Status
Available
Series
Publication
Houghton Mifflin (1954), Edition: 1st Houghton Mifflin Sentry, Paperback, 382 pages
Description
Classic Literature. Fiction. HTML: My Ántonia, first published 1918, is one of Willa Cather's greatest works. It is the last novel in the Prairie trilogy, preceded by O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark. My Ántonia tells the stories of several immigrant families who move out to rural Nebraska to start new lives in America, with a particular focus on a Bohemian family, the Shimerdas, whose eldest daughter is named Ántonia. The book's narrator, Jim Burden, arrives in the fictional town of Black Hawk, Nebraska, on the same train as the Shimerdas, as he goes to live with his grandparents after his parents have died. Jim develops strong feelings for Ántonia, something between a crush and a filial bond, and the reader views Ántonia's life, including its attendant struggles and triumphs, through that… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member janemarieprice
What a beautiful and wonderful surprise this was. Going in, I knew that this was (1) about Nebraska, and (2) in the realm of things I usually like. I know very little about Nebraska except that there is lots of corn, and they are passionate about their college football. So, though I expected to
Well, it swept me up into a very intimate tale of Jim Burden who moves to Nebraska as a child and befriends a Bohemian family, especially their daughter Antonia. The story follows their early life on the farm, and then move to town, where Jim goes to school and Antonia works. We then follow Jim to college where he and another of the country girls develop a relationship and he learns of Antonia’s troubles. Finally, we are left with a view of Antonia, her many children, and her farm.
Country girls: “…I can remember something unusual and engaging about each of them. Physically they were almost a race apart, and out-of-door work had given them a vigor which, when they got over their first shyness on coming to town, developed into a positive carriage and freedom of movement, and made them conspicuous among Black Hawk women.” Vs. Town girls: “When one danced with them, their bodies never moved inside their clothes; their muscles seemed to ask but one thing – not to be disturbed. I remember those girls merely as faces in the schoolroom, gay and rosy, or listless and dull, cut off below the shoulders, like cherubs…” This country girl appreciates those descriptions.
Cather has a way of describing the landscape that makes you almost taste it. “Trees were so rare in that country, and they had to make such a hard fight to grow, that we used to feel anxious about them, and visit them as if they were persons. It must have been the scarcity of detail in that tawny landscape that made detail so precious.” It has the melancholy texture of home. There are certain smells, plants, and sounds that instantly transport me to my youth. There is a feeling about the place one grows up that is hard to describe. There is a love that wells up that is not attached to an explicit memory but exists in some larger connection with a place and its people.
But there is also the tension of success. There is the idea that leaving and making your way is success, while staying home is a compromise. For someone like me who never wants to live in the home of my youth again, there is also the struggle of infusing your new life with the things of your past that were special to you. There is the urge to move forward, while not forgetting. It is something I think Cather shows us through the immigrants – those who wish to assimilate completely, those who wish to maintain their old life, and those who need to find a balance between the two. For me it was extremely powerful and evoked thoughts that I had not been able to fully form before – and this is the reason I read.
And finally, on Antonia: “Antonia had always been one to leave images in the mind that did not fade – that grew stronger with time. In my memory there was a succession of such pictures, fixed there like the old woodcuts of one’s first primer: Antonia kicking her bare legs against the sides of my pony when we came home in triumph with our snake; Antonia in her black shawl and fur cap, as she stood by her father’s grave in the snowstorm; Antonia coming in with her work-team along the evening sky-line. She lent herself to immemorial human attitudes which we recognize by instinct as universal and true. I had not been mistaken. She was a battered woman now, not a lovely girl; but she still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one’s breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things. She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last. All the strong things of her heart came out in her body, that had been so tireless in serving generous emotions. It was no wonder that her sons stood tall and straight. She was a rich mine of life, like the founders of early races.”
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like [My Antonia], I wasn’t sure how well I could relate to it. Well, it swept me up into a very intimate tale of Jim Burden who moves to Nebraska as a child and befriends a Bohemian family, especially their daughter Antonia. The story follows their early life on the farm, and then move to town, where Jim goes to school and Antonia works. We then follow Jim to college where he and another of the country girls develop a relationship and he learns of Antonia’s troubles. Finally, we are left with a view of Antonia, her many children, and her farm.
Country girls: “…I can remember something unusual and engaging about each of them. Physically they were almost a race apart, and out-of-door work had given them a vigor which, when they got over their first shyness on coming to town, developed into a positive carriage and freedom of movement, and made them conspicuous among Black Hawk women.” Vs. Town girls: “When one danced with them, their bodies never moved inside their clothes; their muscles seemed to ask but one thing – not to be disturbed. I remember those girls merely as faces in the schoolroom, gay and rosy, or listless and dull, cut off below the shoulders, like cherubs…” This country girl appreciates those descriptions.
