'My Antonia' by Willa Cather

Through Jim Burden's endearing, smitten voice, we revisit the remarkable vicissitudes of immigrant life in the Nebraska heartland, with all its insistent bonds. Guiding the way are some of literature's most beguiling characters: the Russian brothers plagued by memories of a fateful sleigh ride, Antonia's desperately homesick father and self-indulgent mother, and the coy Lena Lingard. Holding the pastoral society's heart, of course, is the bewitching, free-spirited Antonia.

MY THOUGHTS:

This is my choice for the 20th Century Classic in the 2020 Back to the Classics challenge. It was published in 1918, the year my grandmother was born. 

Jim Burden is a 10-year-old orphan who gets sent to live with his grandparents in rural Nebraska. On the same train is 14-year-old Antonia Shimerda along with her family, who are migrants from Czechoslovakia. They share the same destination and once they settle down, the pair become good friends. Jim narrates us through the years ahead as he continues to share a lovely platonic relationship with Antonia, although at times he wouldn't have minded something more. 

Jim is a deep and reflective kid from the get-go. There are no ants in his pants at all. He knows the immense value of just soaking in the sunshine, for example. Although the writing's wisdom comes from the older Jim, it's clear that he's drawing on discoveries made by the young boy. 'Nothing happened, I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. At any rate that is happiness, to be dissolved into something complete and great.' 

The Shimerda family, with their foreign background, are ingenues when it comes to spotting American shysters. They're ripped off when they purchase their house, land and stock package, and never totally recover. Mrs Shimerda is self-pitying, boastful and entitled; the sort of overbearing personality who becomes a liability rather than an asset. Ambrosch, her eldest son, is grouchy and self-important. The sensitive, music-loving dad, who never really wanted to move to America, eventually succumbs to his broken heart and commits suicide. But Antonia turns out to be made of far sterner stuff. 

Although she remembers her childhood land with clear, loving detail, Antonia rises to the challenge of adapting to the new environment, since that's her only option of maintaining some level of satisfaction. She pulls it off to the extent that Jim comes to regard her as a symbol of the great country itself. That's some pretty successful assimilation. When the Burden family move into the nearest small town, Antonia is hired by their next door neighbours to help with housework, and continues to take everything in her stride. 

She's a very admirable character because she's genuinely aware of what she enjoys and never feels inclined to bow to fashion or copy others for nods of approval. She eventually finds her grinding life as a country mother of a huge family suits her perfectly. 'I'm never lonesome here, like I used to be in town. You remember what sad spells I used to have, when I didn't know what was the matter with me? I've never had them out here. And I don't mind work a bit, if I don't have to put up with sadness.' It's a fair trade-off indeed, and sets us readers reading between the lines to figure out why her embracing of anonymity is so refreshing. 

I really appreciate the staunch and simple faith of these characters. Otto the hired man tells a story in which he basically complains that good karma never caught up with him. And Mrs Burden, Jim's grandmother, says she's sure the Lord has remembered these things to his credit, and helped him out of many a scrape when he didn't realise he was being protected by Providence. Her husband has the gift of saying very moving prayers. Jim decides that because Grandfather is not a big talker, his words have a peculiar force whenever he does open his mouth. 'They're not 'worn dull from constant use.' What cool encouragement for quiet people. 

Jim's experiences studying hard at University are an interesting offset to Antonia's rural simplicity. He has doubts whether or not he's a true academic at heart, since the old faces from his childhood keep crowding into his memory which he wants to fill with 'more important things'. He blitzes it anyway, and gets a decent job out in the world at large. And their friend Anna says, 'It must make you very happy, Jim, to have fine thoughts like that in your mind and words to put them in.'Yet although Willa Cather doesn't say as much, we're left with the strong conviction that Antonia's lifestyle is no less dignified, meaningful and worthwhile, and perhaps hers is even more satisfying over the long haul.

Perhaps the wonderful descriptions of the landscape which she's famous for help push the appeal of Antonia's beloved bleak country over the line. 

'There's nothing but land. Not a country at all, but just the material out of which countries are made.' 

'The scanty detail in that tawny landscape made any detail at all so precious.' 

'The snow spilled out of heaven like thousands of feather beds being emptied.' 

Cather's books are non-eventful and anti-climactic in many ways, but I do feel compelled to go on reading them.  

 🌟🌟🌟½