Customer Reviews

My Antonia

5 star:		(77)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(24)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

"My Antonia" is about the life of immigrants in our country in the early 1900's, in particular, is Antonia and her family who emigrated from Bohemia. Her family settled in the Nebraska plains where she meets the neighbor's son, Jim Burden. It is Jim who tells the story about Antonia authored by Willa Cather. Here he tells about the life on the farm, after the farm, and how he thinks of her in later life and meets again with here many years later. It is a spell binding adventurous novel about life in the prairie. It brings the characters to life in the way Willa Cather describes them in everyday life.
In this story Jim Burden expresses his feelings about Antonia throughout the book about her beauty as she matures. You get the sense that he is in love with her however, he is unable to confirm his own feelings for her. Eventually, they both move on pursuing their own goals in life, but Jim never forgets Antonia and is able to write a story about her and their childhood together. The emotions flow heavily throughout this piece.

My Antonia, written by Willa Cather, is a powerful and adventurous book. It takes you on a journey through the American vision of modernism. The work invokes a sense of disillusionment with modern society, a feeling of fragmentation and despair at the trends toward industrialization and urbanization. At other times the novel presents an idealized view of a pre-industrialized and still "innocent" society. My Antonia follows the path and offers a vision of the idyllic world of the American West. Cather idealizes the American frontier and depicts it as a perfect alternative to the corrupt world that we now live in. Cather also glorifies the values of independence, hard work, asceticism, as she contrasts it to the isolation and laziness of modern society. This novel is an excellent way of understanding what it would be like if we were not all accustomed to a developed and technologically advanced society. It takes you a few steps back in time, and demonstrates the importance of independence and self-reliability. It shows the developing of a young boy, searching and battling with growing up.

I first read this book when I was in junior high school. I admit that, at the time, I did not appreciate the strengths of the book and the quality of its writing. I am quite glad that I decided to give it another chance, as I now understand why it is considered to be a classic in literature. It is simply a beautifully written book, covering many of the themes that one stumbles across in life and coalescing them into a work of extraordinary breadth.

The book is the story of two young people, Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerda. They meet for the first time when Jim is ten years old and Antonia is fourteen. Recently orphaned, Jim has moved to the Great Prairie to live with his grandparents in Nebraska. Antonia, on the other hand, has been wrenched from her homeland in Bohemia, emigrating with her parents to the United States and finding herself in Nebraska. Jim and Antonia's chance encounter on a train sets the stage for the forging of a friendship and unconditional love that time will not diminish.

The book relates the harshness of immigrant life through the eyes of Jim, who narrates the events contained in the book. There is a relentless stoicism about the book, which is written in spare, clear prose. With intense imagery and descriptive exactitude, late nineteenth century Nebraska comes to life. It also relates the paths that each of the characters choose to follow, as well as the vicissitudes of life that mold and shape them in ways that no one would have imagined.

The focus of the book, which is also a coming of age tale, seems to be on the female characters and their strengths. Consequently, the book has a faintly feminist undercurrent to it, as all the women in it seem to be survivors, despite the hardships that they encounter. This is, without a doubt, a life affirming book, wrought with great feeling and a decided sense of time and place. Yet, despite its poignancy, the book is surprisingly unsentimental and straightforward. It is a testament to the author's literary talent that this book has emerged as a timeless classic. Bravo!

I first read this book when I was in junior high school. I admit that, at the time, I did not appreciate the strengths of the book and the quality of its writing. I am quite glad that I decided to give it another chance, as, having re-read it, I now understand why it is considered to be a classic in literature. It is simply a beautifully written book, covering many of the themes that one stumbles across in life and coalescing them into a work of extraordinary breadth.

The book is the story of two young people, Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerda. They meet for the first time when Jim is ten years old and Antonia is fourteen. Recently orphaned, Jim has moved to the Great Prairie to live with his grandparents in Nebraska. Antonia, on the other hand, has been wrenched from her homeland in Bohemia, emigrating with her parents to the United States and finding herself in Nebraska. Jim and Antonia's chance encounter on a train sets the stage for the forging of a friendship and unconditional love that time will not diminish.

