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My Ántonia (Bantam Classic)

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When Willa Cather was writing "My Antonia," she visited her friend, the journalist and war correspondent Elizabeth Sergeant, grabbed an old apothecary jar filled with flowers, set it in the center of an antique table, and explained: "I want my new heroine to be like this--like a rare object in the middle of a table, which one may examine from all sides. . . . I want her to stand out--like this--like this--because she is the story."

This anecdote (recounted in James Woodress's biography of Cather) sums up almost exactly the technique that makes her novel both unique and unusual. Instead of writing the story from her heroine's point of view, or from the point of view of an omniscient narrator, Cather instead creates a bystander, the likeable and somewhat innocent Jim Burden, who has written down a series of memories where his and Antonia's lives intersect; "My Antonia" is a biography through the mask of autobiography. While this is Jim's story as much as it is Antonia's (she is barely mentioned at all in Book III), we are ultimately studying a much-loved thing of beauty from "all sides"--from the distance separating it and the observer.

Although "My Antonia" relates a number of exciting, sentimental, horrifying, and even scandalous incidents (none of which will be divulged here), Cather very deliberately chose to write a character novel rather than an action story. Many of the book's pivotal "events" happen offstage; we learn what has happened only when Jim hears about Antonia or runs into her at a gathering or stops by her home. Such a detached approach is a departure from that used by many of the American naturalists (e.g., Dreiser, Lewis) writing during this period, yet her book is surely a model of realism. As Jim writes when he notes his reluctance to visit Antonia when they are both grown, "Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again."

As with all of Cather's novels, the prairie town of Black Hawk (which, is of course, Cather's hometown of Red Cloud), is populated with a variety of hirelings and homesteaders, dreamers and pretenders, romantics and scoundrels. (Cather seldom sketched a character as downright wicked as the would-be rapist Wick Cutter.) But none of the townsfolk outshine either the affectionate, if platonic, rapport between Jim and Antonia or the unforgettable portrayal of Antonia herself.

When I went to write the review of Cather's work, I was surprised to find that most of the reviews were written by high school students who were required to read the book. The strengths of "My Antonia", in my opinion, would not be obvious to most teenagers. Taken at face value, as a fictional story of the struggles of Bohemian immigrants to the mid-west, the story has merits which probably underlie its popularity among secondary teachers.

However, that is not what makes this book special. Simply put, both the characters and setting of this novel are beautiful. Cather clearly loved the land she was writing about, and her passion for the farm country of her youth flowed through her writings. Her narrator, Jim, reveals the life of the immigrant Antonia, his childhood friend. Though most of the book is about their childhood together, it is written from Jim's view as an adult. This is tremendously important, as Jim's observations are clearly bear a mark of maturity that would be out-of-place if the book were written from the point-of-view of a child. Perhaps this is what many teenagers miss. Few of them have experienced the profound bittersweet feelings adults have when looking back upon their youth. These emotions were entwined through the novel from beginning to end, forming a scaffold upon which the story was told. To miss them is to miss everything that makes this novel great, rather than just historical fiction.

In 1882, when author Willa Cather was nine years-old, her family left their home in Back Creek Valley, Virginia, and moved to Nebraska, near the settler country in Red Cloud where they farmed a homestead. Ms. Cather, often thought of as a chronicler of the pioneer American West, frequently drew on her memories of prairie culture and her own personal experiences. She wrote about the themes closest to her heart. Of primary importance was the drama of the immigrant struggling to survive in a new world, epitomized here in "My Antonia." In this extraordinary novel, Miss Cather weaves together the story of Antonia Shimerda, an immigrant girl from Bohemia who represents the optimism, determination and pure grit that newcomers to America needed to make a successful life, and that of American-born Jim Burden, our narrator.

Burden, a successful and cultured East-coast lawyer, is returning to his childhood home in Blackhawk, Nebraska for a visit. On the long train ride, he reminisces with an unnamed friend about the place where they had both grown up and about the people they knew - especially their dear friend Antonia, "who seemed to mean to us the country, the conditions, the whole adventure of our childhood."

When young Jim Burden was orphaned at age ten, he left his native Virginia to live with his grandparents on their farm, just outside of Blackhawk. At almost the same time that Jim arrived, the Shimerda family settled on their land. Mrs. Shimerda had argued effectively for a move to America so that the children, especially Ambrosch, the eldest son, would have the chance to make a better life for themselves, with more possibilities of moving up in the social hierarchy and of acquiring wealth. The Bohemian newcomers were the Burden's closest neighbors. Fourteen year-old Antonia Shimerda, the eldest daughter became a close friend of Jim's. He was immediately drawn to her warmth and friendliness. When Antonia's father, a sensitive, refined man, discovered that Jim was educated he asked the boy to teach his daughter to speak English. "Te-e-ach, te-e-ach my Án-tonia!" he told/asked Mrs. Burden. Together the two young people worked the land and explored the glorious prairie. And Antonia began to learn English.

