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Summary: A moving portrait of our nation's roots and the open plains
Review: When I went to write the review of Cather's work, I was surprised to find that most of the reviews were written by high school students who were required to read the book. The strengths of "My Antonia", in my opinion, would not be obvious to most teenagers. Taken at face value, as a fictional story of the struggles of Bohemian immigrants to the mid-west, the story has merits which probably underlie its popularity among secondary teachers.However, that is not what makes this book special. Simply put, both the characters and setting of this novel are beautiful. Cather clearly loved the land she was writing about, and her passion for the farm country of her youth flowed through her writings. Her narrator, Jim, reveals the life of the immigrant Antonia, his childhood friend. Though most of the book is about their childhood together, it is written from Jim's view as an adult. This is tremendously important, as Jim's observations are clearly bear a mark of maturity that would be out-of-place if the book were written from the point-of-view of a child. Perhaps this is what many teenagers miss. Few of them have experienced the profound bittersweet feelings adults have when looking back upon their youth. These emotions were entwined through the novel from beginning to end, forming a scaffold upon which the story was told. To miss them is to miss everything that makes this novel great, rather than just historical fiction.
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Summary: a must for anyone growing up midwestern
Review: The words "historical fiction" may inflict the same agony as "pop quiz" or "speeding ticket" to many teenagers, but reading My Antonia is quite painless. Title character Antonia Shimerda is introduced to the reader and the narrator when she can say only one phrase of English: "We go Black Hawk, Nebraska." On a seemingly endless train ride across a young United States, Bohemian immigrant Antonia and her family meet recently orphaned Virginia-born Jim Burden for the first time. He tells the story of the Shimerdas and his friend Antonia now as a middle aged man, illustrating his respect for the prairie and the woman who embodies it. My Antonia is a story for the most part told about the youthful years of a select group of opinionated, hardworking, and brave souls. It is unique, and an especially intriguing read for teens, because the novel is told as a bittersweet memory from an old man. The story might make a reader realize that you may actually look back fondly on some of those pop tests or speeding tickets. "The best days, " quotes Cather on the beginning page, "are the first to flee."
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Summary: My Antonia Review Page
Review: I felt that the book, My Antonia, was an interesting book but needed a little more umph to keep my attention. The characters really worked for the book as well as the time setting but I just felt they could have moved the book along a little faster and skipped many of the tiny details.
The character of Jim was perfect. It fit with the lifestyle of his relatives and he seemed to have a very respective attitude, which was a necessity back then. The character for Antonia, I felt needed to be a little more creative. I felt she was easy to figure out throughout the entire book. Sure, how she was brought up played a major role, but you could always tell she wasn't going to have anything exciting happen to her (Except her father's death).
The minor characters in the book were necessary but none of them seemed to really be involved in anything that happened in the book. The book mainly focuses on Jim and Antonia but some of the characters, such as Antonia's entire family, could have been more involved in the book.
Now the one thing I really enjoyed in this book was the ending. It was perfect. I could tell throughout the book that they weren't ever going to be together completely, but when he went back to see her I was expecting the usual; She falls in love with him all over again. This wasn't the outcome at all and I finished the book satisfied. I recommend this book to everyone but mostly girls. They would be well suited for this book because it is a love story.
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Summary: Antonia
Review: My Antonia by Willa Cather at first glance may appear to be a highly introverted novel that deals with the hardships and life choices of an orphan boy, Jim, his traveling from point to the next in the special context of the vast US country and intricately organized city, and his constant returning to the only place he could truly feel at home: his long gone past. It seems that the story coexists with the roundabout paths that one grown man has to follow in order to rediscover the origins of his being. However, as the title partially suggest, Willa Cather¡¯s innovative and highly descriptive writing brings to the reader¡¯s attention one other important aspect: the immigrant experience portrayed by the relationship between Jim, born and raised in the US, and Antonia, the Bohemian girl of free spirit and astonishing willpower. It is her determines to survive in her new and somewhat unfriendly environment, her strength that allows the young women never to look back with regrets or rancor at the past even after being abandoned to bring up a child on her own, and the highly positive attitude to find joy in the simplest delights in life that impressed and held my attention throughout the entire narrative. Somehow she doesn¡¯t loose her hope. In same strange way Antonia persists vital and with a head held high to achieve her most nearest to the heart dream: Antonia, in the end, rebuilds the family she has lost upon the suicide of her father and creates her own universe from the shards of the Bohemian past she was once happy in.
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Summary: A book of friendship
Review: Willa Cather captures the story of an immigrant woman's life and hardships she endures in the plains of Nebraska. The story of Antonia is told through the eyes of her childhood friend, Jim Burden. In his tender reminiscence of her, the reader is able to see Antonia as Jim had, and they too can't help but fall in love with her inspirational character.
