The pioneer — Reading Companion

A Tale of Two States, Two Modes

The subtitle "A Tale of Two States" is literal: Book I is set in "The Country" (California), Book II in "The Town" (San Francisco), and Book III in "The Desert" (Nevada). The excerpts shift from the Colonel's solitary ride—a man alone in a vast, silent landscape—to Mercedes Gracey's social world, where chaperones, croquet grounds, and French dresses dominate. The contrast is structural: the first chapter's open road gives way to drawing-room intrigues. Bonner uses the two settings to explore different kinds of pioneering: the Colonel's physical traversal of space versus Mercedes's social ascent. The Nevada section, hinted at in the table of contents, likely brings these threads together.

Mercedes and the English Novel

Mercedes Gracey is introduced through her desire to live "like an English novel." She questions Lionel Harrower about his Elizabethan manor house and imagines herself as "its conquering heroine." This self-conscious literary framing is notable: Bonner has her character model her aspirations on fiction. The excerpts also show Mercedes's inexperience—she has never received an offer of marriage—and her father's protective instructions to her chaperone. The narrator notes that Lionel finds California more interesting than any single person, a detail that undercuts Mercedes's certainty. Readers should watch for how Bonner handles the gap between Mercedes's romantic script and the actual course of events.

The Colonel's Silent Presence

The Colonel, introduced in the opening pages, is a figure of stillness and observation. He rides through a landscape described as "dream-like" and "strange," and his only action in the excerpt is to look at his watch and survey the view. His horse is named after the frontiersman Kit Carson, linking him to a historical West. Yet the Colonel himself remains opaque: we are told his thoughts only once ("It was like looking at a picture"). This restraint suggests a character defined by his environment rather than interiority. In contrast, Mercedes's section is dense with social detail and psychological motivation. The novel may be building toward a collision between these two modes of being—the silent observer and the social performer.

Landscape as Character

Bonner devotes considerable attention to the California landscape: the "lazy undulations" of the foothills, the "deep in dust" road, the "faint, aërial vision" of the Sierra. The description is precise and sensory, but also deliberately static—the scene is "like looking at a picture." This painterly quality recurs in the Tres Pinos section, where the estate is described as a "show place" with velvet turf and scented drawing-rooms. The Nevada desert, promised in Book III, will likely offer a third landscape, harsher and more barren. Readers attuned to Bonner's descriptive patterns will notice how each setting shapes the characters' possibilities: the open road allows solitude, the estate enables social performance, and the desert may strip both away.

Narrative Gaps and What They Suggest

The excerpts jump from the Colonel's ride to Mercedes's European travels and her summer at Tres Pinos. We do not see how the Colonel reaches his destination, nor do we learn the connection between these two plotlines. The table of contents hints at a romance triangle: chapters titled "The Old Love," "The Choice of Maids," and "A Woman's 'No'" suggest romantic conflict. The illustration list names three women—June, Mercedes, Rosamund—and one man, the Colonel. Readers should note that the opening chapter is called "The Squatter," a term that implies contested land claims. The novel may intertwine territorial and romantic possession, with the Colonel and Mercedes representing different forms of claim-staking.

Bonner's novel rewards attention to its structural symmetries: the solitary male traveler versus the socially embedded female aspirant, the open landscape versus the enclosed estate, the painterly description versus the novelistic plot. The excerpts offer only fragments of a larger design, but they establish a clear tension between stillness and movement, observation and performance. Readers may find it useful to track how each character's relationship to place—California, San Francisco, Nevada—shapes their choices and limitations.