The book relates the harshness of immigrant life through the eyes of Jim, who narrates the events contained in the book. There is a relentless stoicism about the book, which is written in spare, clear prose. With intense imagery and descriptive exactitude, late nineteenth century Nebraska comes to life. It also relates the paths that each of the characters choose to follow, as well as the vicissitudes of life that mold and shape them in ways that no one would have imagined.

The focus of the book, which is also a coming of age tale, seems to be on the female characters and their strengths. All the women in it seem to be survivors, despite the hardships that they encounter. This is, without a doubt, a life affirming book, wrought with great feeling and a decided sense of time and place. Yet, despite its poignancy, the book is surprisingly unsentimental and straightforward. It is a testament to the author's literary talent that this book has emerged as a timeless classic. Bravo!

My sophomore English teacher strongly recommended that I read this book, and I must admit that I didn't. The title and book description just didn't sound interesting to me.

Well, I missed a treasure all these years.

My Antonia explores how two children arrived in Nebraska and grew up as the prairie there was just being opened up to farming. The narrator is Jim Burden, an orphan who travels from Virginia to live with his kindly Grandfather and Grandmother. The object of his fantasies is Antonia Shimerda, the four-years-older young woman who is the daughter of Bohemian immigrants who know next to nothing about farming.

Between the two youngsters, they experience most of the range of farming frontier experiences in the early 19th century. Jim enjoys the happier, more successful side while Antonia finds herself faced with tragedies and setbacks. Yet there friendship becomes firm and is a central foundation of both lives.

During the story, you start on the farm, go into the town and finally end with both of them on the farm again . . . completing the natural cycle of planting and harvesting.

The plot and characters are sensitively drawn, and you will find yourself attracted to all but a few of the people in the book. Before long, they will seem like old friends and family members of yours too.

Ms. Cather avoided clich's in her development of each person's life, leaving room for surprises that punctuate her character portraits.

It's the sort of heart-warming story that modern writers don't seem to be able to manage without making the book seem pallid.

If you like stories about the indomitable human spirit, be sure to read My Antonia!

A 35 page introduction on one persons thoughts on this book is 35 too long. I loved this book. Willa Cather was a genius of her time. My Antonia is not only the story of the pioneers out west, but also of the immigrants who made it their home.

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.

"My Antonia" is a book to savor and appreciate. It is not a book to read on a quick airplane flight or to fill some time. It should be read slowly and treasured.
The book tells the tale of Antonia, a young Bohemian immigrant in the plains of Nebraska, and her friendship with Jim, an orphan from Virginia who lives with his grandparents on a neighboring farm. The book delves into class structure: Jim clearly comes from a far higher, more educated class and even on the plains of Nebraska, such stuff matters at this time.
"My Antonia" traces the dual lives of Antonia, both of whom embody different versions of the American dream. Antonia goes into service in a household, becomes a farmer's wife, and gradually sees prosperity after years of hard living. But she never loses her spirit-the spirit of the American immigrant. Jim attends university, first in Nebraska and then at Harvard, and ultimately leads the life of an East Coast lawyer. Both rise from their beginnings. But both never lose the spirit of the land.
I would recommend this book for individuals who enjoy American literature. The word "classic" has become a cliche; however, "My Antonia' is a classic. As I noted earlier, I wouldn't recommend this book for individuals looking for a light read. "My Antonia" is just too importan.

This is a tale of frontier Nebraska as told through the eyes of an adolescent boy. The subject of the book, a young Bohemian immigrant girl named Antonia, is meant to symbolize the frontier experience and epitomize the life of many frontiersmen and women. The story is told by Jim Burden, who grew up in Black Hawk, Nebraska, when the land was wild and untamed. His neighbor was Antonia Shimerda, four years older than he. They grew up together, and as Jim tells the story of his friendship and love for Antonia, the whole of the frontier experience is captured within the narrative.

This is a great American Western novel. Willa Cather is an excellent writer--easy and enjoyable to read. Her writing (in this and other books) teems with beautiful and sublime descriptions. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and gave it only four stars simply because the plot seems to move kind of slowly at times. Despite this minor imperfection, however, My Antonia is a great book that will leave the reader with a deep impression of life on the Western American frontier.

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.