Willa Cather Books

Willa Cather is one of the top five American writers. She gets little notice, it seems, today. I find that very strange, given the feminist movement in America. I've read three of her other books and this is the oddest, and most wonderful, or perhaps I forget how O Pioneers, Death Comes for the Archbishop and My Antonia affected me so greatly.

Nothing seems to happens in her books and yet they blow me away and I remember them always. I do not exaggerate that they haunt me. I know that sounds dramatic, but that is what a good book does.

I struggled with this book. I'd read twenty pages, put it down for weeks, come back and read twenty more pages and then, finally I said I was going to finish it. As I was starting to read the last sixty pages -- it is a short book -- I was thinking to myself: 'I'm sorry I ever started to read this.' I was merely finishing it as a sense of duty. But then, the last thirty-five pages had me by my heart and it 'explained' all that I had plodded through previously.

I don't know if I can recommend this book. I'd fear that it would bore to tears any friend who would read it. But for me, it's effect is monumental --- and it has been a while that I can say that about most books I've read. I suspect that this book does not move younger readers as it does older readers, as it is a summing up of a man's life and how he has lived it. I'm not sure that a person who has not put many years into living would understand Miss Cather's brilliance in how she does this through --ironically--a quite ordinary professor's life.

I've been reading some of the Cather books and have enjoyed all of them. The best part of this book is her story within a story technique. Her descriptions of the American southwest are outstanding. This book held my attention, especially as it progressed. It is not as good as "My Antonia", which to me is her all time best, but it is an excellent reading experience.

I am a huge Willa Cather fan and have been reading her novels in the order she wrote them. I started "The Professor's House" in eager anticipation, because I just LOVED "A Lost Lady," the book that preceded it.

"The Professor's House" has many, many good elements, but ultimately I was disappointed. The last part of the book was unworthy of what had gone before. In the end, I felt as though I'd invested a lot in the Professor and that that investment had not paid off. I'm glad I read it, but think it's nowhere close to one of Cather's best.

I thought the first two section of the book were excellent. I believed almost everything about the Professor's life and his relationships. My only criticism of the beginning portion of the novel was Cather's superficial and, yes, bigoted attitude toward the Jewish son-in-law, Louie Marsellus. I didn't have a problem accepting Louie as a real person. But Cather could only see him and comment on him as "the other." One of Cather's great strengths is her understanding of how the world looks to the different characters in her novels. She may not agree with who they are and how they act, but she is usually deeply empathetic. Not so with Louie. The fact that he is a Jew is somehow taken as an explanation for everything. Even in 1925, I expect better of a writer of Cather's insight and talent. Interestingly, Louie is ultimately one of the most sympathetic and generous characters in the novel. But Cather writes as though she'd never had a close Jewish friend, or never applied her prodigious imagination to contemplate Louie's psychology and point of view.

Still, even with the problem with Louie, I thought the first book was very good. It was filled with the wonderful writing and the psychological, sociological and philosophical depth that I so admire in Cather.

I also enjoyed the second book, Tom Outland's story. I agree with an earlier reviewer that the section set in Washington, D.C. was particularly good. I was raised in Washington, and my mother's family has lived there since the 1840's. Cather just NAILED the town.

But it all came to a crashing halt in the final section, when we return to the Professor's story. Did Cather lose interest? Did she not know where to go with the Professor? This section was too short and undeveloped. The first two parts of the book deserved a more thorough and satisfying conclusion. I particularly objected to the section about how the Professor had gotten back in touch with the unthinking boy he'd been back in Kansas. Hogwash. Not credible. This guy's an intellectual. He might come to see the limits of what many academics pretentiously call "the life of the mind." But jettison it entirely for some romantic, unreal Tom Sawyer fantasy? I don't think so.

My advice: do read "The Professor's House," but don't make it your first Cather book.

Those expecting something as vivid and moving as "My Antonia" will be sorely disappointed by this book. Ms. Cather was at her worst when she wrote in imitation of earlier lady novelists such as Edith Wharton or Henry James, and the entire first half of this novel concerns the intrigues of a Midwest Brahmin family. During this part there is absolutely no plot, just tedious description and some of the most stilted dialogue ever written. The cardboard characters include the good-natured protagonist, Professor St. James, and his two daughters, one sweet (Cordelia?) and one rapacious (Goneril?). The bad daughter is lolling in luxury due to the avaricious machinations of her husband, who, naturally, is a Jew - a stereotypical Jew, the worst kind.

If that weren't bad enough, when a plot is finally introduced it concerns a preposterous device (or substance) called "the Outland vacuum" which is said to concern bulkheads and be a boon to aviation. It seems as though the novel will now hinge on the moral issue of who is entitled to the rewards for this great discovery (the Outland vacuum may also be a gas), but I suspect that at this point Ms. Cather realized that she had gone in over her head, and the novel comes to a sudden halt. The next page begins a second novel, about as bad as the first but which takes place among cowboys out West who discover a lost Indian city.

Alas, this likewise amounts to little, and we eventually return to the warmhearted professor who comes to the good-ol' American conclusion that being rich and famous is not all it's cracked up to be, and real happiness is found among the plain folk.

Y'know, people, just because something is old and ostensibly literature doesn't mean it's really great. My only worry is that schoolkids will be forced to read this - under the theory that classic fiction is "good" for them - and they will thus be alienated from reading books because they're so dull.

I read My Antonia and loved it so much that I consider it one of my favorite books. And, that's why I really really really wanted to like this book. But after giving it a chance for about 218 pages, I couldn't bear it any longer.

The problems I have with this book are as follows:

1) I understand the book's plot of the professor trying to find meaning in his life. That's the book I was looking for. The problem is that the Tom Outland character does not get you there and most of the text of the book is on this character.

