were the only people, aside from Indians, inhabiting the land. Before the next group of settlers is established, Sayward’s mother, Jary, is dead and not long after her father, Worth, has departed for the next wilderness he can find.

Sayward stays in the cabin the family built, raises her remaining siblings, and establishes a life. Married now, she becomes the backbone of this land. She raises her children and clears her land, and it is the coming of the fields from the forest that this book deals with. We see, step-by-step, how the wilderness gives way to civilization; how a church and a school and businesses begin to take root in what was once an unsettled land. With the coming of this new place comes a new way of life, and not one without trouble or toil, but one with a different breed of both.

Richter’s style of writing makes me feel I am present in the settlement these people inhabit. I can feel the sweat that is required to make a good life out of a harsh environment, I can see the larger wildlife recede and the smaller animals, mice and possums, foxes and birds, take their place. There is a marked difference between Sayward’s children’s lives and the clear picture that remains in our minds of that of Sayward and her siblings. The change is gradual, but the change is real, and Richter is masterful at bringing us from one stage of the growth of this territory to another in exactly the kind of slow progression that life itself takes. In fact, he has now brought us out of the territory and into Ohio statehood.

I love books with strong women, particularly women who are strong in times and places where men are meant to prevail. Sayward is such a woman. She is much stronger than her husband, Portius, and it is her determination and sweat that carves civilization out of this wilderness, not his books or his law offices. Nothing about this life is easy, the dangers lie all around, and they are coupled with the human failings that have also been with us since the beginning of time.

I am looking forward to the final book, The Town, for I know it will bring these characters full circle and leave them in a place that is not wilderness any longer. I wonder if it will be better, for it is evident to us all that as we gain one thing, we lose something else.
( )

When we rejoin Sayward Wheeler (nee Luckett), she has given birth to a baby boy she names Resolve. What a cool name for a kid! Sayward is a lonely woman because she has married a hesitant man. Portius ran out on Sayward when it came time to get married. He disappeared when she gave birth to their first son and it took Portius a long time to even acknowledge his first born son, Resolve. Portius was not even part of the baptism ceremony for Resolve. Sayward's sister Genny is the only family she has left in the region. Everyone else has scattered to the wind. Her father left when Jary died and Wyitt only returns from time to time. Sulie is still missing, presumed either dead or held captive by the regional natives. Betrayal follows Sayward but she is a resilient woman. She knows how to fight adversity fair and square.
Fast fast forward and now Sayward has had seven children; eight if you could little Sulie who died in a fire. With her brood of children Sayward watches her southern Ohio woodland home stretch into fields of openness with more and more people populating the area. Statehood has been declared and soon there is a need for a meeting house, school, boat launch, grist mill; times are changing. As the trees and animals are cleared out Sayward knows nothing will be the same. A competition grows between the newly established Tateville and Sayward's Moonshine Settlement. With Portius spending more time in town Sayward must chose between society's growing expansion and the comfort of all she has ever known.
As an aside, I have always wondered about churches with a graveyard attached. Why the two always seem to go together. It was interesting when the townspeople approached Sayward for her land. The fields are growing into towns and people need a church. Sayward has the most land to offer.
As another aside, I found the gluttonous hunting scene a little much: in total the men slaughtered at one time nineteen wolves, twenty-one bears, three panthers ,two hundred and ninety seven deer, and too many raccoon, fox, squirrel, and turkey to count. Richter summed it up well when he wrote of Sayward's brother Wyitt, "He was drunk, that's what he was, drunk on blood and gunpowder" (p 78). ( )

While I didn't like The Fields as much as The Trees, it was still very enjoyable. Overall, this is one of the best series or trilogies that I can remember reading. Of course, the lead character Sayward makes the story for me. I have never come across another female character that is so strong, so demanding of respect, so independent, so supportive and loving towards her family and neighbors, so talented and hard-working and yet so human. For me the strongest image of Sayward is drawn with her speech as compared to her husband's. Sayward's speech is heavy with local dialect and lacking any formal education, whereas her husband is from the east coast and well-educated. And yet, often it is Sayward who provides the insight and wisdom while her husband pays attention. It is not unimportant that Sayward owns the land; she is the dominant force in the family and a major factor in the community. She is a leader, despite her faults, and is recognized as such. But she recognizes that she must often lead by discretely guiding.

The Fields could have been just more of the same, but Conrad Richter took the characters and therefore the reader to some very different and unexpected places than one would have thought at the end of The Trees. ( )

This second entry in Richter’s Awakening Land series sees statehood come to Ohio as farms and then towns replace the wilderness. It continues the story of resilient pioneer woman Sayward Luckett Wheeler in the same folksy vernacular as the first book but now there’s a growing family and a contrary husband to add to her challenges. ( )