Cather has a way of describing the landscape that makes you almost taste it. “Trees were so rare in that country, and they had to make such a hard fight to grow, that we used to feel anxious about them, and visit them as if they were persons. It must have been the scarcity of detail in that tawny landscape that made detail so precious.” It has the melancholy texture of home. There are certain smells, plants, and sounds that instantly transport me to my youth. There is a feeling about the place one grows up that is hard to describe. There is a love that wells up that is not attached to an explicit memory but exists in some larger connection with a place and its people.
But there is also the tension of success. There is the idea that leaving and making your way is success, while staying home is a compromise. For someone like me who never wants to live in the home of my youth again, there is also the struggle of infusing your new life with the things of your past that were special to you. There is the urge to move forward, while not forgetting. It is something I think Cather shows us through the immigrants – those who wish to assimilate completely, those who wish to maintain their old life, and those who need to find a balance between the two. For me it was extremely powerful and evoked thoughts that I had not been able to fully form before – and this is the reason I read.
And finally, on Antonia: “Antonia had always been one to leave images in the mind that did not fade – that grew stronger with time. In my memory there was a succession of such pictures, fixed there like the old woodcuts of one’s first primer: Antonia kicking her bare legs against the sides of my pony when we came home in triumph with our snake; Antonia in her black shawl and fur cap, as she stood by her father’s grave in the snowstorm; Antonia coming in with her work-team along the evening sky-line. She lent herself to immemorial human attitudes which we recognize by instinct as universal and true. I had not been mistaken. She was a battered woman now, not a lovely girl; but she still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one’s breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things. She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last. All the strong things of her heart came out in her body, that had been so tireless in serving generous emotions. It was no wonder that her sons stood tall and straight. She was a rich mine of life, like the founders of early races.”
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LibraryThing member ctpress
The narrator is Jim Burden - a prairie boy who moves to Nebraska to live with his grandparents. He is telling the story of himself and his friendship with Antonia, an immigrant girl from Bohemia which stretches three decades although most of it takes place in childhood.
The recollection involves
It's just marvelous, entertaining and exciting. Based on Cathers own experiences moving to Nebraska as a child. It is very realistic, one doesn't want to depart with these characters - Antonia is a fascinating character torn between her new hard life in Nebraska and her old home in Bohemia. A hot-tempered girl, a survivor, resourcefull and hard-working. But personally I bonded more with the narrator himself. Admired him in his many decisions and thoughts.
There's so much truth in this story, so many real human emotions and experiences told with nuance and depth. Just read it. Or better: Listen to the wonderful audiobook read by Jeff Cummings.
We reached the edge of the field, where our ways parted. I took her hands and held them against my breast, feeling once more how strong and warm and good they were, those brown hands, and remembering how many kind things they had done for me. I held them now a long while, over my heart. About us it was growing darker and darker, and I had to look hard to see her face, which I meant always to carry with me; the closest, realest face, under all the shadows of women’s faces, at the very bottom of my memory.
The recollection involves
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several settler-families on the prairie and later on in the town of Lincoln. Nothing more needs to be told about this story. It's just marvelous, entertaining and exciting. Based on Cathers own experiences moving to Nebraska as a child. It is very realistic, one doesn't want to depart with these characters - Antonia is a fascinating character torn between her new hard life in Nebraska and her old home in Bohemia. A hot-tempered girl, a survivor, resourcefull and hard-working. But personally I bonded more with the narrator himself. Admired him in his many decisions and thoughts.
There's so much truth in this story, so many real human emotions and experiences told with nuance and depth. Just read it. Or better: Listen to the wonderful audiobook read by Jeff Cummings.
We reached the edge of the field, where our ways parted. I took her hands and held them against my breast, feeling once more how strong and warm and good they were, those brown hands, and remembering how many kind things they had done for me. I held them now a long while, over my heart. About us it was growing darker and darker, and I had to look hard to see her face, which I meant always to carry with me; the closest, realest face, under all the shadows of women’s faces, at the very bottom of my memory.
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LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50
My Antonia by Willa Cather is a beautifully written book that seemed to me to be like a series of essays. I loved each separate story with all it’s rich descriptions of homesteading life on the Nebraska plains. The narrator, a young boy growing into manhood is perfectly done, his inquisitive mind
The Antonia of the title is a high-spirited immigrant Bohemian girl whose family has moved onto the neighbouring homestead. She catches the attention of the narrator and although he is very young, you slowly come to realize that he looks upon her with love. Although there is and never could be a future for these two together, this book is something of a romance as his feelings toward Antonia and his feelings toward the land are so intertwined.
Although I wasn’t totally carried away, I consider myself to be lucky that I stumbled upon this book, a slow starter, it gently enfolds you and by the end of the book, you feel as if you have learned a great deal about life when it was simpler, relationships when they were less complicated, and the simple joy of living. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about the “heart” of America, and the mixtures of people that settled and developed this land.
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and watchful eyes see and note episodes in his daily life in a fresh and believable manner.The Antonia of the title is a high-spirited immigrant Bohemian girl whose family has moved onto the neighbouring homestead. She catches the attention of the narrator and although he is very young, you slowly come to realize that he looks upon her with love. Although there is and never could be a future for these two together, this book is something of a romance as his feelings toward Antonia and his feelings toward the land are so intertwined.