Unfortunately, Antonia's studies came to an end with her father's tragic suicide. The man missed his native land terribly and was not able to accept his family's extreme poverty or the demands of his wife and son. When he lost his only friends, he sunk into a deep depression from which he was not able to escape. After Mr. Shimerda's death, Antonia had to work even harder, performing the heaviest, most physically demanding chores, just to keep the farm from going under. She was not able to go to school with Jim, and began to slowly lose the refined ways she had learned from her dad.

The author describes Antonia's life as Jim perceives it, and from information he gathers from others about the long periods when he did not have contact with her. Their widely different positions in society dictated their life choices and their fortunes. And their lives, their personal histories, parallel the changes and the transformation of the Great Plains. When Antonia and Jim explored the Nebraskan wilderness, it was a wilderness as far as the eye could see. "There seemed to be nothing to see; no fences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields. If there was a 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. No, there was nothing but land--slightly undulating..." And, "I had the feeling that the world was left behind, that we had got over the edge of it, and were outside man's jurisdiction. I had never before looked up at the sky when there was not a familiar mountain ridge against it. But this was the complete dome of heaven, all there was of it." When Jim makes his return trip by train, years later, everything had changed.

Willa Cather's prose is straightforward, the narrative is deceptively simple and crystal clear. Her characters are complex and the wonderful, richly textured descriptions of the landscape and life on the plains make reading the novel pure pleasure. The author also captures the interior landscape of her characters with great perception and sensitivity. This is a great work of fiction which depicts a people, and a place in time, which only remain on the pages of a book, preserved vividly by Willa Cather.

I prefer to purchase Enriched Classics fiction whenever available. I find they offer readers more affordable editions of great works of literature with supplementary critical text. "My Antonia" contains: a concise introduction by Editor Cynthia Brantley Johnson that gives readers important background information; a chronology of Willa Cather's life and work; a timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context; an outline of key themes and plot points; detailed explanatory notes; critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives of "My Antonia;" discussion questions ideal for book club conversations; a recommended related bibliography.

H.L. Mencken wrote, "No romantic novel ever written in America, by man or woman, is one half so beautiful as 'My Antonia.'"
JANA

In 1882, when author Willa Cather was nine years-old, her family left their home in Back Creek Valley, Virginia, and moved to Nebraska, near the settler country in Red Cloud where they farmed a homestead. Ms. Cather, often thought of as a chronicler of the pioneer American West, frequently drew on her memories of prairie culture and her own personal experiences. She wrote about the themes closest to her heart. Of primary importance was the drama of the immigrant struggling to survive in a new world, epitomized here in "My Antonia." In this extraordinary novel, Miss Cather weaves together the story of Antonia Shimerda, an immigrant girl from Bohemia who represents the optimism, determination and pure grit that newcomers to America needed to make a successful life, and that of American-born Jim Burden, our narrator.

Burden, a successful and cultured East-coast lawyer, is returning to his childhood home in Blackhawk, Nebraska for a visit. On the long train ride, he reminisces with an unnamed friend about the place where they had both grown up and about the people they knew - especially their dear friend Antonia, "who seemed to mean to us the country, the conditions, the whole adventure of our childhood."

When young Jim Burden was orphaned at age ten, he left his native Virginia to live with his grandparents on their farm, just outside of Blackhawk, Nebraska. At almost the same time that Jim arrived, the Shimerda family settled on their homestead. Mrs. Shimerda had argued effectively for a move to America so that the children, especially Ambrosch, the eldest son, would have the chance to make a better life for themselves, with more possibilities of moving up in the social hierarchy and of acquiring wealth. The Bohemian newcomers were the Burden's closest neighbors. Fourteen year-old Antonia Shimerda, the eldest daughter became a close friend of Jim's. He was immediately drawn to her warmth and friendliness. When Antonia's father, a sensitive, refined man, discovered that Jim was educated he asked the boy to teach his daughter to speak English. "Te-e-ach, te-e-ach my Án-tonia!" he told/asked Mrs. Burden. Together the two young people worked the land and explored the glorious prairie. And Antonia began to learn English.

Unfortunately, Antonia's studies came to an end with her father's tragic suicide. The man missed his native land terribly and was not able to accept his family's extreme poverty or the demands of his wife and son. When he lost his only friends, he sunk into a deep depression from which he was not able to escape. After Mr. Shimerda's death, Antonia had to work even harder, performing the heaviest, most physically demanding chores, just to keep the farm from going under. She was not able to go to school with Jim, and began to slowly lose the refined ways she had learned from her dad.

