My Antonia

Rating:
Summary: A definite must-read!
Review: I read "My Antonia" as an assignment for my freshman English class, and I really enjoyed it. I've always been fascinated by books written in the historical fiction genre, and this was no exception. Willa Cather did an excellent job of making us, the readers, feel as though we were right there in the book. The characters are described amazingly well and you can really understand them. A lot of books that kids are "forced to read" in high school are just over their heads, but "My Antonia" has just the right mix of challenge, yet comprehension. Teachers, definitely add this to your reading list! Students, if your teacher doesn't have it on the list, read it anyway! It's a great book!

Rating:
Summary: A Rich Mine of Life
Review: Willa Cather has much in common with Sarah Orne Jewett. Both saw the United States growing increasingly shallow and materialistic. In response, they wrote books capturing life in what may be viewed as its most simple and complete form. My Antonia is one of these novels, and the result is that it paints a vivid, beautiful picture of the potential of life.

The novel is narrated by Jim Burden. It begins with Jim as a young boy traveling to the open west to be raised by his grandparents on their Nebraskan farm. Antonia is a girl slightly older than Jim from a Bohemian family which is trying to survive the hard farming life. The rest of the novel follows the two as they live their complete lives-growing, maturing, suffering, and going through relationships-basically just trying as best they can to survive.

There are so many great things to say about this novel. The vision of humans surviving the harsh realities of farming in the Nebraska wilderness is intense and stark, but there is such beauty to be found as they undergo such hardships and keep forging ahead. This is what I see as the real greatness of the novel-it presents the great courage of man to just survive and the intense beauty which is found in survival. The whole image seems so indicative of the human condition, and the effect is truly life affirming.

Rating:
Summary: I would wish this horror upon no one...
Review: This novel commits the cardinal sin of novels. It's just boring. There are no if's, and's, or but's about it. The story is as dull and lifeless as the paper it's written on. There is no plot to speak of, aside from boy meets girl, then boy wastes the rest of his life (and a day or so of our time). The characters are dull and lifeless and could all be portrayed quite well by those large cardboard cutouts of people that can be seen in grocery chains (though the cardboard cutouts at least SEEM to have personality). This book is bad writing plain and simple. How anyone can mistake it for anything but this is beyond me. If this book makes a strong case for anything, it's illiteracy. At least those that can't read don't have to go through the torment of having to indulge in this piece of literary blasphemy. On the other hand, if you want something to help stimulate those few brain cells that you may have left after society hands you garbage like this, I would suggest some Melville, Orwell, or even Valekovsky. Jeez, the dialogue of a standard pornographic feature is better than this, and you just might manage to be entertained in some small way by it as well. The characters are certainly a bit more lively.

And in case you are still wondering, no, I do not recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: My Antonia- A Worthwhile Novel
Review: My Antonia is a piece of literature which I felt was very high quality, and easily enjoyable. I was especially amazed by Cather's highly descriptive and powerful writing style. She wrote beautifully about the landscape and the world surrounding her characters. Both Antonia and Jim were strong voices in the book, but they did not contradict each other. The plot and story line were unconventional, just so beautifully constructed. This is not a lustful Romeo and Juliet story, rather one of deep admiration and peace in a friendship. This story is one of real life. It does not build a bridge over rapids so that true love can emerge, but it tells of how childhood friends can have their own separate lives as adults but still find their lives connected.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes peaceful literature. There is no war in this novel, no tornadoes, and no men proposing marriage on billboards. This is a beautiful and realistic novel about friends growing up together on the countryside, and their past comes full circle in making them what they are in the future.

Rating:
Summary: Could Not Put This Novel Down! : )
Review: My Antonia is a novel that is 200 something pages that I have had the desire to read in one sitting. Willa Cather captures our attention first with the innocence of childhood to the struggles in adolescence and adulthood. Antonia deals with losing her father, sacrificing her education for her family, a failed engagement, and through it all she perseveres and becomes stronger through each. The novel is told through the eyes of her childhood best friend, Jim Burden. Antonia is beloved by everyone in the novel because of her individualistic approach to life. She does not let a child out of wedlock, or supposed "men's work" define her. She cherishes her baby and shows how proud she is instead of shame and works on the farm to help her family succeed in a foriegn land even though it was not considered lady-like. Antonia is also not influenced by the people around her, even though she is surrounded by girls with a bad reputation she does not fall into their life style. A character I would have liked to see developed further was Lena Lingard in which only four chapters were devoted to. She captivated my attention because she was the person in town that was least likely to succeed although she ends up being one of the most successful in the novel. Lena goes against the stigma that girls with a bad reputation can't succeed. I highly recommend this novel to anyone who wants a tale of growing up, hardship, two love interests told through the eyes of a boy growing into a man. My Antonia is a novel with sparks of crushes and lasting friendships.