Although I wasn’t totally carried away, I consider myself to be lucky that I stumbled upon this book, a slow starter, it gently enfolds you and by the end of the book, you feel as if you have learned a great deal about life when it was simpler, relationships when they were less complicated, and the simple joy of living. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about the “heart” of America, and the mixtures of people that settled and developed this land.
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LibraryThing member AMQS
"I used to love to drift along the pale yellow cornfields, looking for the damp spots one sometimes found at their edges, where the smartweed soon turned a rich copper colour and the narrow brown leaves hung curled like cocoons about the swollen joints of the stem. Sometimes I went south to visit
This classic work of American fiction has been on my TBR list for far, far too long. Not sure what took me so long, since I loved O Pioneers! and especially the breathtakingly lovely Death Comes for the Archbishop. What a lovely book, with rich descriptions of the midwestern prairie and the hardworking souls who make their life on it. The narrator is young Jim Burden, who describes the toil and bleakness of the early prairie farmsteads in the exuberant sweet nostalgia of a young person growing up with both wild independence and great responsibility. At the heart of the narrative is the young immigrant Antonia, whose spirit has captivated Jim his whole life; the story serves as a paean to all immigrant women making their lives on the prairie. Simply a lovely, lovely book.
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our German neighbors and to admire their catalpa grove, or to see the big elm tree that grew up out of a deep crack in the earth and had a hawk's nest in its branches. Trees were so rare in that country, and had to make such a hard fight to grow, that we used to feel anxious about them, and visit them as if they were persons. It must have been the scarcity of detail in that tawny landscape that made detail so precious."This classic work of American fiction has been on my TBR list for far, far too long. Not sure what took me so long, since I loved O Pioneers! and especially the breathtakingly lovely Death Comes for the Archbishop. What a lovely book, with rich descriptions of the midwestern prairie and the hardworking souls who make their life on it. The narrator is young Jim Burden, who describes the toil and bleakness of the early prairie farmsteads in the exuberant sweet nostalgia of a young person growing up with both wild independence and great responsibility. At the heart of the narrative is the young immigrant Antonia, whose spirit has captivated Jim his whole life; the story serves as a paean to all immigrant women making their lives on the prairie. Simply a lovely, lovely book.
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LibraryThing member bragan
A 1918 novel in which a man -- now a successful New York lawyer -- looks back at his rural Nebraska childhood, and particularly at his childhood friend Ántonia, an immigrant from Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic). There's a touching sense of nostalgia to the narrative, and Ántonia, while
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we only ever see her from the outside, comes across as a very sympathetic character, an interesting mixture of frontier toughness and unpretentious emotion. But the setting is the real star of this story. Willa Cather's deceptively simple prose brings the Nebraska prairie vividly to life from the very first page, and it made me feel as if I were part of that landscape, sharing in a life very different from my own late-20th-century suburban upbringing and yet somehow instantly familiar. I can't imagine ever wanting to live the way these people did, with their constant struggle to earn a living from the land, and yet I also can't quite escape the feeling that maybe they had something important that most of us these days are missing. Show Less
LibraryThing member GraceZ
Another great book from Willa Cather. Though I like O Pioneers more, My Antonia was really interesting because of the narrator and the informal way it was written, with a strange approach to the sequence of events because it is simply one man recalling every encounter he had with Antonia. The
The other thing I noticed while reading this book - I realize it's the same in O Pioneers - Cather is really great at creating peripheral characters. It is really lifelike, in that there are people who are our friends and family, and then there are the people we know, and the others we are just acquainted with. Yet each of these peripheral acquaintances is a real character in her narrative - there are no flat characters. It makes it more believable, as everyone is real, and no one is stereotypical.
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ending really sealed the book for me, because - due to the disattachment between events - it brought everything together and gave it all a purpose. The other thing I noticed while reading this book - I realize it's the same in O Pioneers - Cather is really great at creating peripheral characters. It is really lifelike, in that there are people who are our friends and family, and then there are the people we know, and the others we are just acquainted with. Yet each of these peripheral acquaintances is a real character in her narrative - there are no flat characters. It makes it more believable, as everyone is real, and no one is stereotypical.
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LibraryThing member WilfGehlen
Jim's Antonia. / Copper-red prairie: Toooh-neeey, / My Antonia.
Cather's imagery of the prairie is unsurpassed. She not only conveys the appearance, but makes you feel the presence; spring, for instance: "There were none of the signs of spring for which I used to watch in Virginia . . . There was
Her characters are never as noble as the land.
Antonia to Jim Burden is a childhood vignette, a sister figure, a romantic kiss rebuffed. He is called away to manhood, but never takes root in his marriage or in his career. He revisits his childhood when he at last visits Antonia on her farm, sleeping in her barn, not in her house, anticipating the happiness of sharing the childhood of her sons until they grow up.
