My Ántonia in Classics Without All the Class

Nov 18, 2012 Audrey rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: listens, 1900s, fiction, orphans, classics, 1910s, pioneers-settlers, 1880s, nature, 1870s

Fall 2012: This book was just okay. I never felt that emotionally invested in the characters, and the story just barely kept my interest. It wasn't a bad book, but it seems kind of forgettable. I did like a lot of the author's descriptive passages—especially those about nature. I also really like Jim's grandparents. They were such neighborly, kind, and thoroughly good people. And I do admire Antonia's resilient spirit. She is an embodiment of the belief that although life is hard, it is worth it Fall 2012: This book was just okay. I never felt that emotionally invested in the characters, and the story just barely kept my interest. It wasn't a bad book, but it seems kind of forgettable. I did like a lot of the author's descriptive passages—especially those about nature. I also really like Jim's grandparents. They were such neighborly, kind, and thoroughly good people. And I do admire Antonia's resilient spirit. She is an embodiment of the belief that although life is hard, it is worth it.

I don't get who the “I” in the introduction was. Was it a fictional person? Was it the author? Was it someone in the story? Is it not supposed to matter?

Spring 2015: I re-read this for an American Literature class. I think I understand the novel better now, but I still find it somewhat slow and lackluster. It’s a story as much about the land itself as it is about Antonia’s embodiment of the rugged pioneer spirit and the eternal energy of the wild west.

The importance of memory, looking back on days gone by, gives the book a sad and melancholy feel. The opening epithet from Virgil alludes to the quality of human nature that doesn’t realize the sweetness of the present until it’s gone. Likewise, Jim's experiences are filtered through the nostalgia of reminiscence, which may make them a little different than the actual events. Although these happy memories serve as an anchor of stability and peace throughout his life, his problem might just be that he cannot move beyond them and make wonderful new memories. He seems to have this continually restless and unsettled feeling, as if his life was never really fulfilled and he’s just grasping at the past for something to hold onto.

The hazy quality of the storytelling is due to the fact that the novel is told in retrospect—looking back through the shadowbox of the years. Also, Cather did revise her original introduction to take herself out of the story more. I don’t think we’re supposed to know who the fictional “I” in the introduction is, though. It could be any number of characters, or it could be a stranger.

My professor described the book as more a painting, a tapestry, or a mural than a linear story. It is a visual and interconnected collection of vignettes from Jim’s past. Although his childhood recollections take place in a contained world, the book itself concludes on a rather open-ended note, showing that the past is never really completed because we keep creating new pasts.

So, all things considered, my initial impression is not much altered. I don’t dislike this book. I just find it a little dull. ...more

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