2) Which brings me to my biggest gripe about this book, and Cather in particular. Cather cannot, to save her life, write a believable male character. Tom Outland is supposed to be an orphaned boy turned cowboy around the turn of the century, but Cather managed to make him out to be so unbelievably feminine that I found myself in wonder at how little she knows about men. She holds Outland out to be the hero of the story, the inspiration behind the Professor's motivation. That's fine, but if I'm supposed to conclude the Professor part of the story, then I have to buy Outland's character and it's just not possible. Here are some examples of Cather not being believable:

a) When she describes Tom Outland's hands through the professor's eyes, she describes them as beautiful and delicate. Worse still, she bothers to describe them in detail. Men don't do that.

b) Around page 218 when she begins Outland's tirade against Blake she makes Outland sound off like a nagging wife about how Blake shouldn't have sold the pottery etc. Men don't argue this way with friends; they don't have hissy fits - they stay quiet!

c) After the argument in (b) above, as Blake leaves the scene, she describes Outland wishing to run after him and hold him in his arms. Men just don't think like that.

d) When Outland is in Washington D.C. trying to get people to take interest in the pottery he discovered, he lets himself get ignored, disrespected, and he waits by tolerantly while being stepped on by people in positions of power. That's not a description of a turn of the century orphaned cowboy; that's a description of a turn of the century well-to-do woman of society - the only world Cather appears to know.

e) Whenever Tom Outland meets other men in his life as a cowboy, they are always really "nice and pleasant". Indeed they are overly accommodating. Huh? I could see cowboys being really respectful and accommodating to a beautiful woman of society (like Cather) but an orphaned cowboy? She just puts too much of herself in this character. I couldn't buy it.

3) Now before reviewers think my gripes are based on some sort of homophobia, let me just say that if it had been a story about men in love with each other, I would have accepted that as at least being believable. But that's not Cather's intention. Outland ends up marrying the professor's daughter. Is Cather trying to send out a bisexual message of some kind? Was the professor gay? The text just does not support any kind of homosexual message either explicitly or implicitly.

4) Cather plays out Outland to be this super human being. Indeed he is the inspiration to the Professor and all the other characters in the book. But if that's the case, why is he on the wrong side of the moral debate on the Dreyfus affair? Cather wrote this book in 1925; twenty five years after all the facts had already come out on that case and yet Cather has Outland take the side of bigots?

5) In Outland's tirade against Blake, Outland chews him out for selling ancient pottery belonging to native Indian tribes. Earlier in the book it's concluded that the tribe was decimated by outsiders. In chastising Blake, Outland declares that Blake was wrong to sell the pottery because it was not his. He says that the pottery belongs to his country, to the State etc. That's the best our hero can do? Wouldn't the right thing to do be to leave the ruins to themselves and not dig up the belongings of the decimated people - i.e. let them rest in peace?

Anyway, I was sorely disappointed. I gave The Professor's House one star more than it deserves only because My Antonia deserves six.

Critic Leon Edel wrote of Cather, "The time will come when she'll be ranked above Hemingway." Well, I'm there! In fact, I've been there since I finished "O Pioneers." For the last several years, I've been reading her books in order and just marvel at Cather's talent, her insights, and the economy of her writing.

I was disappointed in "One of Ours," the Pulitzer-Prize winning book that preceded "A Lost Lady.' The Midwest sequences in "One of Ours" were fine, but Cather seemed lost in unfamiliar territory when the setting switched to World War I France. "One of Ours" was a memorial tribute to a beloved relative of Cather's, so perhaps her emotions got the better of her writing and her observations.

I was glad that she returned to the land and people she knew best with "A Lost Lady."

Every word in this little book rang true to me. Every character - major and minor - was alive and fully realized. The events and settings - all vivid and deeply credible.

In fact, I stayed in bed all one morning to finish this book. Like a great mystery - this was a "page turner" for me. Cather sprinkles delicious hints throughout that propelled me forward. The satsifaction I felt at the end was similar to what one feels after finishing a first-rate mystery - only here the satisfaction was on the much higher plane of great literature.

If you've read "O Pioneers," "Song of the Lark," or "My Antonia," you know that Cather understood strong, admirable women. What a revelation that she could ALSO write a great book with a charming but weak woman as its central character. We admire and like Marian Forrester for her wit and grace, while at the same time we deplore her superficiality and hypocrisy.

Like Neil, we never are quite sure who Mrs. Forrester is, what she thinks, or what motivates her. But that is precisely what makes this book such a work of art - and so true to life. I expect to reflect on Mrs. Forrester, Neil, the Captain - even Ivy Peters - and the others for many years to come.

This probably should not be the first Cather book you read. "O Pioneers" or "My Antonia" are probably better choices. But don't lose sight of this small but dazzling jewel.

Once again Willa Cather vividly and yet quietly brings out the inherent loneliness of the American homesteading West.

Set in a small railroad town, the story focuses on one young man's perception of a "lady" who he sees as unlike any other that he has know. Beautiful, lively, kind, aloof yet she shows a warmth and depth that Neil (the protaganist) was unused to in his frontier town.

Over time, heart-ache and isolation eventually cause her to lose her soul.

Cather is a genious in her quiet portrayial of this lonely woman and the on-going breaking of her spirit. Loneliness invades every word, every image and every character in "The Lost Woman".

I would recommend that this novel be listened to as well as read. Reading Cather is a joy, but there are so many details of language that are easy to dismiss unless you can hear the words.

Wonderful.

This is a simply written but thematically complex, metaphoric story, replete with subtle nuances. The events that transpire are seen primarily through the eyes of a boy who comes of age, a contrivance that the author successfully employed in her best selling classic, "My Antonia". Here, it is no less successful. Through the eyes of Neil Herbert, who lives in Sweet Water, a prospective railroad hub on the Western plains in one of the prairie states, the reader gets to know Marian Forrester. She is the much younger, envied wife of one of the town's more prominent and wealthier citizens, Captain Daniel Forrester, a former railroad contractor.

As Neil grows into a man, his adoration of the lovely Mrs. Forrester undergoes a change. He sees her fall from the pedestal from where he and all the townspeople have placed her and sees her, really sees her, warts and all, for the first time, when he discovers her involved in an unexpected peccadillo. It comes as a shock to him that she may not be all that she seems to be. Still, his life is closely entwined with hers, as his uncle, with whom he lives, is Captain Forrester's personal attorney and of the same social standing in this socially circumscribed backwater.