Antonia Shimerda perhaps could have made a life with Jim, but she thought first of him as a callow youngster. Later, she recognized his calling and would not see him trapped on the farm, perhaps leading to the same conclusion as Mr. Shimerda's. She herself was trapped--her father's suicide foreclosed an education and the uplifted hopes of the second-generation immigrant. She was recalled to the first generation, worked the family farm in a man's role. Only her children would see a better future. She did what she had to in order to survive--not to the extreme of Peter of the wolves, but she also was made of such stern, but vulnerable, stuff.
Antonia made a comfortable life for herself on her own farm--a little island of Bohemia, with a Bohemian husband and nearly a dozen children who spoke only Bohemian at home. Not noble, not heroic, but real, and the best possible given the circumstances. Not a place that Jim could help build, but one where he would always be a welcome guest.
Cather's imagery of the prairie is unsurpassed. She not only conveys the appearance, but makes you feel the presence; spring, for instance: "There were none of the signs of spring for which I used to watch in Virginia . . . There was
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only--spring itself; the throb of it, the light restlessness, the vital essence of it everywhere; in the sky, in the swift clouds, in the pale sunshine, and in the warm, high wind--rising suddenly, sinking suddenly, impulsive and playful like a big puppy that pawed you and then lay down to be petted. If I had been tossed down blindfold on that red prairie, I should have known that it was spring."Her characters are never as noble as the land.
Antonia to Jim Burden is a childhood vignette, a sister figure, a romantic kiss rebuffed. He is called away to manhood, but never takes root in his marriage or in his career. He revisits his childhood when he at last visits Antonia on her farm, sleeping in her barn, not in her house, anticipating the happiness of sharing the childhood of her sons until they grow up.
Antonia Shimerda perhaps could have made a life with Jim, but she thought first of him as a callow youngster. Later, she recognized his calling and would not see him trapped on the farm, perhaps leading to the same conclusion as Mr. Shimerda's. She herself was trapped--her father's suicide foreclosed an education and the uplifted hopes of the second-generation immigrant. She was recalled to the first generation, worked the family farm in a man's role. Only her children would see a better future. She did what she had to in order to survive--not to the extreme of Peter of the wolves, but she also was made of such stern, but vulnerable, stuff.
Antonia made a comfortable life for herself on her own farm--a little island of Bohemia, with a Bohemian husband and nearly a dozen children who spoke only Bohemian at home. Not noble, not heroic, but real, and the best possible given the circumstances. Not a place that Jim could help build, but one where he would always be a welcome guest.
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LibraryThing member gbill
Great book ... particularly towards the end, if you're sentimental like me. Book 4, chapter 4 really stands out. Lots of great quotes, this book stuck with me and is deserving of the word 'classic':
"There seemed to be nothing to see; no fences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields. If there was a
"I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep".
"... then the wind sprang up afresh, with a kind of bitter song, as if it said: 'This is reality, whether you like it or not. All those frivolities of summer, the light and shadow, the living mask of green that trembled over everything, they were lies, and this is what was underneath. This is the truth.' It was as if we were being being punished for loving the loveliness of summer".
"Yet the summer which was to change everything was coming nearer every day. When boys and girls are growing up, life can't stand still, not even in the quietest of country towns; and they have to grow up, whether they will or no. That is what their elders are always forgetting".
"On some upland farm, a plough had been left standing in the field. The sun was sinking just behind it. Magnified across the distance by the horizontal light, it stood out against the sun, was exactly contained within the circle of the disk; the handles, the tongue, the share - black against the molten red. There it was, heroic in size, a picture writing on the sun. Even while we whispered about it, our vision disappeared; the ball dropped and dropped until the red tip went beneath the earth. The fields below us were dark, the sky was growing pale, and that forgotten plough had sunk back to its own littleness somewhere on the prairie".
"'Come and see me sometimes when you're lonesome. But maybe you have all the friends you want. Have you?' She turned her soft cheek to me. 'Have you?' she whispered teasingly in my ear. In a moment I watched her fade down the dusky stairway. ... It came over me, as it had never done before, the relation between girls like those and the poetry of Virgil. If there were no girls like them in the world, there would be no poetry".
"I tramped through the puddles and under the showery trees, mourning for Marguerite Gauthier as if she had died only yesterday, sighing with the spirit of 1840, which had sighed so much, and which had reached me only that night, across long years and several languages, through the person of an infirm old actress".
"I slept that night in the room I used to have when I was a little boy, with the summer wind blowing in at the windows, bringing the smell of the ripe fields. I lay awake and watched the moonlight shining over the barn and the stacks and the pond, and the windmill making its old dark shadow against the blue sky".
"'Of course it means you are going away from us for good,' she said with a sigh. 'But that doesn't mean I'll lose you. Look at my papa here; he's been dead all these years, and yet he is more real to me than almost anybody else. He never goes out of my life".
"I felt the old pull of the earth, the solemn magic that comes out of those fields at nightfall. I wished I could be a little boy again, and that my way could end there. We reached the edge of the field, where are ways parted. I took her hands and held them against my breast, feeling once more how strong and warm and good they were..."
"As I went back alone over that familiar road, I could almost believe that a boy and a girl ran along beside me, as our shadows used to do, laughing and whispering to each other in the grass".
