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    My Antonia
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    My Antonia
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    My Antonia
    Audiobook8 hours

    My Antonia

    Written by Willa Cather

    Narrated by Nicholas Mondelli

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    After the death of his parents, Jim was sent to live with his grandparents in Black Hawk Nebraska. There he befriended Antonia, the daughter of Bohemian immigrants. Years later, Jim, now a successful lawyer in New York, returns to his childhood home and Antonia. Jim's love for Antonia has endured, much as she herself has endured tragic circumstances.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media Audio
    Release dateDec 31, 2013
    ISBN9781629230733
    Author

    Willa Cather

    Willa Cather (1873-1947) was born in Virginia and raised on the Nebraska prairie. She worked as a newspaper writer, teacher, and managing editor of McClure's magazine. In addition to My Ántonia, her books include O Pioneers! (1913) and The Professor's House. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 for One of Ours.

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    Reviews for My Antonia

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      My Antonia by Willa Cather was well recommended to me a number of times. The last book of Cather’s Prairie Trilogy, I read the first 2 books in order to make sense of the last. So it’s taken me a number of years to finally read this book about growing up on the farms and in a small Nebraska town during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The writing is simple and beautiful. the author’s love of the wide open spaces people by hardy Europeans shines in her every word. She has a wonderful ability to tell the stories of her characters in a comical yet compassionate way. We are in for more enjoyable adventures once Jim and his grandparents left the farm and moved to the city of Black Hawk. We quickly pass through his education and learn third hand what becomes of Antonia and others. It winds up rather quickly with a bit of sentimentality.
    • 5/5
      Wow. My first Willa Cather and I can't believe It's taken me so long. This was astonishing. Beautifully written with every open sky and blade of wind-blown grass innocently transcribed. The story feels familiar as Jim Burden is a prototypical Nick Carraway, condemned to observe, unable to effect change. I'm not the first to make the comparison and it appears that Fitzgerald judged his own work to be an inferior homage in some ways. Antonia is a tragic heroine, overflowing with life. are we supposed to be disappointed in her lack of success relative to Lena and Tiny, or, as I did, are we supposed to feel thrilled that she is married to a man who loves her and with whom she is bringing up 10 fabulous children? It doesn't matter much, I guess, but I am as captivated by Antonia as Jim.

      I look forward to reading more of Ms Cather.
    • 5/5
      It is a daunting task to find anything fresh to say about a book that is justifiably regarded as a classic, so I will keep this one fairly short. Willa Cather moved with her family from New England to rural Nebraska as a child, at a time when new farmland there was still being pioneered, so this tale of the state's development and specifically the experiences of the first generation immigrant farming families from Eastern Europe and Scandinavia that settled it, is inevitably coloured by her own experiences. She distances herself cleverly by making her narrator Jim Burden a man of her own age who for quite a large part of the book retains some distance from its heroine Ántonia, but who was also her childhood friend and neighbour.The story is beautifully paced and contains nothing superfluous. Cather's Nebraska is vividly realised and her attitudes to her characters and particularly those who fall foul of conventional moral judgments seem very modern for a book first published in 1918. For the most part she avoids sentimentality too, except perhaps a little in the final chapter, which seems forgiveable. It was also interesting to read a story that is so positive about immigration at a time when there is so much paranoia about it in popular political culture.
    • 4/5
      I managed to get through high school without reading Willa Cather. Someone recommended My Ántonia when I was looking for undramatic material suitable for reading before bedtime, and onto the wish list it went.Undramatic is an interesting label to apply to this book, which witnesses a suicide, an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, several amputations and a murder-suicide. The tone is what makes the story drowsy and golden-hued — romantic doesn't even begin to cover it. It was indeed pleasant to read before falling asleep.This novel is a good counterpoint to House of Mirth because the two novels have some shared structure — you can sense Ántonia's "downfall" approaching her as soon as she moves to town, and the narrator is occasionally exasperatingly useless (both of which remind me of House of Mirth). Cather doesn't write straight-up tragedies, however — her characters have a remarkable amount of self-determination. What could have been a fatal flaw (e.g. Lena's warmheartedness to married men) becomes a colorful personality detail. I love that the entire farming community gossips about Ole Benson following Lena around and years later Lena casually dismisses their gossip with a description of her generosity of spirit ('There was never any harm in Ole,' she said once. 'People needn't have troubled themselves. He just liked to come over and sit on the draw-side and forget about his bad luck.' [p. 226]).
    • 4/5
      Classic about Nebraska in the 1800s.
    • 5/5
      "As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea. The red of the grass made all the great prairie the colour of winestains, or of certain seaweeds when they are first washed up. And there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be running."


