I started "My Antonia" just to find out what this literary classic was about. I soon found myself captivated by a development of characters and their relationships.

The story is seen through the eyes of Jim Burton, who begins the story as a ten year old orphan traveling from his family home in Virginia to his grandparents' farm near Black Hawk, Nebraska. The other two primary characters in the book are Antonia Shimerda, a Bohemian immigrant four years older than Jim, and Lena Lingard, a similarly aged girl from the local Norwegian community. As the years and the book pass, we see the characters develop in different ways. During this their relationships change, but the reader's interest is held.

The ability of this book to captivate the reader in intriguing! It has no real crises, no particular tragedies, just developing personalities and relationships. Although the main characters change, they all seem to develop along self directed lines, with no winners or losers. At the end the reader rides off with Jim, possessing many of the same feelings as he expresses. One test I apply to a novel is whether it leaves me wondering. Wondering why the characters lives develop as they do, wondering if the characters are really satisfied with their lives, wondering whether they desire something that the others have, wondering what happens to them after the last page. I am still wondering about "My Antonia." Any book that can do that has earned its status as a classic.

The picture on the book, the edition and the publisher that was presented was not the book that we received. We needed the edition that was represented when we purchased it. We were very disappointed when we opened the mail to find the wrong item and we had to order another book. We paid almost $9 to someone who knew by the cover it was not the same book they were shipping.

While Jim Burden, an established lawyer from New York City sits on the train, returning to his childhood home in Nebraska, he recalls with melancholy his years there and his friendship with the daughter of the Bohemian immigrants - Antonia Shimerda. The narrative captivates the reader from the first moment, with its rich imagery and love of the pioneer life, based on the author's life experience, visible at every page.

Jim arrived at his grandparents' house in Black Hawk, Nebraska, as an orphan, when he was ten year old. He is a clever, quick-learning, sensitive and observant boy, who learns hard working habits and good life principles from his grandparents. Jim describes the Shimerda family as he sees them, but includes also the opinions of his grandparents and neighbors. We follow Antonia and Jim through their hard, but happy childhood, through teen years. Jim goes to school, while Antonia works as a seamstress' aide, but as a lively, headstrong girl, she likes the public dances and soon falls in love with a wrong man...
When Jim leaves for college, he loses contact with Antonia, and only after his arrival during this visit, after twenty years, will he see her again - and find her different, but at peace with life. The novel focuses on Antonia, but, being written from Jim's perspective, is his story as well as hers.

Jim and Antonia's lives epitomize the lives of many pioneers in the West and I am not surprised to find this novel in the American literary school canon. It combines history with American tradition and spirit and it is written with a lot of charm. The descriptions of the everyday village life, chores and opportunities for young girls and boys are captivating. The author managed to create an image of people living in harmony with the surrounding environment, sometimes in need to conquer it, sometimes fighting with the conditions. The rich, descriptive prose teleports the reader into the world of the prairie frontier village in Nebraska. "My Antonia" could be a treat for American history fans (shaping the nation at its roots), for feminists (many strong female characters appear here, as well as the limitations set for women at that time and place), for naturalists (plants and animals are a great presence here) and for those who like the classics of literature. Highly recommended.

It wasn't the best of times, or the worst of times..but it was a special time. A time when special bonds were forged, and one's character refined. Even at the time of it's publication in 1918, My Antonia depicted a life that most Americans were unfamiliar with..the life of the 1st settlers on the 19th century great Midwestern plains of America.

Antonia Shimerda was one such settler. Cather's novel is about her, but it is about more than just an individual. Antonia is a Bohemian immigrant who came to the wild Nebraska plains with her family in the 1880s. She is a character modeled on a person Willa Cather knew while growing up in Nebraska. There is much of Cather herself in Antonia, although the author's life mirrors that of the novel's narrator, Jim Burden. You could say that Cather's intellect resides in Burden, while her personality and spirit reside in Antonia.

My Antonia is a fond reminiscence of the author's youth, a tribute to the American pioneer spirit, an examination of the immigrant experience, and a celebration of the unspoiled Midwestern landscape. Mencken described it as the most beautiful romantic novel ever written in America, but I think the romance has as much to do with time and place as with any person. A strong theme deals with finding one's station in life under extreme conditions and harsh circumstances, and about the compromises and sacrifices people make to find it.

Sparse but beautifully descriptive in it's prose, heartfelt and touching, without being mawkishly sentimental in it's feeling, My Antonia is a true American classic.

My Antonia is droning and full of pointless imagry. Although I understand that is a "classic" novel, it really just put me to sleep. Endless descriptions of the seemingly endless prairie made the book much longer than it should be. Although the plot is good and Antonia and Jim's coming of age is something most people can relate to, the events portrayed seem to modern to be happening in Black Hawk, Nebraska-1890's. Everyone's story is that of personal success and happiness. There are no plot twists and turns to keep the book interesting and after reading this book I doubt that I will ever pick up another Willa Cather novel again.

The trappers and the Mountain Men grew old. Carson stayed on but most went east. The wagon trains moved on to California and Oregon. Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp ended their days near New York City. Antonia stayed. Not many others did.
Lied to by land agents, often speaking no English and ignorant of farming, they found themselves on plains and prairies whose very extent is frightening, and at the mercy of constant wind, blizzard, drought, hail, prairie fire, locusts ... the list goes on and on. Five minutes of hail might wipe out a crop ready for harvest. Rain is too much or too little, and never at the right time. In blizzards, men and women have gotten lost and frozen to death between the house and the barn; and the roads may not open for weeks. Railroad rates were exorbitant and the local banks - themselves struggling to survive - ever ready to foreclose.
Antonia would have seen the wagons rolling East: "In God We Trusted. In Nebraska we busted."
Few of her descendants stayed on. Like Cather herself and Jim Burden, the lure of the outside world, the city, was strong. There were often too many kids to leave each enough land to live on. One hundred - twenty, one hundred - fifty years later, a few of the old names survive. One is Pavelka. Antonia Shimerda is the real person, Annie Pavelka. We leave her in 1914, but she lived well into the 1950s and is buried near Red Cloud, Nebrasks. Her stone is a monument to that tough, stubborn breed who turned the Great American Desert into the breadbasket of the world.
Read about her. You'll take her to your heart.