"I did not want to find her aged and broken; I really dreaded it. In the course of twenty crowded years one parts with many illusions. I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again".
"Before I could sit down in the chair she offered me, the miracle happened; one of those quiet moments that clutch the heart, and take more courage than the noisy, excited passages in life. Antonia came in and stood before me..."
"The feelings of that night were so near that I could reach out and touch them with my hand. I had the sense of coming home to myself, and of having found out what a little circle man's experience is. For Antonia and me, this had been the road of Destiny; had taken us to those early accidents of fortune which predetermined for us all that we can ever be. Now I understood that the same road was to bring us together again. Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past".
The quote on the title page from Virgil "Optima Dies ... prima fugit", or, "The best days are the first to flee".
"There seemed to be nothing to see; no fences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields. If there was a
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road, I could not make it out in the faint starlight. There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made"."I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep".
"... then the wind sprang up afresh, with a kind of bitter song, as if it said: 'This is reality, whether you like it or not. All those frivolities of summer, the light and shadow, the living mask of green that trembled over everything, they were lies, and this is what was underneath. This is the truth.' It was as if we were being being punished for loving the loveliness of summer".
"Yet the summer which was to change everything was coming nearer every day. When boys and girls are growing up, life can't stand still, not even in the quietest of country towns; and they have to grow up, whether they will or no. That is what their elders are always forgetting".
"On some upland farm, a plough had been left standing in the field. The sun was sinking just behind it. Magnified across the distance by the horizontal light, it stood out against the sun, was exactly contained within the circle of the disk; the handles, the tongue, the share - black against the molten red. There it was, heroic in size, a picture writing on the sun. Even while we whispered about it, our vision disappeared; the ball dropped and dropped until the red tip went beneath the earth. The fields below us were dark, the sky was growing pale, and that forgotten plough had sunk back to its own littleness somewhere on the prairie".
"'Come and see me sometimes when you're lonesome. But maybe you have all the friends you want. Have you?' She turned her soft cheek to me. 'Have you?' she whispered teasingly in my ear. In a moment I watched her fade down the dusky stairway. ... It came over me, as it had never done before, the relation between girls like those and the poetry of Virgil. If there were no girls like them in the world, there would be no poetry".
"I tramped through the puddles and under the showery trees, mourning for Marguerite Gauthier as if she had died only yesterday, sighing with the spirit of 1840, which had sighed so much, and which had reached me only that night, across long years and several languages, through the person of an infirm old actress".
"I slept that night in the room I used to have when I was a little boy, with the summer wind blowing in at the windows, bringing the smell of the ripe fields. I lay awake and watched the moonlight shining over the barn and the stacks and the pond, and the windmill making its old dark shadow against the blue sky".
"'Of course it means you are going away from us for good,' she said with a sigh. 'But that doesn't mean I'll lose you. Look at my papa here; he's been dead all these years, and yet he is more real to me than almost anybody else. He never goes out of my life".
"I felt the old pull of the earth, the solemn magic that comes out of those fields at nightfall. I wished I could be a little boy again, and that my way could end there. We reached the edge of the field, where are ways parted. I took her hands and held them against my breast, feeling once more how strong and warm and good they were..."
"As I went back alone over that familiar road, I could almost believe that a boy and a girl ran along beside me, as our shadows used to do, laughing and whispering to each other in the grass".
"I did not want to find her aged and broken; I really dreaded it. In the course of twenty crowded years one parts with many illusions. I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again".
"Before I could sit down in the chair she offered me, the miracle happened; one of those quiet moments that clutch the heart, and take more courage than the noisy, excited passages in life. Antonia came in and stood before me..."
"The feelings of that night were so near that I could reach out and touch them with my hand. I had the sense of coming home to myself, and of having found out what a little circle man's experience is. For Antonia and me, this had been the road of Destiny; had taken us to those early accidents of fortune which predetermined for us all that we can ever be. Now I understood that the same road was to bring us together again. Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past".
The quote on the title page from Virgil "Optima Dies ... prima fugit", or, "The best days are the first to flee".
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LibraryThing member TheBooknerd
I would not consider this a great piece of literature. Cather is doubtlessly a skilled writer, and some of her prose is nothing short of poetic. However, the story itself is bland, the characters are largely uninteresting, and the pace drags along with lots of "is something going to happen soon?".
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So my verdict is to skip this one. Show Less
LibraryThing member bookworm12
Our narrator, Jim Burden, reminisces about growing up in Nebraska with a young Bohemian girl named Ántonia. The two became friends at a young age and their lives remained intertwined for decades. Jim teaches Ántonia how to read and write in English and her lust for life inspires him in turn.
The
I enjoyed the writing in this one, but the story didn’t resonate for me in the same way that Cather’s O Pioneers did. I went into that one knowing almost nothing and loved it so much. I think my expectations were a bit too high for this one. Jim isn’t a very charismatic character and when the plot meanders, we rely heavily on great characters. Luckily the writing is still wonderful, but I was left wanting a bit more.