Rating:
Summary: Not romance but...
Review: My Antonia is a wonderful way to experience something that none of us today could ever even come close to. Working the land, beginning a farm, and just plain surviving in a cold new world are all things we will never need to do. If I did have to begin again I know I could never do it with the attitude Antonia did and not fall into despair. She was always trying her very hardest to succeed and though she did not in many of our views, meaning she never had a lot of money, she led a happy life with love, kindness, and never giving up. This is also a story of childhood friendships and how they grow as people grow older. Some people call this book a romance but I don't think Jim and Antonia's relationship ever resembled love in romantic terms. Perhaps Jim thought of her like that at one time, when he was young, but in reality they were the best kind of friends. They were closer than two people could be because they were always with each other in their hearts and minds, no matter how many miles separated them.

Rating:
Summary: Relate to the Heart
Review: My Antonia was definitely worth the read. It brought a certain reality to the surface. There was nothing fake about it, through my thoughts and perceptions. The novel showed what it was like for immigrants , and how hard it can be to survive in a new country with new languages present. Many books are based totally on what the eyes want to see, instead of what they really do see. However, this particular tale was one that presented real hard-working models that readers can realate to. As i read, I felt like I was going through those hardships with the characters.
Included with the overall feeling of the book, of how it realated to real life, nature was touched upon. Whether a story is fiction or non-fiction, nature is touched upon no matter what time period it is set in. Any reader can connect their own experiences with that of the characters in "My Antonia". As one that enjoyed that aspect of the book the most, I can say that when the characters surroundings were described, It was as if I was standing right there in those fields with them.
I recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys a tale about simple love and simple life. It is more laid back than some fast paced stories, and one can really take a break from the modern pressures of life today.

Rating:
Summary: What's the big deal?
Review: I'll start by saying I gave this book 2 stars because I would have felt awkward giving it one when so many people apparently think it is great. Those people aside, it deserves a one star rating, in my opinion. My chief complaint is that it is a formulaic and downright boring period piece. The love between the well-off American and the dirt poor foreign girl is a good example of uninspired writing. I found the characters stereotypical, the setting done to death and the plot (and I only use that word because I don't know what else to call it) simply doesn't go anywhere. But it's not all bad, at least Wick Cutter was interesting. In closing I would like to qualify this review by saying that I read a lot of books and there are only about two that I don't like and wouldn't recommend. It doesn't take much to please me; an interesting story, a fun character, a different style, all it takes is one redeeming feature for me to consider a book worthwhile. I find My Antonia a waste of time.

Rating:
Summary: The best days are the first to flee
Review: The novel's narrator, Jim Burden, makes this observation after spending a perfect summer day swimming and basking in the sunshine of the Nebraska plains and the company of Antonia. This is the most beautiful novel I have ever read. In it we are introduced to Jim's love affair with Antonia Shimerda, his Bohemian immigrant neighbor who is four years his senior.

Although Jim is the novel's narrator, Antonia must be its protagonist. Antonia moves with her family to the Nebraska plains in the days preceding its statehood, when each family willing to brave the winter can attempt to make their fortune in the new world. Antonia's family braves nearly unimaginable hardships, among them the lack of food, shelter, warmth, and faith in their decision to move to Nebraska. Among her family, Antonia stands out as the most strong-willed, strong-bodied, brave, and loving of life. Cather follows Antonia's life even as she leaves the family homestead and works in town, outlining the diverging fates of her and Jim.

Throughout the novel, Jim's love for Antonia never wanes. Yet he never expresses this love to her with words. He remains silently in love with Antonia's sheer joy at being alive, despite all the hardships she has endured. At the same time, Jim describes his love for the country in which he is raised. Although he leaves Nebraska to attend Harvard upon graduation from high school, clearly he always considers the great plains of his youth to be his home.

At the beginning of this novel, we learn that Jim has married a woman very unlike Antonia, and I think it is interesting to keep this in mind throughout the novel, although his wife is never mentioned again. Jim's love affair with Antonia is one-sided and idealized; it seems he would not choose to marry a woman like Antonia because she could never live up to his image of the perfect woman.

The prose in this story is mesmerising; the simple descriptions of country and the observations on life can make you cry. At the end of the novel, I felt as though Jim's Antonia was also, in a small part, my Antonia.

Rating:
Summary: An All-Time American Classic
Review: If all novels were written this well TV never would have gotten ahold of American society.
This is one of the most romantic love stories I have ever read, and nary a kiss was had! Cather's beautiful flowing writing adds to the flowing beauty of the plains and her characters.

As romantic as this novel is, it is not a chic book. It captures the times and people of a bygone era in wonderful and unrivalled prose.