Just as Neil's perception of Mrs. Forrester begins to change in his eyes, so do the fortunes of the town and that of Captain Forrester. As Mrs. Forrester physically deteriorates under the strain of the vicissitudes of fate, so do the town and its surrounding environs. As she revives, leaving behind her old values and adopting new ones that are anathema to those who respect the traditional ones, her revival parallels changes in the town itself, as the old makes way for the new. These changes also parallel the shifts occurring on the American frontier, as social mores and personal values undergo a change, and those stalwart pioneer values give way to new ones.

Beautifully descriptive of a bygone era and laconic in its pace, this is most certainly a novel to be savored. Fans of the author will especially enjoy it.

Compelling in its description of time and place, A Lost Lady is about old railroad society and chronicles the graceful standout Marian Forrester, a great lady of the old school. In a time where ladies wore dresses and were hosts to house parties and dinner parties, Mrs. Forrester, the second wife of Daniel Forrester, comes from California to a small railroad town in the midwest called Sweet Water to homestead and receive great men of the railroad at her home. She falls upon hard times and new money takes over old money, but she is always revered by Neil Forrester, a young boy who watches her downfall. Mrs. Forrester is the last holdout from old times, and she remains a fixture in Neil's memory long after the last railroad has been built.

What a beautiful story! What a magnificent writer Willa Cather is. This relatively short story is sure to captivate any fan of hers who has not had the pleasure of perusing this gem yet. If you enjoyed "My Antonia" and/or "O Pioneers!", then I can guaranty you, you will simply love this novella.

"A Lost Lady" is the story of Marian Forrester and her much older, but very charming and amicable husband Captain Daniel Forrester. The Forrester's live in the small Western town of Sweet Water. The novel is written through the eyes of a young man Niel Herbert who also lives in Sweet Water and is good friends with the Forrester's. Ever since he was a young boy, Niel, along with just about everyone else in Sweet Water, is truly entranced by the grace, charm and beauty of Mrs. Forrester. She is the true embodiment, the aesthetic ideal of the perfect woman. However, as Niel grows up and becomes a young man he slowly but surely learns that this goddess is not without her flaws and short comings. In many ways, Marian Forrester, is our American version of Flaubert's Emma Bovary. However, Cather paints for us a much more simplistic, endearing, and sympathetic character than the latter in my opinion.

This is such a beautiful piece of literature. It may not take the average bibliophile long to finish this work, but the favorable impression it will leave upon you makes this one to good to pass up. My only knock, I wish the story was longer, for I was truly absorbed from the first page to the last.

5 STARS without thinking twice!

I loved this book. It is detail and description based rather than plot based, and that is why it is so beautiful. Cather creates a compelling portrait of the sacramentality that it is possible to create in an otherwise ordinary existence, and the ways in which a sense of sacredness pervades and enlivens what would otherwise be a torturous and barbaric life. The interesting details of frontier life in the seventeenth century, specifically the ones relating to food (mysterious chocolate for breakfast, growing lettuce in the cellar in the winter, etc.) were fascinating, as were many of the tangential characters introduced through each of the novel's six books.

I found her idealized description of a Catholic/Christian society frustrating, not from narrowness or inaccuracy, but from my own sense that such a society is impossible now and was probably impossible then as well, as much as I wish that it had really existed and still exists somewhere in the world. I cannot recommend this book enough. Please read.

I agree with the person who mentioned that this is not the book to purchase if you are looking for action or adventure, but if you are looking for beauty and personality then this is the book for you.
Being about Quebec three hundred years ago it goes into detail about people from all the various ways of life, including the very poor and disabled to the Govenor of the state and Bishops who knew the King.
I laughed, I cried, and I just finished the book moments ago and am having a difficult time not hugging it constantly.

This book is like a wonderful trip back in time with endearing characters and the backdrop of old Quebec as it's setting. A central character named "Cecile" introduces us to many interesting people like poor Blinker who is sort of a Hunchback of Notre Dame type but who is really gentle and kind. And then there is Jacques whose mother is sort of the village harlot but he is full of love and wonder and is a great companion for Cecile.This book will inspire you to travel to Quebec City which is one of my favorite places to visit. The architecture, the culture of the French-Canadians is a real delight.

I can but echo the other favorable reviews already here: this book is one of the most magical and delightful I know of. The society and civilization of Quebec in 1697 are so remote from our own that this story might as well be classified as fantasy, and it makes us entirely absorbed in the life and times of the people in the city. The story is told in the 3rd person and the central character is Cecile Auclair, a girl of 12, who lives with her widowed father, the town pharmacist.

I can well understand why some younger readers do not like it. It does indeed use some "French words," and there is not a lot of "action." Older readers will not mind this.

I was given this book in 1967. It was the senior Religion prize at my Jesuit high school. Readers should be aware that some appreciation for the viewpoints and beliefs of the Catholic Church, as it was in 1700, will help in savoring this book.

Willa Cather wrote "Shadows on the Rock"(1931) late in her novelistic career following her more famous book, "Death Comes for the Archbishop."(1927). As is the earlier book, "Shadows on the Rock" is influenced heavily by Cather's fascination with Catholicism (a religion she did not practice), her love of French civilization, and her interest in frontier places.

Cather's novel is set in the remote world of "New France", in French Quebec of 1697. The story tells of the early French settlers and of the reasons which impelled them to leave France in search of a new life in a difficult, harsh land. Located on a forbidding cliff on the St. Lawrence River, Quebec was inaccessible to incoming ships from France or elsewhere for all but the summer months.

The main characters in the novel are Cecile Aubade, a girl of twelve, and her father Euclide, an apothecary who came to Quebec together with its governor, Frontenac. Euclide's wife had died in Quebec two years before the story begins in 1697 and Cecile is showing as caring for her father, preparing his meals, cleaning the house, and tending the apothecary in has absence. The book is a coming-of-age story for Cecile, but it differs from the usual form of coming-of-age books in its quiet flow, stress on the ordinary world of everyday, and domesticity.

