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Loading... My Antonia (1918)by Willa Sibert Cather
Work InformationMy Ántonia by Willa Cather (1918)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. read this as a shared read in TIOLI, "family". I have had this on my phone it was a free audiofile Sync program. This one explores the experience of American Chinese, adopted Chinese, and Chinese illegal immigrant. Very interesting to look at these different perspectives. I fault this book for sexual detail and not sure that I would recommend this as a young adult book. I gave it 3 stars. Besides a book about family/siblings, it is also a mystery. I applaud the ethereal quality of the prose and Cather's talent in beautifying a seemingly vapid scene on the prairie, shrouded in a rustic mistiness which is tailored to a wistful resonance of an age long gone by, but what ruined it all was the ever-platonic and flabby narrator, stifling me with his misguided zeal. I would not have opted for Jim's schmaltzy narration, which felt unsuitable and degrading at times, and particularly presumptuous to Ántonia's character, walking around goggle-eyed as a second-hand observer with no intentions of actually living his own life. I think Antonia might have sufficed for a spirited puppy instead of a loitering loafer. This deceptively simple tale contains depths of heart, empathy, and grace. The story is told by Jim Burden, a young boy being raised by his grandmother and grandfather on a remote Nebraska farm in the 1880s, but he shares protagonist duties with Antonia (pronounced an-toe-nee-ah), the daughter of an immigrant family struggling, like so many others immigrant at that time, to realize the American Dream. Jim and Antonia are thrown together by proximity, but end up forging a friendship that is sweetly innocent and that endures over decades. The key is the depth of respect they have for each other, Antonia admiring Jim for his intelligence and character, Jim admiring Antonia for her transparent generosity and goodness. Along the way Cather introduces us to the denizens of Black Hawk, a rural township populated by a melting pot of Americans and immigrants, primarily Scandinavians, Bohemians (modern day Czechia), and Russians. Make no mistake, the lives they live can be harsh: grueling (seemingly ceaseless) physical labor, bitter weather, poverty, homesickness, disappointment, loss. Yet somehow Cather's characters also find time to laugh, sing, dance, and acknowledge the profound beauty of the natural world that surrounds them. I loved everything about this novel. I loved the authenticity of the characters. I loved the vignettes of small town rural life - the dress shops and dance tents, clotheslines and cowhands, sod houses and sleighs. I love Cather's bold choice to make her tale character- rather than plot-driven. Her respect and empathy for the the immigrants she portrays. Her effortless storytelling and gorgeous portrayals of the beauty of midwestern prairies. Most of all, I loved witnessing the beautiful relationship between Jim and Antonia, and how their friendship helps to forge their characters. Part coming-of-age tale, part homage to the American Dream (hard work = prosperity), part celebration of the beauty of the American Midwest, part panegyric to the power of human connection, this truly is an American classic. Unfortunately, I had a lot of several-day breaks in re-reading this book, which I had first read nearly half a century ago. Knowing so much more about cultural history now increased my enjoyment of this work significantly, but also knowing more about gender bias rendered Jim Burden a far less credible narrator than I thought he was in my early adolescence. Nevertheless, this novel tells a tale about loss and change at a time in which developments in communications and transportation changed the pace of life at dizzying speeds. Willa Cather beautifully knitted together the sense of loss — former homelands, pioneering agrarian life, childhood past — with ongoing life. no reviews | add a review
Is contained inEarly Novels and Stories: The Troll Garden / O Pioneers! / The Song of the Lark / My Antonia / One of Ours by Willa Cather Willa Cather - The Library of America Set Complete in 3 Volumes (1. Early Novels & Stories; 2. Stories, Poems and Other Writings; and 3. Later Novels) by Willa Cather (indirect) Willa Cather: Four Great Novels—O Pioneers!, One of Ours, The Song of the Lark, My Ántonia by Willa Cather Set of 3 Book of the Month Club (Death Comes for the Archbishop, My Ántonia, O Pioneers!) by Willa Cather 60 WESTERNS: Cowboy Adventures, Yukon & Oregon Trail Tales, Famous Outlaws, Gold Rush Adventures: Riders of the Purple Sage, The Night Horseman, The Last ... of the West, A Texas Cow-Boy, The Prairie… by e-artnow Willa Cather Collection (My Ántonia, The Song of the Lark, O Pioneers!, and One of Ours) by Willa Cather My Ántonia: 100th Anniversary Edition with introduction, context, biography and analysis by Willa Cather Has the adaptationIs abridged inInspiredHas as a reference guide/companionHas as a studyHas as a commentary on the textHas as a student's study guideAwardsNotable Lists
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 No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.52Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1900-1944LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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There's not much of a traditional story structure here. It's presented as an adult Jim's recollections of his friend, so it takes a loose and kind of winding way of presenting its narrative. I didn't take much issue with that, since the book is pretty short, honestly, and not super textually rich so it's not like it gets bogged down for the lack of standard-issue "rising action". Where I found myself losing interest was in the last third or so of the book, in which the lively Antonia largely vanishes and we're left mostly with Jim, who is pretty boring and whose straightforward path doesn't have any real tension. We see the world of the novel through Jim's eyes, but it's Antonia who gives it its animating force. I'd argue that Cather's strength isn't so much her prose, which didn't do much for me, but her characterizations. She imbues even relatively minor characters, like Otto the hired farmhand, or Antonia's mother, or fellow young immigrant woman Lena, with a verve that makes them memorable. Too bad she couldn't do the same for her ostensible main character.
I will say that I'm glad this book was something I read as an adult instead of in high school. Teenage me would have HATED it because it's kind of boring, and while adult me would agree on the boring part, I was able to bring more life experience to bear that improved the reading of it, for me. I'm able to appreciate the way a significant friendship can loom large in your nostalgic reflections of childhood, and the hesitancy you can feel about reaching out even when you really want to reconnect. And one thing I did really enjoy and think still is criminally underrepresented in literature is the depiction of a genuine mixed gender friendship. As someone who's had strong, completely nonromantic friendships with men that I've really cherished, I feel like so often you only see those depicted as part of a family relationship or one of the two parties is gay, like there has to be some obstacle to "explain" why a man and a woman who enjoy spending time with each other would not want to sleep together. To see an actual friendship between a boy and a girl depicted as just that, in a novel published literally a century ago, is refreshing. ( )