Spring Came on Forever by Bess Streeter Aldrich ~ 1935. This edition: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1935. Hardcover. 333 pages.
My rating: 7.5/10
Nebraska writer Bess Streeter Aldrich, 1881-1954, was well-known for her portrayals of Mid-West American pioneer days. Her novels and short stories generally featured strong heroines who met adversity with grace and strength. Aldrich herself knew tribulation and great grief; widowed suddenly at 44 with a family of young children in the midst of the Great Depression, she supported her family with her writing.
Spring Came on Forever is a tale of missed chances and second choices. It follows star-crossed lovers Matthias Meier and Amalia Holmsdorfer as they fall in love, are separated by circumstance, and marry other people. Their descendents’ lives are eventually intertwined, bringing their youthful tragedy to a gently satisfying, much happier conclusion, though they themselves are not aware that they started the chain of events.
Aldrich excels at illustrating the march of progress through the years; her characters both embrace and lament time’s changes; the good and the bad are matter-of-factly portrayed.
An excerpt from the Vachel Lindsay poem The Chinese Nightingale gives the novel its title:
“Years on years I but half-remember… Man is a torch, then ashes soon, May and June, then dead December, Dead December, then again June. Who shall end my dream’s confusion? Life is a loom, weaving illusion… One thing, I remember: Spring came on forever, Spring came on forever,” Said the Chinese nightingale.
Though often predictable and occasionally straying into melodrama, Aldrich’s novels are quiet works of everday people dealing with the everyday problems. Encouraging and supportive of the trials and rewards of wifehood and motherhood, her novels are as much loved by readers today as when they were published in the 1920s, 30s and 40s. While realistic regarding tragedy and disappointment, Aldrich always highlighted the deep and quiet joys of womanhood, and the inner rewards of “keeping on” through difficult times.
Spring definitely has some flaws as a literary work. The characters are sometimes a bit one-dimensional, and so much is packed into a relatively short story that the years whip by at lightning speed with only small vignettes to mark the many stages of the protagonists’ journeys. However, those vignettes are well presented enough to give us a clear understanding of events as they unfold; by the end of the novel the whole story is spread out before us in all its interweavings, rather like the patchwork quilts Amalia crafts with such care.
An old-fashioned writer of old-fashioned tales, Bess Streeter Aldrich’s often-poignant words still resonate today, particularily with those of us past our first youth and embroiled in our own family affairs. Not to everyone’s taste; a sophisticated modern reader may dismiss Aldrich’s sometimes dated style and storylines; but there are rewards hidden in the pages of her tales for those with the temperament to appreciate them.
Leaves & Pages 
Leave a Reply