I’m still definitely a fan of her work though and I’m looking forward to trying Death Comes for the Archbishop next, but my expectations might be a bit more tempered.
“I wondered if the life that was right for one was ever right for two.”
“I liked to watch a play with Lena; everything was wonderful to her, and everything was true. It was like going to revival meetings with someone who was always being converted. She handed her feelings over to the actors with a kind of fatalistic resignation. Accessories of costume and scene meant much more to her than to me.”
The
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story provides such an interesting look at immigrant life in Nebraska. There’s an underlying prejudice against the immigrants and they struggle to fit in. We know very little about Antonia’s father before he dies, but we later learn he loved to read and discuss ideas, but he struggled with the new language and felt completely out of place in America. The language barrier also increases their suspicions of those around them, because they’re constantly worried they are going to be deceived. Though their fears are sometimes justified, it doesn’t go far to make them new friends. I enjoyed the writing in this one, but the story didn’t resonate for me in the same way that Cather’s O Pioneers did. I went into that one knowing almost nothing and loved it so much. I think my expectations were a bit too high for this one. Jim isn’t a very charismatic character and when the plot meanders, we rely heavily on great characters. Luckily the writing is still wonderful, but I was left wanting a bit more.
I’m still definitely a fan of her work though and I’m looking forward to trying Death Comes for the Archbishop next, but my expectations might be a bit more tempered.
“I wondered if the life that was right for one was ever right for two.”
“I liked to watch a play with Lena; everything was wonderful to her, and everything was true. It was like going to revival meetings with someone who was always being converted. She handed her feelings over to the actors with a kind of fatalistic resignation. Accessories of costume and scene meant much more to her than to me.”
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LibraryThing member porch_reader
This is one (of many) classics that I never read in school, so this was my first exposure to it. I loved it. The epigraph to the book is "Optima dies . . . prima fugit" (Virgil; The best days are the first to flee). The book tells the story of Jim Burden, who goes to live with his grandparents on
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the Nebraska plains in the early 1900's. Jim shares a series of episodes from his childhood and early adulthood, and although these stories reflect the hardships of the times, it is clear that Jim views these days as his best days. There is a sense that Jim longs for those days of his youth, especially for his friendship with his Bohemian neighbor, Antonia. All and all, a well-told story. Show Less
LibraryThing member benuathanasia
Bored.
Bored.
Bored.
None of the characters were really compelling to me. None stood out. None were memorable. Nothing of any interest or note happened to grab my attention (aside from a very brief episode unrelated to the main characters near the end - at the risk of spoiling anything there was a few
Bored.
Bored.
None of the characters were really compelling to me. None stood out. None were memorable. Nothing of any interest or note happened to grab my attention (aside from a very brief episode unrelated to the main characters near the end - at the risk of spoiling anything there was a few
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paragraphs on a murder suicide that was far more interesting than anything in the rest of the book). Show Less
LibraryThing member JReynolds1959
Jim and Antonia are two young children that are both going to Nebraska with their families. Jim is of American descent and Antonia is of Bohemian descent. Antonia's family is destitute and lives in a sod hut, but learn to work the land.
As children, they are great friends. Jim always has a real
Life sends them in different directions, but they remain friends throughout life.
The descriptive writing in this novel is wonderful. You can almost feel the wind blow, the moon rise, the sun ascend as you are reading this.
As children, they are great friends. Jim always has a real
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"love" for Antonia and all of her liveliness. You can tell that he has always loved her, even if he hasn't quite figured that out for himself.Life sends them in different directions, but they remain friends throughout life.
The descriptive writing in this novel is wonderful. You can almost feel the wind blow, the moon rise, the sun ascend as you are reading this.
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LibraryThing member gmillar
I really liked this. For a long time I shied away from the idea of it, and "O Pioneers", mostly because of my perception that the subject matter would be boring to me after I looked at the cover picture of nothing but wheat sheaves deep into a long, flat distance - boring picture really. But - the
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story start out grabbing my interest, as I was chewing on some tasty hash browns in McDonalds, by setting itself up in a present as two friends reminisced their Nebraska childhood. I read a lot of different, unconnected stuff but little of it is of this style. I found myself expecting surprises of a fantastic, raunchy and/or unbelievable proportions as the story built up to little climaxes in the lives of Jim, Lena, Tiny and Ántonia. It didn't happen that way. Each of those little climaxes finished in a refreshingly normal and realistic way - at least in the way of my growing up experiences. It was good to be kept in the realistic, as opposed to being bumped into the thrilling, for a change. The prose flowed beautifully. The descriptives were wonderful. I understand now why Willa Cather has been afforded such a high place in American literature. I will now go ahead and read "O Pioneers" when a copy drops into my lap again. I'll lay odds I'll enjoy that too. Show Less
LibraryThing member Magadri
I was forced to read this book for class, and trust me "forced" is the right word. There is no way I would have read this book had I not been held responsible for knowing what it was about. The writing is inarguably beautiful at times, but there was no distinct plot, very limited characterization,
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and overall, I think the story could have been told in a better way. I do not have any plans to reread this anytime soon. Show Less
LibraryThing member asxz
Wow. My first Willa Cather and I can't believe It's taken me so long. This was astonishing. Beautifully written with every open sky and blade of wind-blown grass innocently transcribed. The story feels familiar as Jim Burden is a prototypical Nick Carraway, condemned to observe, unable to effect
I look forward to reading more of Ms Cather.
