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Mar 12, 2011

Sparrow rated it:

Maybe what I love about Willa Cather is all the kinds of love and belonging she writes. Her unhappy marriages and her comfortable ones; her volatile love and her unconsummated longing; and her lone, happy people, are all so different, but so how I see the world. I think the way she writes them is wise. Unreliable narrators are delightful to read because, in the sense that the author has shown me their unreliability, she has also shown me their uniqueness and humanity. I think Jim Burden, the More...

23 comments like (27 people liked it)

Nov 27, 2011

John rated it:

My latest encounter with a masterwork -- a novel I just completed in order to teach, and one that seduced me wonderfully and quite unexpectedly. Cather's Nebraska story goes over ground that's never much mattered to me, Midwestern farm country. Yet she made made the experience ache and thrill marvelously, via her poetic command of landscape and season, her exactitude when it comes to tools and foods and skin texture, and above all her penetrating sympathy for every figure, from the venal to th More...

8 comments like (13 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Melissa rated it:

When I first arrived in Indiana in August 2004, I didn't know what I was expecting. My ancestors had first arrived in that Midwestern state in 1820, when it was still comparatively wild and unsettled. They were the true pioneers, but nonetheless, as I got out of my little Corolla to stretch my legs, I felt like I was a trailblazer, too.

We had stopped at a little gas station and truck stop just beyond the Indiana state line. I took a moment to call the relatives, let them know I was More...

1 comment like (15 people liked it)

Dec 29, 2008

Terence rated it:

Perhaps an example of the danger of reading something before being intellectually or critically able to handle it. I wasn't "forced" to read this in high school but it was on a list of books an English teacher asked us to choose from and report on.

The experience was so awful that I've never cracked another Cather novel since.

Added 12/29/08: Apparently I was not the only young man "traumatized" by an early experience with Cather. In a completely serendi More...

5 comments like (20 people liked it)

Feb 18, 2008

Loren rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

1 comment like (9 people liked it)

Nov 15, 2008

Melodi rated it:

I was expecting this book to be a hard classic to read. But I quite enjoyed it. I think it offers one a lot to consider and discuss....immigration, schooling, farm life, change of life, friendships, the list goes on. I enjoyed the painting that I felt Willa Cather painted as I was reading. It was peaceful to read and almost made me wish I had lived back in the day when life was somewhat simpler.

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Dec 23, 2008

Christine rated it:

i've been rating a lot of books with "it was ok" lately - that phrase seems to cover a wide range for me. for this book i considered giving it a third star ("liked it").

i enjoyed reading about country life and then life in town. while i didn't necessarily feel the same love for Antonia that the narrator felt she was certainly key to the story & an enjoyable character. i certainly enjoyed the interesting mix of characters on the sideline of the story - in fact i th More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 24, 2008

Steven rated it:

Quite simply, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. This book was a real breath of fresh air given the plain no-nonsense style of Ms. Cather, especially when contrasted with that of Henry James, whom I had just finished reading.

My favorite aspect of the novel was in its vivid descriptions of the setting. My knowledge of the State of Nebraska was basically limited to thinking of it as a place where corn is grown, where the option offense was close to unstopable, where Warren Buffet calls More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Ashley rated it:

I've been doing a lot of re-reading lately, and this is yet another case of it. I first read this book in either high school or college. I remember it as an amazing book, and yet as I read it this time, I couldn't really see what I'd thought was amazing about it. It's not a bad book by any means - maybe I'd just somehow built it up in my mind to be something that it couldn't be. Anyway, the story is of a man reflecting upon his childhood in the Nebraska prairie and telling about the people h More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 02, 2009

Antof9 rated it:

I really liked this book! It had a little of the Little House feel, with some other "immigrant" books thrown in. I read "Oh, Henry" a million years ago -- can't remember a thing of it -- but had no idea how much I'd like this one!

A fun coincidence on this book -- I took it with me over "Christmas break", and my 13 year old niece was reading it too. I love that she's turning into a reader like her aunt!