The author describes Antonia's life as Jim perceives it, and from information he gathers from others about the long periods when he did not have contact with her. Their widely different positions in society dictated their life choices and their fortunes. And their lives, their personal histories, parallel the changes and the transformation of the Great Plains. When Antonia and Jim explored the Nebraskan wilderness, it was a wilderness, as far as the eye could see. "There seemed to be nothing to see; no fences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields. If there was a 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. No, there was nothing but land--slightly undulating..." And, "I had the feeling that the world was left behind, that we had got over the edge of it, and were outside man's jurisdiction. I had never before looked up at the sky when there was not a familiar mountain ridge against it. But this was the complete dome of heaven, all there was of it." When Jim makes his return trip by train, years later, everything had changed.

Willa Cather's prose is straightforward, the narrative is deceptively simple and crystal clear. Her characters are complex and the wonderful, richly textured descriptions of the landscape and life on the plains make reading the novel pure pleasure. The author also captures the interior landscape of her characters with great perception and sensitivity. This is a great work of fiction which depicts a people, and a place in time, which only remain on the pages of a book, preserved vividly by Willa Cather.

H.L. Mencken wrote, "No romantic novel ever written in America, by man or woman, is one half so beautiful as 'My Antonia.'"
JANA

I read My Antonia in High School (NFHS 10 years ago) and I have been searching for a finer book ever since. To begin with, I love the pacing Cather uses; Antonia is epic in scope. Additionaly, I have never found a better narrator in literature. Jim combines the superficial characteristics of a man, with the sensitivity of a feminine soul. This provides the balance necessary for the theme of unrequited love between Jim and Antonia. To clarify, the romantic theme is not the typical Romeo and Juliet romance. Indeed, the relationship between them is much more powerful and more satisfying. The tone of this novel draws the reader in immediately, expressed in the beautiful prose that Cather is so capable of. I have read good novels by great writers (Dillard, Maclean)that never manage to match the sense of place and time in My Antonia. It should be noted that these authors (including Cather herself) often imitated the style of My Antonia with some success. Bottom line: if you are a John Grisham devotee, you might consider something else. If you are in the mood to search the deep things of the soul with literature of classic stature, give My Antonia a chance.

I first read this book when I was in junior high school. I admit that, at the time, I did not appreciate the strengths of the book and the quality of its writing. I am quite glad that I decided to give it another chance, as, having re-read it, I now understand why it is considered to be a classic in literature. It is simply a beautifully written book, covering many of the themes that one stumbles across in life and coalescing them into a work of extraordinary breadth.

The book is the story of two young people, Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerda. They meet for the first time when Jim is ten years old and Antonia is fourteen. Recently orphaned, Jim has moved to the Great Prairie to live with his grandparents in Nebraska. Antonia, on the other hand, has been wrenched from her homeland in Bohemia, emigrating with her parents to the United States and finding herself in Nebraska. Jim and Antonia's chance encounter on a train sets the stage for the forging of a friendship and unconditional love that time will not diminish.

The book relates the harshness of immigrant life through the eyes of Jim, who narrates the events contained in the book. There is a relentless stoicism about the book, which is written in spare, clear prose. With intense imagery and descriptive exactitude, late nineteenth century Nebraska comes to life. It also relates the paths that each of the characters choose to follow, as well as the vicissitudes of life that mold and shape them in ways that no one would have imagined.

The focus of the book, which is also a coming of age tale, seems to be on the female characters and their strengths. All the women in it seem to be survivors, despite the hardships that they encounter. This is, without a doubt, a life affirming book, wrought with great feeling and a decided sense of time and place. Yet, despite its poignancy, the book is surprisingly unsentimental and straightforward. It is a testament to the author's literary talent that this book has emerged as a timeless classic. Bravo!

In MY ANTONIA Willa Cather does an extraordinary job of showing a true struggle with the weight of the personal nostalgic impulse. Jim Burden is unfulfilled in his life as a New York husband and lawyer, a predicament that his many travels near the Nebraska he grew up in do not alleviate. His most powerful memories center around the Bohemian immigrant girl Antonia. The story is really about their relationship rather than either individual: Cather's depiction of Jim's friendship with Antonia as a child, a young adult, and then a man shows how both Jim and the novel reconcile and transcend the combination of place, time and fortune. Written primarily from Jim's perspective, the story helps him regain a vital measure of the fulfillment he has lost in the over twenty years he spends away from his roots. It's hard to go home again, and often we don't when we should, but Cather reminds us that home is not strictly a matter of geography: the people we carry in our hearts mean more to us than any street address ever can.