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change. I'm not the first to make the comparison and it appears that Fitzgerald judged his own work to be an inferior homage in some ways. Antonia is a tragic heroine, overflowing with life. are we supposed to be disappointed in her lack of success relative to Lena and Tiny, or, as I did, are we supposed to feel thrilled that she is married to a man who loves her and with whom she is bringing up 10 fabulous children? It doesn't matter much, I guess, but I am as captivated by Antonia as Jim.I look forward to reading more of Ms Cather.
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LibraryThing member Griff
There is something about Willa Cather books that bring me a sense of peace - and make me aware of a connection with the people and land around me that I usually take for granted. My Antonia is another quiet book that speaks powerfully. It is a pioneer story that tells the story of Antonia, a young
Antonia's impact on the narrator is significant, as is his impact on her. One of my favorite passages, one that describes the powerful nature of their connection, is similar to another facvorite Cather passage in Death Comes for the Archbishop. After two decades apart, Jim Burden, the narrator, returns to see Antonia and her large family. "Before I could sit down in the chair she offered me, the miracle happened; one of those quieter moments that clutch the heart, and take more courage than the noisy, excited passages in life. Antonia came in and stood before me..."
As we learn what has become of the characters we have met, many of whom have had circuitous routes to their current station in life (or death), Jim looks back realizing he and Antonia may have missed out on many things. He also realizes that the early days they shared were precious then - and precious still. The intervening years saw each following very different paths, but, in the end, those paths crossed and were joyous because of those memories, not sadly tainted with regret.
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Bohemian girl whose family has moved from Europe to a rural area in the Midwest, and others who were in one way or another connected to Antonia during the course of her life. The changing nature of that aspect of the American experience is captured in the stories told of youth, adolescence, and maturity. Antonia's impact on the narrator is significant, as is his impact on her. One of my favorite passages, one that describes the powerful nature of their connection, is similar to another facvorite Cather passage in Death Comes for the Archbishop. After two decades apart, Jim Burden, the narrator, returns to see Antonia and her large family. "Before I could sit down in the chair she offered me, the miracle happened; one of those quieter moments that clutch the heart, and take more courage than the noisy, excited passages in life. Antonia came in and stood before me..."
As we learn what has become of the characters we have met, many of whom have had circuitous routes to their current station in life (or death), Jim looks back realizing he and Antonia may have missed out on many things. He also realizes that the early days they shared were precious then - and precious still. The intervening years saw each following very different paths, but, in the end, those paths crossed and were joyous because of those memories, not sadly tainted with regret.
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LibraryThing member locriian
Apparently I should never live on the prairie, because it is so mind numbingly boring I think I'd sprout cobwebs in my brain.
LibraryThing member cbl_tn
In his middle age, a man recalls his Nebraska childhood and youth and the friend who left her imprint on his life even after decades of separation. Orphaned Jim Burden, moving from Virginia to Nebraska to live with his grandparents, arrives in Nebraska on the same train as a Bohemian immigrant
Set anywhere other than the Nebraska prairies, My Ántonia would have been a different book. With Midwestern roots on both sides of my family, I'm drawn to Cather's descriptions of the land. Jim tells us that he loved Ántonia, but what I sense most from his recollections is a kind of wistful envy. Jim had become what most would consider a very successful person – a wealthy East Coast lawyer – yet he seemed discontented with his life. Ántonia lived a much more circumscribed life, yet she had a zest for life that Jim lacked. Both literally and symbolically, I think Ántonia's life was more fruitful than Jim's, and I think her story is a fitting conclusion to Cather's Prairie trilogy.
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family. The oldest girl in the family, Ántonia, becomes Jim's closest companion as together they explore the vast prairies, so beautiful in summer and so inhospitable in winter. After several years, Jim's family moves to town, where throughout his teenage years Jim is drawn to the daughters of immigrant farmers who become live-in servants for the town families. Jim recognizes that the early hardships they've weathered and their hard work laid a foundation for their future prosperity.Set anywhere other than the Nebraska prairies, My Ántonia would have been a different book. With Midwestern roots on both sides of my family, I'm drawn to Cather's descriptions of the land. Jim tells us that he loved Ántonia, but what I sense most from his recollections is a kind of wistful envy. Jim had become what most would consider a very successful person – a wealthy East Coast lawyer – yet he seemed discontented with his life. Ántonia lived a much more circumscribed life, yet she had a zest for life that Jim lacked. Both literally and symbolically, I think Ántonia's life was more fruitful than Jim's, and I think her story is a fitting conclusion to Cather's Prairie trilogy.
