My Antonia (1918) by Willa Cather
My Antonia (1918) by Willa Cather
When I picked this out at the library, I didn’t realize that I had already read it for a Literature course back in high-school. But considering how awful my memory is, I was happy to revisit the book (especially now that I have the pleasure of reading classic novels for fun instead of for homework…).
This coming-of-age story is framed as the unabridged reflections of Jim Burden, an Eastern transplant to America’s burgeoning midWest prairies. Here he grows up with the titular Bohemian immigrant Antonia, forming a relationship whose framework centers the narrative in Jim’s progression from farm to city and beyond.
Cather crafts such an alluring depiction of Jim’s environments and experiences, both bucolic and urban, that it makes me wish (in some other life) I had shared them. And yet, she does so without an entirely saccharine idealism that would otherwise disregard the toils of farming, the tedium of small towns, and the domestic-removal of higher education.
These life experiences in Jim’s path to adulthood build into the greater theme that our formative surroundings and relationships cement themselves as an integral part of our identities. Jim’s friendship with Antonia in particular lends credence to the idea, as neither time nor distance weakens the bond between them over the divergent courses of their lives. The people and places that form our foundations can be preserved with as much solidity in memory as in matter - which Jim and Antonia’s collective regard for Mr. Shimerda also shows.
Jim tends to soak-in the admirable and comforting aspects of whatever situation he finds himself in, viewing his surroundings with a positive disposition that makes his memories and relationships feel so much richer. I think Cather’s novel broadly encourages this positive sentiment, that we can look back fondly on our own foundations and appreciate the people and places that got us all wherever we are today.
When I picked this out at the library, I didn’t realize that I had already read it for a Literature course back in high-school. But considering how awful my memory is, I was happy to revisit the book (especially now that I have the pleasure of reading classic novels for fun instead of for homework…).
This coming-of-age story is framed as the unabridged reflections of Jim Burden, an Eastern transplant to America’s burgeoning midWest prairies. Here he grows up with the titular Bohemian immigrant Antonia, forming a relationship whose framework centers the narrative in Jim’s progression from farm to city and beyond.
Cather crafts such an alluring depiction of Jim’s environments and experiences, both bucolic and urban, that it makes me wish (in some other life) I had shared them. And yet, she does so without an entirely saccharine idealism that would otherwise disregard the toils of farming, the tedium of small towns, and the domestic-removal of higher education.
These life experiences in Jim’s path to adulthood build into the greater theme that our formative surroundings and relationships cement themselves as an integral part of our identities. Jim’s friendship with Antonia in particular lends credence to the idea, as neither time nor distance weakens the bond between them over the divergent courses of their lives. The people and places that form our foundations can be preserved with as much solidity in memory as in matter - which Jim and Antonia’s collective regard for Mr. Shimerda also shows.
Jim tends to soak-in the admirable and comforting aspects of whatever situation he finds himself in, viewing his surroundings with a positive disposition that makes his memories and relationships feel so much richer. I think Cather’s novel broadly encourages this positive sentiment, that we can look back fondly on our own foundations and appreciate the people and places that got us all wherever we are today.
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