      This book is about the pioneer experience in Nebraska, particularly that of Eastern European immigrants, and is also the coming of age story of Jim Burden (narrator), and Ántonia. While the book is told from Jim's point of view, I felt more connected to Ántonia. Jim and Ántonia are friends from the moment they meet, and as the seasons and the landscape of Nebraska prairie change, so do Jim and Ántonia. They eventually take very different paths, but their friendship remains. Jim is a romantic, and very nostalgic about the past. Ántonia is the symbol of the past for him. I was wrapped up in his feelings of nostalgia, and longing for the past. As I was reading, I felt them too. I particularly loved his descriptions of the Nebraska prairie. 


      CAWPILE Rating:

      C- 9

      A- 10

      W- 10

      P- 6

      I- 9

      L- 10

      E- 10

      Avg= 9.1= ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

      #backtotheclassics (Classic from the Americas- includes the Caribbean)
      #mmdchallenge (a book published before you were born)
    • 4/5
      Reached back for a classic i had never read. A beautifully written book, with powerful descriptions of places, people and memories. An old-fashioned good read!
    • 5/5
      (This was read as part of my 2011 reading project, 100 Years, 100 Books, which commemorated RPL's 100th anniversary.)

      My friend Paula, a Nebraska native, has been after me to read this book for years and now I understand. I’d been spending nearly all of my reading time with early 20th century mysteries and, quite frankly, they’d become tedious. After forcing myself through The Red House by A.A. Milne, I really felt like I needed a change of pace. I had downloaded a whole bunch of free books to my Kindle for this reading project, and My Antonia just happened to be at the top of the list, so I casually opened it one night a week ago to see what it was all about.

      I found a beautiful, heartbreaking, luminous story that captivated me from the first page. Cather tells the story of Antonia Shimerda, a headstrong, handsome Bohemian girl whose family is transplanted to Black Hawk, Nebraska in the 19th century. Antonia’s story is told through the eyes of Jim Burden, an orphan who also arrives to live with his grandparents in Black Hawk on the same train as Antonia and her family. The two become fast friends whose lives twine around each other over the course of a lifetime.

      The interesting thing about this story that is so different from what I’ve been reading is that there really isn’t a storyline. This is a memoir, a re-telling of a bucolic if hard childhood on the prairie, coming of age in a small mid-western town, and adulthood not yet devoid of childhood innocence and affection between lifelong friends.

      I was reminded of two stories as I read this one – Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder and the 2010 Newbery winner Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool. The sod houses of Wilder’s early books are here, as is the red prairie grass, snakes, farms, and family devotion. The similarity to Manifest, Kansas is more in the characters drawn by Cather and Vanderpool than in the story. However, all three books share the same comforting, lovely tributes to the importance of family and friends.

      Cather’s characters, from Antonia and her regal but defeated father, to the foreign farm girls who go to town as “hired girls,” to Antonia’s husband and colorful tribe of children, to the narrator – Jim Burden himself – are finely drawn and developed with care and compassion. She captures the tender friendship between Antonia and Jim, which becomes the thread that twines through the entire story and ultimately makes it successful.

      A beautiful book that will stay with me for a long, long time.
    • 5/5
      Long ago, a grad school writing teacher recommended we read Willa Cather. It's taken me way too long to follow his advice.