Cather gives the reader a picture of the life of old Quebec through the interactions of its people with Cecile and Euclide. We meet Frontenac and two rival bishops, the pious aged Bishop Laval, the much more worldy Bishop Saint-Vallier, and a host of clergy and nuns, some devoted to mysticism and solitude. Cather also shows the reader the more secular side of Quebec in many humble people, sellers at outdoor markets, sailors, refugees from France, and fur trappers, especially a man named Pierre Charron, whose heart was broken when his sweetheart took up the life of the cloister and rigorous spirituality. Cecile befriends a seven-year old boy named Jacques, the son of a prostitute. The friendship between Jacques and Cecile receives much attention in the book. Jacques is invited to the family's Christmas celebration and places a toy beaver, made for him by a sailor, in the family creche, symbolizing the coming of Christianity to the New World.

With the exception of a short epilogue, the book is told over the course of one year of Cecile's life in Quebec. This timeframe affords Cather the opportunity of describing Quebec and its environs in beautiful detail throughout the course of the year and to watch the maturation of Cecile and her increased devotion to Quebec. The story celebrates place, rootedness, religion, domesticity, and the value of living life in the everyday. Events in Quebec are contrasted with life in France with its wars and corruption. The even flow of Cather's book tends to mask some of the instances of torture and death practiced in the Old Regime that she describes.

This novel has always been recognized as static and unexciting. But Cather's recent biographer, Janis Stout, aptly describes the book as "luminous and significant." "Shadows on the Rock" was a best-seller when it appeared, even though the book received a poor critical reception. The critics found the book showed a tendency towards escapism from the modern world and its difficulties and an attitude of sentimentality and romanticism. The book has an underlying tone of irony. The world of old Quebec is portrayed with an aura of stability and permanence while the reader knows, as Cather knows, that fifty years after the time that the book ends, France will lose Quebec forever together with its possessions in the New World.

Although this book does not rank with Cather's best work, I was moved by it and found the criticisms overdone. In its emphasis on contentment, finding joy in the everyday, and the virtues of family life, "Shadows on the Rock" has something to teach today's world.

Robin Friedman

The picture on the book, the edition and the publisher that was presented was not the book that we received. We needed the edition that was represented when we purchased it. We were very disappointed when we opened the mail to find the wrong item and we had to order another book. We paid almost $9 to someone who knew by the cover it was not the same book they were shipping.

It wasn't the best of times, or the worst of times..but it was a special time. A time when special bonds were forged, and one's character refined. Even at the time of it's publication in 1918, My Antonia depicted a life that most Americans were unfamiliar with..the life of the 1st settlers on the 19th century great Midwestern plains of America.

Antonia Shimerda was one such settler. Cather's novel is about her, but it is about more than just an individual. Antonia is a Bohemian immigrant who came to the wild Nebraska plains with her family in the 1880s. She is a character modeled on a person Willa Cather knew while growing up in Nebraska. There is much of Cather herself in Antonia, although the author's life mirrors that of the novel's narrator, Jim Burden. You could say that Cather's intellect resides in Burden, while her personality and spirit reside in Antonia.

My Antonia is a fond reminiscence of the author's youth, a tribute to the American pioneer spirit, an examination of the immigrant experience, and a celebration of the unspoiled Midwestern landscape. Mencken described it as the most beautiful romantic novel ever written in America, but I think the romance has as much to do with time and place as with any person. A strong theme deals with finding one's station in life under extreme conditions and harsh circumstances, and about the compromises and sacrifices people make to find it.

Sparse but beautifully descriptive in it's prose, heartfelt and touching, without being mawkishly sentimental in it's feeling, My Antonia is a true American classic.

My Antonia is droning and full of pointless imagry. Although I understand that is a "classic" novel, it really just put me to sleep. Endless descriptions of the seemingly endless prairie made the book much longer than it should be. Although the plot is good and Antonia and Jim's coming of age is something most people can relate to, the events portrayed seem to modern to be happening in Black Hawk, Nebraska-1890's. Everyone's story is that of personal success and happiness. There are no plot twists and turns to keep the book interesting and after reading this book I doubt that I will ever pick up another Willa Cather novel again.

The trappers and the Mountain Men grew old. Carson stayed on but most went east. The wagon trains moved on to California and Oregon. Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp ended their days near New York City. Antonia stayed. Not many others did.
Lied to by land agents, often speaking no English and ignorant of farming, they found themselves on plains and prairies whose very extent is frightening, and at the mercy of constant wind, blizzard, drought, hail, prairie fire, locusts ... the list goes on and on. Five minutes of hail might wipe out a crop ready for harvest. Rain is too much or too little, and never at the right time. In blizzards, men and women have gotten lost and frozen to death between the house and the barn; and the roads may not open for weeks. Railroad rates were exorbitant and the local banks - themselves struggling to survive - ever ready to foreclose.
Antonia would have seen the wagons rolling East: "In God We Trusted. In Nebraska we busted."
Few of her descendants stayed on. Like Cather herself and Jim Burden, the lure of the outside world, the city, was strong. There were often too many kids to leave each enough land to live on. One hundred - twenty, one hundred - fifty years later, a few of the old names survive. One is Pavelka. Antonia Shimerda is the real person, Annie Pavelka. We leave her in 1914, but she lived well into the 1950s and is buried near Red Cloud, Nebrasks. Her stone is a monument to that tough, stubborn breed who turned the Great American Desert into the breadbasket of the world.
Read about her. You'll take her to your heart.

While Jim Burden, an established lawyer from New York City sits on the train, returning to his childhood home in Nebraska, he recalls with melancholy his years there and his friendship with the daughter of the Bohemian immigrants - Antonia Shimerda. The narrative captivates the reader from the first moment, with its rich imagery and love of the pioneer life, based on the author's life experience, visible at every page.