There is something beautiful about the More...

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 19, 2011

Seth rated it:

Marcus calls the protaganist "neutered". While Jim may not have been assertive, the men who were in the story were fatally flawed for that reason. Their assertiveness was self-destructive. The assertiveness seemed to come from their demons. For example, Mr. Cutter was assertive. His spite tortured his marriage and reached beyond his life. He insisted to control the destiny of not just himself but his miserable wife ending both with violence. In contrast, A man whose life and deat More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 04, 2011

Maureen rated it:

okay, i'm done!

there's not really a plot.

i really liked the book -- i wasn't sure if crying by page fifteen was going to bear out, but i found i really like cather's writing, period. she accomplishes a lot in straight forward memoir as narrative, and i like the sense of nostalgia that permeates the book. i have read that cather was friends with sarah orne jewett, author of the country of the pointed firs (fantastic book - thanks ben? patty?) and the two share a lot in style More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2011

Shellie (Layers of Thought) rated it:

One of my favorite books. Willa Cather is amazing. Her writing flows. Her characters are real, and complex. The book also gives you an idea of what life was like 100 years ago - as well as how the great plains were before we made them into farms.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 09, 2009

Josephine rated it:

"Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep."

My friend Blueberry l More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

May 13, 2008

Visha rated it:

John Sullivan said he loved Willa Cather and recommended that I read some of her work since I'd apparently missed every American literature class that had it on the required reading list. He also said she was good for those writers who have female protags operating in male-dominated areas (both geographically and vocationally).
I agree that Antonia is an interesting character and several of the short-stories that make up the books "chapters" - this is clearly a cut and pasted b More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 12, 2008

Dawn Michelle rated it:

{Have you ever been in the middle of a really GREAT book and then just get SO busy that you just don't have time to finish it. That is what happened here. Took me MUCH longer than expected because of guests and now work. Sigh.}

I am so amazed by this book. It was so worth all the searching that I did to find it. I had heard of Willa Cather, but had never read anything by her. Now I cannot wait to read some more of her stuff. What an amazing writer she is.

This IS the stor More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 28, 2007

Sarah rated it:

This was my first time reading Willa Cather and I was pleasantly surprised. The writing is simple and the story is told through short, two-to-five page vingettes of life in the west.... it actually reminded me of Isaac Babel's Red Calvary short stories - short, simple, focused snapshots and scenes that are loosely related because they share an observant if not a boring and mostly inactive narrator. I mean, sure, the Red Calvary Stories are about wartime Russia and this is about Nebraska immigran More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 22, 2008

Charity rated it:

What a remarkable book! It is even more remarkable that I waited so long to read it.

Optima dies...prima fugit.
-Virgil

"The best days are the first to flee"....so begins My Ántonia, the powerful story of frontier life in Nebraska.

Recently orphaned, Jim Burden comes to live with his grandparents in Black Hawk, Nebraska. Here he meets and befriends Ántonia Shimerda, a young Bohemian girl who lives with her family nearby. They grow up together, hav More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 25, 2007

Chris rated it:

"My Ántonia" tells the story of Jim Burden (the book's narrator), a young boy of 10 who is sent from Virginia to live with his grandparents in the harsh prairie of Nebraska, after he is orphaned. On the same train, an immigrant family from Bohemia also arrives with a 14-year old daughter by the name of Ántonia Shimerdas and the family becomes the closest neighbor to the Burden's. The story is told as a memoir years later by Jim as he recalls his interaction with the Shimerdas' and his More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 17, 2008

Barner rated it:

I recently read this book in order to join a discussion group. Though it is one I should have read years ago, I am glad I waited: I loved it. The description is wonderful : ( the copper colored grass she refers to is seen in MN in two nearby state parks. The color is magnificient especially when the sun highlights it.) Antonia is full of exuberance for life even after experiencing heartache. She is resilient; all the women are strong characters, and the novel is probably a sad love story More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jan 12, 2008