Cather's pen paints vivid and detailed pictures of the landscape and complex, well-rounded characters to people it. I could not finish this book when it was assigned for summer reading in high school; it didn't grip me. Reading it twelve years later, with my childhood gone and a dozen years more life experience and memories, I found it not only gripping, but stirring and beautiful.

In one of Willa Cather's most striking images in My Antonia, she describes the sun sinking on the treeless Nebraska countryside, the ball of fire framing a plough and enlarging its silhouette into gigantic proportions. The human is made heroic, if only for a brief moment.

The same spirit infuses this quiet American classic with an importance beyond its conventional coming of age tale. In a clever opening, the narrator introduces himself/herself as an old friend of Jim Burden's, a romantic, enthusiastic middle-aged lawyer for one of the great western Railways. At a chance reunion, the narrator encourages Jim to write about Antonia, a vibrant Bohemian girl that they both knew from their childhood. The subsequent book is Jim's memories of her, and of the landscape she inhabited.

Many critics call this an immigrant tale, but to Cather, everyone arriving in Black Hawk, Nebraska, is a stranger, no matter where they born. Jim has come to live with his grandparents after the death of his parents in Virginia, and his impressions of the characters around the farm - Jake with his fiery temper and Otto Fuchs with his Jesse James's aura - and the neighboring Bohemian family, the eccentric Shimerdas, are as precise and vivid as the landscape.

Jim grows up observing, arguing with, resenting, and loving the older Antonia - for her spirit, for her tenacity, and for her vibrancy. Both move from the country to the town as adulthood approaches, and both pursue their own versions of happiness. But whereas Jim is the favored and educated grandson of a loving family, Antonia must work hard to help her family and achieve her independence. Cather paints a balanced portrait of the sacrifices involved in tilling the land, and has a real affinity with the first generation women of Swedish, Norwegian, and Eastern European ancestry who make a life for themselves.

A poet of the prairies, her descriptions of the seasons are comparable to the French painter Millet. Like Millet, she captures the sensuousness of the harvest, the bitter cold of winter, and the solidity and honesty of the figures who stand in the foreground. In this passage, Antonia's family and neighbors, gather around a frozen grave: "Whenever I have heard the hymn since, it has made me remember that white waste and the little group of people; and the bluish air, full of fine, eddying snow, like long veils flying..."

True to life, Jim and Antonia take different paths - Antonia incurring the scorn of respectable society, marrying, and returning to the farm to raise her children, and Jim becoming the educated professional his grandparents expected him to be. Yet when they meet again there is a sense of things lost, of child dreams vanished:

"I'd have liked to have you for a sweetheart, or a wife, or my mother or my sister - anything that a woman can be to a man. The idea of you is a part of my mind; you influence my likes and dislikes, all my tastes, hundreds of times when I didn't realize it. You really are a part of me."

For Jim and for Cather, Antonia and Nebraska are one and the same. The families who arrive and make their mark in the vast, empty stretch of America take on the significance of the plough in the sunset. Down to earth and true to nature, Cather's book is a wonderful example of the American experience.

Having grown up in the city of Omaha, and having travelled across the state of Nebraska countless times, this great novel (if the plot is too "slow-moving" for you, you need to boost the old attention span) amazes me in how it captures the magical quality of the land itself in spite of its ostensible drabness, particularly in Jim Burden's wagon ride to his new Nebraska home in the early pages. The sense of time and place - including, as several other reviewers have mentioned, the symphonic portrayal of the immigrant experience - in this book is also inspired and inspring. However, it is the depiction of a Truly Significant Soul in Antonia's character, and what it means to be a close confidant in youth to such a person, that makes this one of my ten or so favorite books. Antonia is a compelling, inspiring character, the type of person the reader would love to have known. Relating in friendship and intimacy to such people is nourishment to the souls of the rest of us, and often defines in some sense whom we ourselves are. More than anything else, this novel is at once a character sketch and a portrait of a friendship - the ways that two people can be so different as Jim and Antonia are from each other, but have so much experience, care, and goodwill in common. Cather conveys more than her plotlines, more than her (poetic as it is) prose - this great novel resonates with the truth and beauty of life. Skip the horrific movie with Jason Robards - it completely misses the point of the book, turning it into something as twee as the Little House on the Prairie TV show, when the novel itself actually has more in common with contemporaneous modernist works by Virginia Wolfe, E.M. Forster, et al., or those of a contemporary writer like Barbara Kingsolver. Such books serve to reveal those underlying connections between all spirits of goodwill.

The writing is art. This a classic, so anything I want to say has already been said, and probably with more eloquence. I do want to recommend this edition of the book for its excellent supplementary material: biography, historical timeline, discussion questions, and detailed notes.