Jim arrived at his grandparents' house in Black Hawk, Nebraska, as an orphan, when he was ten year old. He is a clever, quick-learning, sensitive and observant boy, who learns hard working habits and good life principles from his grandparents. Jim describes the Shimerda family as he sees them, but includes also the opinions of his grandparents and neighbors. We follow Antonia and Jim through their hard, but happy childhood, through teen years. Jim goes to school, while Antonia works as a seamstress' aide, but as a lively, headstrong girl, she likes the public dances and soon falls in love with a wrong man...
When Jim leaves for college, he loses contact with Antonia, and only after his arrival during this visit, after twenty years, will he see her again - and find her different, but at peace with life. The novel focuses on Antonia, but, being written from Jim's perspective, is his story as well as hers.

Jim and Antonia's lives epitomize the lives of many pioneers in the West and I am not surprised to find this novel in the American literary school canon. It combines history with American tradition and spirit and it is written with a lot of charm. The descriptions of the everyday village life, chores and opportunities for young girls and boys are captivating. The author managed to create an image of people living in harmony with the surrounding environment, sometimes in need to conquer it, sometimes fighting with the conditions. The rich, descriptive prose teleports the reader into the world of the prairie frontier village in Nebraska. "My Antonia" could be a treat for American history fans (shaping the nation at its roots), for feminists (many strong female characters appear here, as well as the limitations set for women at that time and place), for naturalists (plants and animals are a great presence here) and for those who like the classics of literature. Highly recommended.

I have am working my way through the Cather collection (I have read O Pioneers, Song of the Lark, and My Antonia) and I have to say that of the works I have read, this is my least favorite. I agree with the other reviewers that this book gives a brief glimpse into a beautiful tragedy. The problem with this book is that the story, and the emotions feel too contrived for Cather, like she was trying too hard. She carries it off well with her superb writing, rallying my score from three stars to four.

Willa Cather's short poignant novel was written in 1935. The story takes place in the early twentienth century and contrasts the American plains, the small town of Haverford, Nebraska, with Chicago, large urban American with its promise and perils. The heroine of the book, Lucy Gayheart, has great pianistic talent. She leaves Haverford at the age of 18 to study piano, and to give music lessons, in Chicago.

In Chicago she meets a great but disillusioned and world-weary singer, Clement Sebastian, and has the opportunity to work with him as an accompanyist. There are wonderful descriptions of Schubert song-cycles: the Winterreise and the Miller's Lovely Daughter. She ultimately is seemingly faced with the choice between Sebastian and her hometown sweetheart.

Faced with tragedy from both men in Chicago, Lucy returns home. She gears herself to begin life anew but tragedy again intervenes.

There is a great deal of description in the book of the snow andthe cold, in both Chicago and Haverford. The book also has for me a feel for the tragic sense of life, with a hint of the power of art and religious faith to overcome it. The opposition between city life and provincial town life is similar to Sinclair Lewis's Main Street but with more depth and craft in the writing. The love for music, the human voice and the piano eloquently comes through the book.

This is a beautifully wrought book which deserves to be better known.

A hundred years after the novel is set, the contrast between Chicago and Nebraska still rings true. Having lived in both places, I admire Cather's abiltiy to show the readers the strengths and weak points of each setting. Lucy is so in tune with her surroundings that the settings act almost as characters.
My book discussion group is reading "Lucy Gayheart" because we've all read the "major" Cather works. We chose this one because none of us knew anything about it. It will never be considered one of her great works, but it certainly can stand against the works of many other writers. Cather delicately touches on the subjects of change as a part of leaving home and growing up, the yearning for what is ethereal and lovely, and the difficulty & loneliness of creating a life as an artist.

I don't know what to make of this story, though I loved it. I love Willa Cather's imagery, characterizations, and descriptions. I couldn't put it down, and I've been haunted by it since I read it. Lucy has so much hope and optimism in the first section of the book. She is in the depths of despair in the second section of the book, but then her hope rises again at the plans she forms to rise above her situation. But at that pinnacle of hope, she is again struck by tragedy. Why??? Why did Cather create such a scenario??? In section 3, Harry has to live with the remorse of his role in the tragedy. He's an example of how a moment of pettiness can lead to a lifetime of remorse. I guess what is so haunting to me is the juxtaposition of hope and tragedy/remorse that carries throughout the book.

This beautiful and tragic book ranks as one of my favorite Willa Cather novels. Nowhere else is a pervading sense of tragedy so well contrasted with the all-present beauty of nature. All of Cather's novels are pastoral, but none are quite as tragic as this one.
The story--similar to "The Song of the Lark"--follows an artistically gifted women out of her small town, and into a large city (Chicago) full of promise and angst. The adultry of the young artist falling in love with an older, married, successful artist has an Anna Karanina tinge (a book much admired by Cather): of subdued moral complexity. There are never blanket moral diatribes, but one gets the feeling that not all is well, especially near the end of the book.
Ultimately, this book is about the immortality of youth, and especially art. Cather admired art, in all its forms, which is profoundly reflected in this book.

(If you have read Alexander's Bridge, note also the similar metaphor of drowning: the weak bringing down the strong.)

I liked the idea of this novel, the characters and everything, but it was a dull read. I kept expecting there to be some sort of plot or climax but there wasn't any (that i could tell)! I needed a book for school and chose this, but there are definitely better reads out there.

What struck me about the book was how vividly Cather captured the immigrant's struggle with the new land - their having to accept the beginning of a denial of a past that seems in the frozen wasteland of america to have been a better place. the third generation characters describing the immigrants see this from a distance and are judgmental, though they understand the harshness of the process and do their best to help the 'ignorant' along. for capturing this particular spirit of the american mind, this book gets a definite 5 stars.

Great timing...and the book was in great condition. Thanks for having a good product, what you see is what you get.

reading cather's 'my ántonia' is like sitting under a shady tree on a hot summer's day with a glass of cool lemonade: not a life changing experience, but one that will be remembered with pleasure for years.

cather uses an interesting literary device: she begins in the first person writing to a childhood friend from nebraska, jim. they decide to tell each other their memories of ántonia, a bohemian (czech) immigrant who came into their lives early-on and was a profound presence. once jim starts, he realizes he can't stop. now a successful lawyer in new york (where cather is a writer), he excuses his clumsiness as a non-writer, and then completes the book.

the story is gentle and unexciting: the travails of denizens and immigrants in early nebraska on the farm, and then in town; the coming of age of an orphan who happens to be bright, humble and good (and damn righteous). the story is told so guilelessly that it's a shock compared to the tenor of today's rancor and brutality.

the joy comes from cather's writing: precise observation and wording, the lilting cadence of her phrasing, the beautiful and clear pictures she evokes of scenery and characters, and the unfamiliar, old fashioned words and expressions she uses.

there's a sweet sadness one feels as jim describes this wonderful young girl who becomes a remarkable woman living life to its fullest; who takes what comes vigorously and without complaint. this, in stark contrast to jim's going through his paces as he avails himself of the benefits of his class, race, and social status (i.e. education and avoiding the hard labor of a farm). cather is vague about whether jim actually loves ántonia (and maybe, in fact, it is she who was in love with her), and i believe this is her point: she's not writing about carnal love, but rather a profound platonic love that is comforting, stirring and compelling.

and this is what you're left with as you put down the book: thinking of those in your life whom you love deeply and have had a strong impact - or those you might have had that role if the complexities of sex (and reality) didn't interfere.

this book made it clear why cather is one of america's most beloved novelists.

nb, this edition uses british-english spelling, which is jarring considering the 'americanness' (<--italics) of the author and subject.

Published in 1918, this novel, set on the plains of Nebraska, is as fresh and memorable today as it was when it was published, largely because author Willa Cather has chosen to emphasize her fascinating characters and setting, instead of creating a fast-paced plot. As children, Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerda arrive on the plains of Nebraska at the same time, he to live with his grandparents, and she and her family to try to carve out a new life for themselves after emigrating from Bohemia. Jim narrates the story, as he and Antonia discover that nature offers many opportunities for exploration and joy. Both children also help work their farms, however, and they also understand nature's harshness.

For Cather, who lived in Nebraska, life on the plains, seen through Jim and Antonia and their families, offers freedom and independence--the kind of sturdy self-reliance that enables children to build strong characters. Though her portrait of life on the farm is sometimes romantic (as seen, for example, with Jim's first Christmas celebration during a snowstorm when everyone is housebound), life is also full of danger and uncertainty, a price farmers are willing to pay to live close to the land and away from cities. Eventually, both Jim and Antonia leave the farm for better opportunities, she to work in Black Hawk, and Jim to attend Harvard. Their paths diverge and do not reconnect for twenty years.

Antonia, as Jim lovingly portrays her, is a character who throws herself into whatever she is doing, whether it is plowing or learning to cook. Her joyful embrace of whatever life offers is a testament to her spirit, which we see as characteristic of the strong, independent prairie women she represents. Jim, on the other hand, though professionally successful, is far more constrained, a man whose character may have been formed on the prairie but whose life has moved toward the hurly-burly of urban life. Antonia becomes Mother Nature or the Earth Mother, a woman surrounded by many children on the farm, while Jim, who works for the railroad and lives in the highly populated east, represents the growing industrialization of the country.

Throughout this warm and sensitive novel, Cather includes many symbols. When Jim, in the presence of Antonia, kills a gigantic snake, the Garden of Eden comes to mind. The seasons dominate the lives of the characters, and some of the saddest events occur in the depths of winter. Roads wind into and out of the farmland and are a sharp visual contrast to the railroad for which Jim eventually works. As Cather develops her characters and follows them for twenty-five years, the reader comes to know them and to understand their choices. A moving tribute to the pioneer spirit and to those, like Antonia, who helped settle the plains. Mary Whipple

The Professor's House (Vintage Classics)
Cather Novels & Stories 1905-1918: The Troll Garden, O Pioneers! The Song of the Lark, and My Antonia
Great Short Works of Willa Cather
Willa Cather: A Biography (Literary Greats)
O Pioneers! (Willa Cather Scholarly Edition)

This novel is mediocre at best, about an old married couple that are hardly unique or even interesting. I read it in a few hours and moved on to another book.

Natural questions a person might have when considering whether to read this book are: What kind of work of fiction is this? Does it fit into a major category of fiction? Who is the "mortal enemy" referred to in the title? I'll address those questions in this review.

My Mortal Enemy is not a classic romance, tragedy, or melodrama. It is a narrative view, from a fallible, secondary character's perspective. Some people might be put off by the title, incorreclty inferring: "Why would I want to read a book about someone ruminating over their interactions with their mortal enemy?" I can understand that apprehension. But hopefully, if you can make it to the end of this review - you may understand both why the above inferrence is partly inaccurate, and where it is accurate - there are plenty of worthwhile and thoughful cognitive twists to make this introspective novel a thrilling read.

"My Mortal Enemy" is a novel focused on the social observations of a young person, watching a close family friend's slow cognitive journey into almost invisible and hard to describe forms of mental dysfunction. I love this book. I read through it like a thrilling page-turner. I couldn't wait to get to the end, and was not disappointed when I got there. It is brilliant, sarcastic, and wise. It shows us, if we have the eyes to perceive, the seemingly benign steps a mind takes into horrific dysfunction.

I love Cather's characterization of Oswald. Cather's rare portrayal of him as a smart and compassionate man, dealing with a spouse who does not see her own self-inflicted demises, is a rare act of literary kindness from one gender to the other. After reading her characterization of Oswald, Cather cannot be characterized as a man-hater. He is so lovingly drawn, in the regular presence of Myra's berating.

It is hard for an author to write a character more interesting than the author. All of Cather's characters are interesting - so I would have loved to have met her. Reading this novel, I sometimes think of the conversations between Myra and Nellie (the narrator) as conversations between a younger generation and an older generation. But Myra does not represent "older and wiser." She represents "older." Many people don't get smarter as they get older or after they get married, and Myra is one of those people (and it appears Avril Lavigne is one also, at least for the moment, but that's a whole nother story). Myra is intelligent. But she is also not smart enough to see where she is misguided. And she is also so tunnel-visioned and bull-headed that she will not concede where she might be wrong. And if we're going to peg her with an Achilles' Heel - an inability and general unwillingness to change has to be near the top of the list of the reasons for most of her follies.

In some ways, Cather's 'My Antonia' can be thought of a young person's recollection and observations of what happens to first loves. 'My Mortal Enemy' can be thought of as a young person's discovery of how some people so easily make so many enemies. Some people are good at drawing many lovers to them. Others, like Myra and her father, are exceptional at creating enemies - even of the people closest to them. And the novel examines the social constructs and personality traits that easily create enemies.

This paragraph discusses the title of "My Mortal Enemy" and to what the title may be referring, so if you want to read the book before knowing the ending, please read the rest of this review thereafter. Who is the "My" referring to - in the title "My Mortal Enemy?" I think it can be read as several people. It could be a general "My," representing anyone. It could also specifically refer to Willa Cather, Nellie (the narrator), or Myra. Her name is "My"ra. And twice, at key plot places in the book (p. 78 and the final sentence), she says, "Why must I die like this, alone with my mortal enemy?" From Myra's perspective, she perceives Oswald to be her mortal enemy. I believe the title is intended to be interpreted in all the above ways.

So who is the "mortal enemy?" It could be most easily interpreted as Oswald. But it could also be interpeted as Myra's father who disowned and disinherited her. But I think Cather was smarter than either of those singular interpretations. This book was not intended to be some melodrama or whodunnit, where the protagonist whispers the killer's name in her dying breath. No, this is a book examining larger social and cultural rules and the real and damaging consequences of those boundaries.

Cather's lead characters are not known for their ability to adapt. Neither Antonia nor Myra are able to really see what may have held them back their whole lives. They are both brilliant, individual personalities and beauties. And it is not accurate to suggest Cather is like Thomas Hardy and is simply composing plots where no matter how hard the female leads try, fate seems to batter them down into their pre-ordained destinies. No, Cather's has more intelligent and modern perspectives. Cather wants to show the joys that are crushed by the combination of dominant social rules AND the women who follow them without questioning. Sometimes older generations, as they get older, think they have everything figured out. Myra is an example of this type of person. And Cather uses her as an example of an intelligent person who is also a fool, a fool who thinks all her enemies are the people around her, when tragically, her greatest enemy is her own thoughts, boundaries, and treatment of others.

Myra's mortal enemy is Myra.

As the book nears the end, Myra turns increasingly insentive and hostile toward Nellie, Oswald, and everyone else. She only shows mercy to her dead fatherly guardian, who never adopted her. But even her words toward him are cruel to everyone else - as she suggests he is worthy of mercy while all those who have cared for her daily for years are not worth her understanding, love or compassion.

The book implies Oswald may have had an affair with someone else after marrying Myra. But whether he did or not, is not Cather's great concern. Cather wants to stress that Myra's suspicion of Oswald's sexual or amorous feelings towards anyone else is a dominant basis for her hatred of him. Myra relies on her assumption that if Oswald ever loved another person after they married, then in Myra's moral reasoning, he should be her enemy. This charming, hard working, and loving man, who gave her years of love and compassion doing work he hated, to give her many ornate things he never wanted, is discarded and exiled from her affections. She takes extraordinary efforts to abandon him in the end to die alone.

Cather wants people to consider everything and to think for themselves. She wants people to look at the weight of these character's actions over their entire lifetimes and measure those against individual, exclusive moral standards. Cather shows us the fruit of Myra's and her father's (John's) hatreds and mistreatment of those close to them. Cather shows us what happens when some people require their loves to only love and follow them exclusively. According to several biographical accounts, Cather lived most of her adult life in love with a person who was married to another. Her writings often focus on related universal social concerns.

When I finished "My Mortal Enemy," I closed the book and said out loud to myself, "Wow!"

For the past year I've been reading all of Cather's novels in order. "O Pioneers" and "My Antonia" are rightly praised, but don't miss "A Lost Lady" and this gem. ("Death Comes for the Archbishop" is next on my list.)

To me, this book is a never-to-be solved mystery. What exactly went wrong between Myra and Oswald? Too passionate and dramatic a beginning?? Oswald's being stuck in work that didn't suit him? Not enough money? Pride? Materialism? Innate incompatibility? All of the above/none of the above/some combination of the above?

There are clues, but no definite answers. And that's what makes the book so lifelike, so thought-provoking, and, ultimately, so moving. Can we ever know exactly why a relationship fails? Aren't the people in the relationship as clueless (or worse) as outsiders like Nellie Birdseye, the narrator of "My Mortal Enemy"?

I don't understand exactly HOW Cather gives the reader so much in so few words. But that is part of her genius here.

A great work of literature - and there aren't many books I say that about.

Don't miss it.

This short novella (about 20,000 words, close in size to a few of Cather's longer short stories) is a concentrated study of the decline and fall of a marriage. Cather herself agreed with the assessment offered by one of her contemporary reviewers: "there is the steady rhythm of the fundamental hatred of the sexes one of the other and their irresistible attraction one of the other."

The young and idealistic Nelly Birdseye describes the marriage of Myra Driscoll, her aunt's friend, to Oswald Henshawe. Their elopement incites Myra's uncle to disown her from a considerable inheritance, and the couple alternates between mutual bliss and impoverished misery. The fragility of their relationship is further imperiled by Myra's materialism and jealousy and Oswald's indolence and philandering.

"My Mortal Enemy" is, perhaps, one of Cather's most misunderstood novels, and the author seems to have intended that the title's meaning remain ambiguous. Most readers will assume, quite reasonably, that the "mortal enemy" who inflames Myra's inevitable disillusionment is Myra herself, and the text certainly supports such a reading. Yet in correspondence to friends and other writers, Cather admitted that she "had a premonition . . . most people wouldn't [understand]" that Myra's "mortal enemy" was Oswald, since he could never satisfy the excessiveness of her devotion, both to him and to others.

Although framed by the sparsest detail to be found in Cather's fiction, the story's forlorn perspective and memorable characterizations make this one of her most powerful works.