      This is an exquisite novel about life on the frontier and the immigrant experience in America. But mainly about love, loss, innocence, the pain of growing up, and "how much people can mean to each other."

      The characters are passionate, beautifully drawn, yet consistently surprising. Cather's technique is indirect, or as she called it "unfurnished." What's left out is often more important than what's stated. The reader is left to interpret the meaning and importance of ambiguous actions and feelings.

      It used to said that the late 19th Century was the Golden Age of the Novel. But I think it was the first two decades of the 20th Century when the form reached its zenith. That's when Joyce, Lawrence, and Conrad were writing books with unprecedented technical brilliance and psychological depth. In her quiet, understated way, Willa Cather was doing the same.
    • 4/5
      What a lovely story of life on the midwestern prairie in a place and time not far removed from my own family. The life was hard, but the joy of being alive and human and a part of it something bigger than oneself was pervasive, particularly as it pertained to Antonia, she of the overwhelming life force. The story was somewhat slow to start as we got to know the characters and watched them growing up, but the payoff was more than worth it, seeing Antonia and Jim both finding themselves and forging their fates.
    • 5/5
      Having never read any of Willa Cather’s books in my teenage years – Cather was not required reading in the Canadian school system during my days – it is only recently that I have come to experience, and appreciate, her wonderful stories and the sparse, clear quality of her writing. I have a love for stories that depict the harsh realities of 19th century (and early 20th century) prairie life. While told from the point of view of Jim, the story is very much a pastoral expression about forging friendships and strong women. While some novels of this nature tend to merely communicate a place and time – like a picture - Cather’s story is a sentimental story, a wistful longing to revisit fond memories. How can one have fond memories of a harsh prairie winter, of the wretched scrabble for survival for newly immigrated families and confining feeling of certain social strictures? For Cather, even those harsh realities cannot hold back the beauty that can reside in an individual filled with kindness, optimism, strength, determination, and the full potential of life. Some may feel that Cather has not adequately focused on those harsh realities, but to expect that would be to miss what I believe to be the point of Cather’s story: to give readers a story of courage and endurance set against the expansive prairie sky.
    • 3/5
      I was forced to read this book for class, and trust me "forced" is the right word. There is no way I would have read this book had I not been held responsible for knowing what it was about. The writing is inarguably beautiful at times, but there was no distinct plot, very limited characterization, and overall, I think the story could have been told in a better way. I do not have any plans to reread this anytime soon.
    • 3/5
      Similar to Little House on the Prairie but intended for adults, I wasn't sure what to expect when I started this. I will admit I didn't read the first two books in the Great Plains trilogy, but that didn't stop me from enjoying this book and I thought it read well as a stand alone. My Antonia is am old mans recollection of a girl from his youth. For some reason he never could get Antonia out of his mind and his childhood was drastically shaped by her. Antonia was an immigrant girl several years his junior who moved to the plains the same time he did. He taught her to read and speak English and she taught him what to value in a girl. Their story gets a little more complicated as he ages and even goes through some rough patches but they always respected each other even when they moved apart and led vastly different lives. The ending though... not quite what I anticipated. Also, I'm still unsure if I liked the narrator, I have a lot of feelings about this book and I need to discuss it with my book club to suss it out ;)
    • 4/5
      At its heart, My Antonia is an immigrant novel, but not the kind of immigrant novel you would find written today. Jim's Antonia certainly epitomizes the immigrant dream. Seen through Jim's perspective only, that dream is romanticized tremendously. The dream of making a home in a new country, of starting over from scratch, of finding a modicum of success. If not for yourself, then for your children. It is a novel that also pays homage to the beauty of the Nebraskan prairie.

      My family is Pennsylvania Dutch, and my ancestors got their start in America back in the late 1700s and early 1800s as immigrant farmers in rural Pennsylvania. While reading My Antonia, I couldn't help but make comparisons to my own ancestors - whom I know very little about - but who I have always imagined to homestead and farm in much the same way as the characters in this book.
    • 5/5
      Can't believe I haven't read Willa Cather before this. My Antonia is like Little House on the Prairie for grown-ups. Particularly relevant now because so many characters are recent immigrants.
    • 4/5
      Beautiful!
    • 5/5
      Beautiful story. Beatifully written.
    • 3/5
      Bored.Bored.Bored.None of the characters were really compelling to me. None stood out. None were memorable. Nothing of any interest or note happened to grab my attention (aside from a very brief episode unrelated to the main characters near the end - at the risk of spoiling anything there was a few paragraphs on a murder suicide that was far more interesting than anything in the rest of the book).
    • 5/5
      What a gorgeous evocation of a very particular time and place. I am pretty disappointed in myself that I have never read Willa Cather, and I will be reading more.
    • 5/5
      This was simply a beautiful book to read. Willa Cather's tale of a young daughter of Bohemian immigrants on the Nebraska frontier is a delight from beginning to end. Antonia Shimerda's life is narrated by her friend Jim Burden. The story of her growth, travails and eventual success in becoming one with the land is one of the great frontier stories of America. Willa Cather captures the spirit of the land with wonderful descriptions of the landscape and life on the frontier; and its people by capturing of the emotions of the characters. It is similar in this aspect to Rolvaag's Giants in the Earth which I first read about the same time. Cather traversed this county in several of her books including this novel which is her masterpiece.
    • 4/5
      This novel reads like Laura Ingalls Wilder for grown-ups, mixing childhood nostalgia with scratching up a living in the early prairie years. It was all work at the time, but it came with its own rewards and encouraged friendliness among neighbours who needed to look out for one another when lacking most social services. It's also a good view into the immigrant experience, reminding all of us with European stock that we originally came from somewhere else and it's only a question of how far back. The novel is semi-autobiographical, featuring descriptions of the land filled with grace and style and drawn from Willa Cather's childhood memories. It was clearly a place she loved. It's a quiet novel plot-wise, but it goes a long way to extolling the virtues of unglamorous everyday lives. I've more than one LT member to thank for bringing this book to my attention. Filed among the comfort reads.
    • 5/5
      Jim Burden, now a successful lawyer in New York, reflects back on his childhood growing up in Nebraska where he befriends Antonia, a recent immigrant girl from Bohemia. Although they come from different circumstances, their shared life on the farm as kids forms a bond that lasts a lifetime.
    • 3/5
      A boy moves in with his grandparents in rural Nebraska, meets some immigrant neighbors, later moves to the city. There isn't much in the way of plot, which usually bothers me but for some reason didn't this time. I was content to just let the story flow without worrying about where it was going, if anywhere. I think part of it was that the location - nature, weather, scenery - was such a big part of the story. This is not the sort of book I'd want to reread (especially the last section when everyone is all grown up), and honestly I'm not even sure who I'd recommend it to, if anyone. But I'm glad to have read it all the same, and some day I hope to visit rural Nebraska to see these lushly described locales in person (if they still exist).
    • 3/5
      I was forced to read this book for class, and trust me "forced" is the right word. There is no way I would have read this book had I not been held responsible for knowing what it was about. The writing is inarguably beautiful at times, but there was no distinct plot, very limited characterization, and overall, I think the story could have been told in a better way. I do not have any plans to reread this anytime soon.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book. Cather conveyed beautifully the landscapes and heartaches that made up the story.
    • 5/5
      What a beautiful and wonderful surprise this was. Going in, I knew that this was (1) about Nebraska, and (2) in the realm of things I usually like. I know very little about Nebraska except that there is lots of corn, and they are passionate about their college football. So, though I expected to like [My Antonia], I wasn’t sure how well I could relate to it. Well, it swept me up into a very intimate tale of Jim Burden who moves to Nebraska as a child and befriends a Bohemian family, especially their daughter Antonia. The story follows their early life on the farm, and then move to town, where Jim goes to school and Antonia works. We then follow Jim to college where he and another of the country girls develop a relationship and he learns of Antonia’s troubles. Finally, we are left with a view of Antonia, her many children, and her farm. Country girls: “…I can remember something unusual and engaging about each of them. Physically they were almost a race apart, and out-of-door work had given them a vigor which, when they got over their first shyness on coming to town, developed into a positive carriage and freedom of movement, and made them conspicuous among Black Hawk women.” Vs. Town girls: “When one danced with them, their bodies never moved inside their clothes; their muscles seemed to ask but one thing – not to be disturbed. I remember those girls merely as faces in the schoolroom, gay and rosy, or listless and dull, cut off below the shoulders, like cherubs…” This country girl appreciates those descriptions. Cather has a way of describing the landscape that makes you almost taste it. “Trees were so rare in that country, and they had to make such a hard fight to grow, that we used to feel anxious about them, and visit them as if they were persons. It must have been the scarcity of detail in that tawny landscape that made detail so precious.” It has the melancholy texture of home. There are certain smells, plants, and sounds that instantly transport me to my youth. There is a feeling about the place one grows up that is hard to describe. There is a love that wells up that is not attached to an explicit memory but exists in some larger connection with a place and its people. But there is also the tension of success. There is the idea that leaving and making your way is success, while staying home is a compromise. For someone like me who never wants to live in the home of my youth again, there is also the struggle of infusing your new life with the things of your past that were special to you. There is the urge to move forward, while not forgetting. It is something I think Cather shows us through the immigrants – those who wish to assimilate completely, those who wish to maintain their old life, and those who need to find a balance between the two. For me it was extremely powerful and evoked thoughts that I had not been able to fully form before – and this is the reason I read.And finally, on Antonia: “Antonia had always been one to leave images in the mind that did not fade – that grew stronger with time. In my memory there was a succession of such pictures, fixed there like the old woodcuts of one’s first primer: Antonia kicking her bare legs against the sides of my pony when we came home in triumph with our snake; Antonia in her black shawl and fur cap, as she stood by her father’s grave in the snowstorm; Antonia coming in with her work-team along the evening sky-line. She lent herself to immemorial human attitudes which we recognize by instinct as universal and true. I had not been mistaken. She was a battered woman now, not a lovely girl; but she still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one’s breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things. She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last. All the strong things of her heart came out in her body, that had been so tireless in serving generous emotions. It was no wonder that her sons stood tall and straight. She was a rich mine of life, like the founders of early races.”
    • 5/5
      I read this book for a bookclub at work (we're creating our own "Finer Things Club", like from The Office). I was a bit apprehensive, but that was totally undeserved. This was a wonderful story about life on the Plains of Nebraska. If you loved the Little House on the Prairie series, then I think you'd love this book as well.The story is told through Jim, who befriends Antonia when they are young. The both have hard lives and take completely different paths as they grow, but that never changes the love and the admiration that they have for each other and all of their memories together. This is truly a touching, heart warming story and I would definitely recommend it.
    • 4/5
      Nostalgia. Nicely done.
    • 5/5
      My work book club read My Antonia by Willa Cather last month. I read it 15 years ago and gave it 5 stars then. You can’t beat her depictions of life on the prairie and the mix of characters. If you grew up liking Laura Ingalls you will like this. It made me want to re-read all of Cather’s works. I remember loving Death Comes for the Archbishop when I was in high school. I’m sure it is one that will be even better now.
    • 3/5
      Jim and Antonia are two young children that are both going to Nebraska with their families. Jim is of American descent and Antonia is of Bohemian descent. Antonia's family is destitute and lives in a sod hut, but learn to work the land. As children, they are great friends. Jim always has a real "love" for Antonia and all of her liveliness. You can tell that he has always loved her, even if he hasn't quite figured that out for himself.Life sends them in different directions, but they remain friends throughout life.The descriptive writing in this novel is wonderful. You can almost feel the wind blow, the moon rise, the sun ascend as you are reading this.