The book begins with Jim arriving in Nebraska at the age of ten, and as he heads westward aboard the train he has his first glimpse of the Shimerdas, a Bohemian family. As destiny would have it, the Shimerdas move in next to Jim and his grandparents and a friendship quickly develops between Jim and the Shimerdas' daughter, Antonia. The two become childhood companions and share adventures and hardships growing up in the country together. The Shimerdas, being an immigrant family are not used to the ways of the west, and have a hard time adjusting; the family struggles to put enough food on the table and they can barely speak English. Jim takes Antonia in and teaches her English, and this marks the beginning of a lasting friendship.
The book carries Jim's memories of Antonia through their adolescence and on into adulthood where Jim goes away to college and moves to the city, while Antonia stays in the country and raises a family. Though the two part and go their separate ways, Antonia remains a prominent part of Jim's life, and an important figure that marks his past.
The strength of this book I felt was the story of friendship it told, this book brought back memories to me of my own childhood friends. Although I have parted with many of them, they are still a prominent part of who I am today. Jim says at the end of the novel, "Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past." Although we part with many of our friends, we never part with their memories; this book is about one man's memories of a childhood friend, it is his memories their friendship.
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Summary: A truly satisfying read
Review: This book was like a hearty, nourishing soup, with everything good in it. Touching anecdotes, characters who come to seem as real as members of your own family, beautiful pastoral descriptions. The main flaw to me was confusion at the beginning of the story as to who the narrator was, even though I read Cather's "Introduction." Also, I'd have liked to find out what happened to Jim's parents. He doesn't grieve as you would expect of a ten year-old boy. Other than that, I found him completely believable--Sophie Simonet, author of ACT OF LOVE, romantic suspense (Fictionwise.com).
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Summary: Ugh, Please...
Review: You have no idea what torture I went through to read this. I had to read this for summer reading and do a report over it. Yet another chick flick. Don't read it. It is somewhat interesting to a certain degree, but is almost right down there with Sense and Sensibility. Jim Burden falls for a foreign girl, who is older than himself, named Antonia. Turns out, she gets pregnant and screws herself up really good. It has good morals, but as far as interesting goes, this is not. Avoid this.
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Summary: My Antonia
Review: Willa Cather's, " My Antonia," will continue to be read and loved way inot the future. It is a coming of age love story that also consists of respect, commitment, and perserverance. Antonia Shimerda, a child of an immigrant Bohemian family, arrives in Black Hawk, Nebraska the same time as Jim Burden, a ten year old orphaned boy who has coem to live with his grandparents. Antonia's poverty stricken family are faced with bitter challenges along wirth the growing affection of Jim feels for the lovely Antonia. Cather uses Antonia as an epic in scope, and never have i seen a better narrator as I did in Jim. He combines the characteristics of a man as well as the sensitivity of a woman. Cather's words inspire the soul and i plan on readign more of her work.
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Summary: My Antonia
Review: My Antonia My Antonia, by Willa Cather, is an illustration of two friends growing up together, and their rite of passage from childhood to adulthood, they stick together through loss of love, and help each other grow as individuals. Though they are both going to Nebraska for different reasons, Antonia, and her family are immigrating from Bohemia, and Jim, to live with his grandparents, due to the death of his mother and father. In spite of all their hardships in life, and differences, they remain friends even after thirty years, though they both went opposite directions after they arrived on the same path into Nebraska.
As this book continues, it becomes more and more obvious that Jim grows up letting life mold his character, making him easily influenced by other. Antonia's character molds life, making it so that she can adapt to her environment easily. Antonia is a strong, free spirited girl that is grounded by her Nebraska farmland, and she'd "like to be where I know every stack and tree, and where all the ground is friendly." Jim follows the same footsteps as the other men in his town, leaving Black Hawk, and moving on. However, when he leaves, he realizes that more than anything else, he misses his past and Antonia.
When he returns to Black Hawk on a visit, he realizes that Antonia and himself are growing into their adulthood, and that they will spend their last moment together as children. Jim says, "life can't stand still, not even in the quietest country towns; and they have to grow up, whether they will or no." When he leaves again he says that he "could almost believe that a boy and a girl ran along beside me, as our shadows used to do, laughing and whispering to each other in the grass." Jim tries to tell the reader the he does not really enjoy life anymore, and that he is leaving his roots behind him, because it is what is expected of him.
Finally after Antonia's pregnancy and loss of love, she settles down with another husband and children. Jim decides to go back home, at the end of the book; he finds himself walking down the road that he and Antonia arrived on, as children, thirty years ago. He now had a "sense of coming home to myself, and of having found out what a little circle man's experience it." The road that separated them, suddenly brings them together, again. "...whatever he had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past."
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Summary: A beautiful novel
Review: This is, quite simply, a beautiful novel. I plan on reading more novels by Cather. I particularly enjoyed her sweeping portrayal of early Nebraskan life.
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