Jenn rated it:

Title: My Antonia
Author: Willa Cather
Genre: Classic, set in late 19th century Nebraska
Pages: 266
Rating (out of 5 stars): *****
Reviewed by: Jenn and Ben
Description: My Antonia tells the story of a Bohemian immigrant family in the late 19th century. It catalogues the joys and struggles of early western farm life, the rich stories of immigrants, and the simplicity of growing up in an empty land. The characters are vivid and real, and they have much to teach the r More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 14, 2011

Karen rated it:

I thoroughly enjoyed every minute reading this book! The characters are so well developed that I think I will miss them. I didn't want this story to end. The narrative is so clear, it made me yearn to be back home in a part of our country I have never been. I have a new found respect for the strong women immigrants. who paved the way for generations to come. They redefined the American dream with their courage and perseverance, all the while remaining true to their heritage and values. The frien More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 29, 2008

Jessiehenn added it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 18, 2007

Jennifer rated it:

I decided to read this book after it was named the Summer/Fall 2002 selection for One Book/One Chicago (and I bought it at Barbara's Bookstore in Old Town just before hearing Studs Terkel speak). It was a quick read, and I enjoyed the descriptions of life on the prairie - in a small town (Black Hawk) and the farm outside of town. I imagine the descriptions would be familiar to my ancestors who settled in rural Illinois in the mid-1800s. The characters Cather describes are dynamic, and I enjoy More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 15, 2008

Kathleen rated it:

What a dear, wonderful story that I just want to clutch to my heart and keep forever. It brings back to me such feelings of love and connectedness to the land as I haven't felt since my years on the farm. The richness of the descriptions of the struggle to make a homestead in desolate Nebraska are truthful and stark and perfect. Some may criticize the lack of plot, but I think the portraits of characters that Cather writes are the real backbone of the story, not to mention it is simply a stor More...

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 07, 2011

Stacie rated it:

While I realize there are so many books out there that there is no way I can have read, or can read every one, I cannot believe that I managed to get through a masters program in literature without ever reading Cather.

Her writing was quite engaging - I loved the way she infused the land with the people. To me, there are few authors that can make the two inseparable. I loved the way she wrote about the characters - and about those women who were transgressing the boxes they were " More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Rachel rated it:

Hmmm. Maybe I'm shallow. I had a really hard time getting through this book. I liked the characters but found the story rather tedious. The redeeming quality was the reuniting of fiends in the end, and finding out that Antonia was the wonderful woman Jim thought her to be. I just didn't enjoy the journey there. It's probably because I've been reading all these action-packed brain-candy kind of books and shifting gears didn't go so well for me. I did like the book overall, but it won't be o More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 16, 2011

Tom rated it:

Willa Cather does a wonderful job describing landscapes. In My Antonia there is a languorous richness of detail as she describes the prairie before the sod was broken and wheat fields replaced the native grasses. Her story is slow-paced but epic in its scope, similar to the grand richness of Death Comes for the Archbishop. It captures a time in American history that is now largely past when immigrant pioneers went to the frontier and established community through cooperation. A good summer read More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 31, 2009

Amy rated it:

I'm fairly obsessed with the free e-audio downloads which I can get directly from the library website. This, my most recent "read" was a delightful download which I wish I had read sooner!

I listened to this while washing dishes, cleaning the kitchen and cooking. I actually looked forward to these activities because I couldn't wait to keep listening to the book. In fact, I started looking for more random, mindless chores to do to keep listening. One night, while listening, More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Mar 09, 2009

Sarah rated it:

I don't think there is another book quite like My Antonia out there. I read this book when I was fifteen and the result was I that I developed a strong appreciation for the beauty of women. I consider the book to be a tribute to the many forms of beauty of types of women. Besides Antonia, who is a lovely older bohemian woman, we have Lina, who is at one time a country sprite, then later an elegant city woman. Written from the point of view of a young man, being a child, coming of age, being adul More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

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