My Antonia by Willa Cather

Ten years ago I read Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather and was underwhelmed. Several readers encouraged me to try My Ántonia. They also encouraged me to change my expectations and treat Cather's books less like novels and more like gorgeous word pictures of the American West. Their advice helped to make my second Cather title a rich experience.

Jim Burden is a ten year old orphan who moves to Nebraska to live with his grandparents. He meets a a family of Czech immigrants and forms a lifelong friendship with their daughter, Ántonia. Cather weaves together stories about Jim and "Tony's" families, adding in anecdotes of other settlers. Although Jim loves Ántonia, it is a many-faceted attachment (rather than just romantic attraction). Even when she marries, Jim continues to care deeply about her.

In addition to her powerful story-telling, Cather has a gift for fresh, lyrical prose. Jim describes the enthusiasm of a girl he took to a play: Everything was wonderful to her, and everything was true. It was like going to revival meetings with someone who was always being converted.

Near the end of the book, he meets Ántonia and sees that she has been battered by life. I was thinking, as I watched her, how little it mattered. I know so many women who have kept all things that she had lost, but whose inner glow has faded. Whatever else was gone, Ántonia had not lost the fire of life. She could still stop one's breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning of common things. She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crabtree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting.

And this description: The rains had made channels of the wheel-ruts and washed them so deep that the sod had never healed over them. They looked like gashes torn by a grizzly's claws.

No, this is not a typical novel with plot twists and happy endings, but it was very satisfying to visit the Old West, to catch a glimpse of some of its first settlers, and to savor their beautifully-told story.

Blessings,


P.S. I listened to this via Audible's free quarantine downloads, but I see that YouTube has quite a few audio versions of it. It's also available via Kindle Free.