BookLife Review by Carol O’Day: My Antonia (Willa Cather, author)
historical fiction, turn of the century Nebraska, pioneers, prairie life, coming of age, reflective narrator, childhood, innocence, friendship, Bohemian immigrants, power and fury of nature
Many book reviews focus on new bestsellers. Yet, some truly great reads rest on the shelves among the classics. Willa Cather’s My Antonia is one of those novels. It is a book so sweeping and so full of detail of life on the prairie in the period of frontier expansion, as well as exquisitely observed coming-of-age moments, that it warrants re-reading at least once a decade. For those new to this novel, or those for whom it is so far in the distant past that it is a grassy, foggy memory, sit back for a romp through recounted glimpses of its literary power.
Jim Burden narrates the tale from the point of view of a grown man, an attorney, looking back on his childhood on the Nebraska plains, and his treasured friendship with Antonia Shimerda and her family, a family of vibrant Bohemian immigrant neighbors. Jim is orphaned at 10 and goes to Nebraska to live with his grandparents. Life on the prairie is both lusciously beautiful and decidedly harsh for pioneers, particularly so for immigrant families without substantial farming experience. Jim and Antonia become childhood friends, and Jim revels in the dynamic and colorful Shimerda family. Farming life and winter in particular in Nebraska in the early 1900s are harsh and lonely and taxing, but My Antonia relays these challenges through the resilient, simple and optimistic eyes of children who look to the future with unbending hope.
After a period, Jim and his grandparents move from their farm in the country to the (fictional) town of Black Hawk, offering Jim (and the reader) a view of contrast between pioneers’ life in the city and country life. Jim attends school. Antonia too moves into town, but to work as a servant. The two continue their friendship. In Black Hawk, Jim develops a greater appreciation of the experience and prejudice faced by immigrants like the Shimerdas. As he grows and experiences city life, his naivete disappears, and perhaps hardens his love for life in the country. The city of Black Hawk is also peopled with charming characters, but they seem to pale for Jim, compared to his fondness for the countryside and his colorful friend, Antonia.
My Antonia softens, loosens and loses a bit of steam as it moves past its city-life middle and into its final act—Jim’s later return to the prairie as a lawyer. Nonetheless, the impact and depth of his childhood on the prairie and his contrasting experience living the city remain long after they are completed. Cather’s brilliance is in her ability to use nature and small details to depict the extraordinariness and the beauty present in even the most ordinary life. The core to that beauty is nature, the grasses, trees, streams and rivers, the flora and fauna of the prairie. In the city, she uses routines, and sounds and oddball characters to draw the picture. The novel captures vividly the innocence of childhood, the beauty of the natural world, the grinding hardship of pioneer life on the prairie and the enduring power of friendship.
Support independent bookstores and BookLife: Reviews for Readers and give yourself the treat of a copy of My Antonia for your bookshelf to which you can return periodically, by purchasing it using the link below:
