My Antonia by Willa Cather, 1918

Read in 2012

Synopsis:  My Ántonia chronicles the life of Ántonia, a Bohemian immigrant woman, as seen through the eyes of Jim, the man unable to forget her. Jim, now a successful New York lawyer, recollects his upbringing on a Nebraska farm. Even after 20 years, Ántonia continues to live a romantic life in his imagination. When he returns to Nebraska, he finds Ántonia has lived a battered life. Although the man to whom she dedicated her life abandons her, she remains strong and full of courage.

While I didn’t love this novel, I did like the way the story was told and the emotions it evoked.  Living in the western US in the early 20th century was no picnic.  I had to laugh at myself and pretty much everyone else in modern society for being such wimps.  Antonia worked like a dog and seemed to be fulfilled by it.  She liked to work as hard as a man did and was restless and bored when she had to live in town.  It wasn’t just her, everyone worked themselves to death, but considered it their place; a higher calling even.  They were pioneers and that was an amazing thing to them.  Not everyone could be one; they were a people set apart.  Out in the wilderness carving out civilization an acre at a time.

Not all of it was terribly civil though.  The attitudes and customs of the newer immigrants were treated with suspicion.  In turn the immigrants distrusted the more established Americans and longed for the land they had left.  I have to agree with someone in the novel who suggested that they go back if they found it to be so horrible.  Instead, one kills himself out of despair rather than learn the language or adapt.  It was the beginning of my phase of distaste and outright dislike for Antonia and the rest of her family. They were terrible neighbors and Jim’s grandfather just took it and never taught them a lesson in how to get along.  

It was a phase though, and when Antonia and the rest of the family began to act like part of the community I fell back into my previous attitude toward her; puzzlement.  I couldn’t figure out why Jim (or anyone else) found her so beguilingly attractive.  She wasn’t to me.  She was just an uneducated farm kid who became an uneducated mother to a herd of kids in the end.  She didn’t strike me as anyone special since 100s of other women were in the same position as she was.  I didn’t get it and so the story stayed distanced from me, like an old movie I know I’m supposed to appreciate for its artful direction, dialog or photography, but one that just doesn’t light me up inside.  I can understand why others love My Antonia; it’s very beautifully written and romantic, but it didn’t reach me if you know what I mean.  It stayed remote and untouchable.  I couldn’t help comparing it to The Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner and how the story of those pioneering people really did reach me and I could easily imagine them as real people.  Cather didn’t bring that home to me with this novel.  I can see why some would love it, I’m just not one of them.