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LibraryThing member shaunnas
I read this book in high school and remembered liking it but not much more. It is a classic for a reason. The prairie is a character in this story. It is unfortunate that we cannot go back and experience that untouched land. The characters fit the place, especially Antonia. I am so glad I went back
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to this again. Show Less
LibraryThing member buffalogr
A Cather classic...but, I kept waiting for some excitement and all that I got was cows growing and lowing. The story of a turn of the (20th) century Nebraska family scratching out a living on the prairie. Also, it traces an extremely resilient girl who grows to womanhood as farm wife and whelps out
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ten children. To the author's credit, the characters are well developed and I felt that I knew each by the time the story was finis. I kept waiting for Jim and Antonia to run away and live happily ever after; sadly, nothing happened.zzzzz Show Less
LibraryThing member abbylibrarian
Fields, immigrants, waving grasses... I gave it my best shot, but found it pretty boring and stopped reading halfway through.
LibraryThing member Sandydog1
When I was a junior or senior in High School, this was assigned reading, and I purposefully chose not to read it. Now, mind you, I was an A student and to me, this was the equivalent of say, joining Al Qaeda. I did it because I had this tremendous burst of rebelliousness, it was spring, and I
And to avoid the dreaded LT blue flag, here's my review: Cather's masterpiece was boring as snot..
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actually had a girlfriend. Miss Burrell the English Teacher, caught my crime, by means of a couple test questions and class questions and I was red-faced for it. Well, for you, Miss Burrel I have read this American classic, some 40 years later. And to avoid the dreaded LT blue flag, here's my review: Cather's masterpiece was boring as snot..
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LibraryThing member magicians_nephew
My book group meetup took a look at Willa Cather’s My Antonia a book I had read (and pretty much forgotten) years and years ago.
And suddenly I’m tongue tied, not sure what to say about it. The reaction of my book group was very all over the place about it.
It’s the story of Jim and his
It’s the story of the immigrant, the Swedes and the Norwegians and the Danes who came over here with a few dollars and a desire to make a new start. Some of them made it, and prospered and helped to make America. Some of them didn’t make it, and died in hardship and want and loneliness.
Cather was widely believed to have been a Lesbian, and there are many lovely portraits here of women who went their own way and didn’t need marriage or a man to feel happy or complete. Gay women? Maybe? Great characters? And how!
The day to day details of farm life are recounted, and made to seem intimate and real and meaningful. The wheel of the seasons is presented to us, and each season given its due.
I love the story of the hired men, who work on the farm and become Jim's friends and teachers and almost elder brothers, and then, when the time comes, move on. They get on the train without a backward glance and just ride out of the story. This too is a part of the American journey.
The main character of the book seems sometimes to be America herself – the towns and the farms and the railroads. The beautiful sparse prairielands and the bustling boomer towns, and the practical hard working people who came to live in them.
Because the whole book is told as memoir, and in conscious flashback, I found myself distanced at times - and not in a good way. It’s a slow and measured story. You have to downshift a bit to get the full pleasure of it.
But the writing is wonderful and spare and clear and beautiful. Makes me want to go back and read the first two books of the trilogy.
And suddenly I’m tongue tied, not sure what to say about it. The reaction of my book group was very all over the place about it.
It’s the story of Jim and his
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Antonia, (or not his) who grow up on the wild and formless frontier of Nebraska, at the turn of the century. It’s the story of the immigrant, the Swedes and the Norwegians and the Danes who came over here with a few dollars and a desire to make a new start. Some of them made it, and prospered and helped to make America. Some of them didn’t make it, and died in hardship and want and loneliness.
Cather was widely believed to have been a Lesbian, and there are many lovely portraits here of women who went their own way and didn’t need marriage or a man to feel happy or complete. Gay women? Maybe? Great characters? And how!
The day to day details of farm life are recounted, and made to seem intimate and real and meaningful. The wheel of the seasons is presented to us, and each season given its due.
I love the story of the hired men, who work on the farm and become Jim's friends and teachers and almost elder brothers, and then, when the time comes, move on. They get on the train without a backward glance and just ride out of the story. This too is a part of the American journey.
The main character of the book seems sometimes to be America herself – the towns and the farms and the railroads. The beautiful sparse prairielands and the bustling boomer towns, and the practical hard working people who came to live in them.
Because the whole book is told as memoir, and in conscious flashback, I found myself distanced at times - and not in a good way. It’s a slow and measured story. You have to downshift a bit to get the full pleasure of it.
But the writing is wonderful and spare and clear and beautiful. Makes me want to go back and read the first two books of the trilogy.
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LibraryThing member booksandbosox
This was not quite what I was expecting. Presented as a collection of memories from one man to another, this tells the story of growing up on the American Prairie. I had thought this was a great love story, that Antonia was the subject of adoration by the narrator. But while he loves her, they do
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not have a romantic relationship. Regardless, I really enjoyed this. I thought it was very eloquently written and I enjoyed the characters, though at times the story felt a bit disjointed. Very glad I read this. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Language
Original publication date
1918
Physical description
382 p.; 5.5 x 1 inches
ISBN
0395083567 / 9780395083567
Local notes
Fiction
Other editions
My Antonia by Willa Cather (Paper Book)