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 book, but not to its detriment - are quite interesting. I like how the narrative will say "and this is [blank's] story:" and just plunks it down for the reader. There is alot that is contained in this book - the narrative feels like a lot of little boxes between the book-covers. Once again, the overall structure is interesting because it's begun with the "author" meeting a friend, they talk about Antonia - a mutual friend - and later the friend drops off a manuscript he's written about Antonia. And the author professes that all that follows is his work. The idea of false-found-material is intriguing, but I wondered why it couldn't be a frame narrative, with Jim meeting the author again, by the end?
There also seem to be a lot of ellipses - a lot of missing information or details that are strangely placed. For example, why go into the details of Jim's horrible wife in the introduction? It seems so random and has no bearing on what happens within the narrative itself? Also, Jim doesn't seem like the most honest of narrators. There are times that I felt he was withholding.
What was fantastic were the lightly-concealed sexual metaphors and all of the "racy" material - rape, out of wedlock babies, lusty fast-girls, etc. Great, great stuff - those details made the novel seem ahead of its time, or at least interesting in the contemporary sense. One of the games that the girls play is called "pussy wants a corner." Was that a veiled sexual reference or am I just being crass? I mean, Willa wrote it, I'm just asking about it. Hmmm.

Glad I had a chance to read some Willa. She definitely had some strong women and interesting characters, although the main character, Jim, wasn't the most compelling protag I've ever read.

Sullivan highly recommended The Professor's House, although he said it was a different vein than My Antonia and O'Pioneers!