MY MORTAL ENEMY by Willa Cather (one of my favorite authors) is about a couple who get married despite the concerns of others. Things do not go as wonderfully as they hoped, but at the end of the day, not as awfully everyone expected.

To say that this couple had a strange but profound way of loving each other is not giving away the story. Absorbing the nuances of such love can only be accomplished by reading the book yourself.

This book is a great read with many classic writers included. It also has a story by Kate Chopin that was never published after the backlash she received from "The Awakening." It's a great story. I did notice this book had a price on the back of $1.99 and I paid far more on Amazon. Boo!

It's surely worth the read.

This compilation of American women is a fantastic introduction to the genre--from the American experience of Rebecca Harding Davis, to the superiorly intelligent prose of Edith Wharton (my personal favorite, although her story here is not my fav.) to the feminist leanings of Kate Chopin and Zora Neale Hurston---I could go on and on. This edition makes a super (and super cheap) travel companion; especially, if like me, you prefer to read short stories when traveling, rather than longer works. This book would make a great gift for a young woman, say age 13 to 25, who would appreciate the varied perspectives on life that these women provide; and its a great way to generate interest in the authors and reading. The stories are very entertaining and thought provocing; the ideas are readily accesible. You certainly cannot go wrong with this edition... I guarantee it will leave you or the lucky recipient wanting more.

I was greatly impressed with "Great Short Stories by American Women," the anthology edited by Candace Ward. The stories in this volume were originally published between 1861 and 1930, and represent the work of some of the United States' best writers. The contents of the book are as follows:

Rebecca Harding Davis' "Life in the Iron Mills," a compelling piece of social protest; Louisa May Alcott's "Transcendental Wild Oats," a satiric view of life in a Utopian commune; Sarah Orne Jewett's "A White Heron," a reflection on men, women, and nature; Mary E. Wilkins Freeman's "A New England Nun," about an extended engagement; Charlotte Perkins Gilman's creepy "The Yellow Wall-Paper," about a woman who, diagnosed with "a slight hysterical tendency," is forced to undergo an oppressive treatment; Kate Chopin's lusty, sensuous "The Storm"; Edith Wharton's "The Angel at the Grave," an ironic study of the legacy of a famous philosopher; Willa Cather's "Paul's Case," a tale about a dandyish young man who just can't fit into society; Alice Dunbar-Nelson's "The Stones of the Village," a study of racism, shame, and secrecy; Susan Glaspell's "A Jury of Her Peers," a murder mystery which the author adapted from her own one-act play entitled "Trifles"; Djuna Barnes' multigenerational family story "Smoke"; Zora Neale Hurston's "Sweat," a story of a nightmarishly bad marriage; and Nella Larsen's chilling "Sanctuary."

This is an excellent, richly varied selection of thirteen tales. Unfortunately, the brief intros to each tale and its author commit the two cardinal sins of such intros: (1) They are excessively intrusive, sometimes revealing the stories' endings; and (2) they often leave out relevant information -- such as the knowledge that both Edith Wharton and Susan Glaspell received Pulitzer Prizes for their writing.

So, if you skip the brief story/author intros, you will find this to be a fine anthology, good both for literature courses and for individual reading.

At first I thought I wasn't going to like this collection very much. Not enough contemporary stories, and I am, after all, a lover of contemporary literature. I get discouraged when I read older novels. The language seems too stiff at times. So, I approached this collection with caution. A good example of what I mean about older writing being slightly formal for my taste was the short story we've all had to read in English Lit classes: "The Yellow Wall-Paper", by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Another example is the opening story, "Life in the Iron-Mills" by Rebecca Harding Davis. After a few pages I just hjad to skip them.

That said, I luckily enjoyed most of the stories quite a bit. I think the editor had very good care in choosing stories that had universal appeal. My favorite is "Transcendental Wild Oats", by Louisa May Alcott. I know more than a "nothing-but-organic" zealot who should read this one. I found it amazing that Alcott, back in the late 1800s, was able to offer such accurate criticism of the ridiculous views that some take on behalf of misguided ideals and very few facts.

Another story I enjoyed was "A White Heron" by Sarah Orne Jewett, where a young girl has to choose between her love of the bird on the title and receiving some very needed money in exchange for pointing out its nest to a hunter. I think the whole debate in the girl's mind was very well developed. I also liked Willa Cather's "Paul's Case", with Paul being an eccentric young man who gets used to the high life too soon. And another favorite was "Sweat" by Zora Neale Hurston, a story full of karma.

As a college student, I am burdened with purchasing many expensive books for classes. "Great Short Stories by American Women," however, was not a burden to purchase at all. The book showcases great works from many great female authors in the late 19th and early 20th century. Zora Neale Hurston, Edith Wharton, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Louisa May Alcott are just a few of the authors featured in the book.

In my class, we spent an hour discussing just one of the stories each day. "Great Short Stories by American Women" is an excellent classroom resource, and is very inexpensive.

Also, I highly recommend "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman for class discussion. It is a compelling piece, and especially interesting to high school and college age students. It makes for an involved discussion.

This book was very interesting had a good theme and plot.

It kept the reader on edge throughout the entire book. I would

recommend it to everyone.

One of my all-time favorite books. Attractively packaged on acid-free paper. Very classic looking. And the fiction is excellent! Her stories about the Plains, the Southwest, Chicago, and Quebec are perfect works of art. I especially liked "Tom Outland's Story" contained within "The Professor's House."

Like all the volumes in the Library of America series, this book is beautiful and made to last. Some readers may be bothered by the thin paper, but it allows so much to be packed into a handy book. As the title states, this is a collection from Cather's early work (her first "first novel," _Alexander's Bridge_, is missing). _The Troll Garden_ is a collection of Cather's early short stories, most in the manner of H. James and have a fin-de-siecle tone. "The Sculptor's Funeral," which depicts a town's inability to recognize achievement in any form but monetary, is perhaps the best. That and two other stories were revised by Cather for _Youth and the Bright Medusa_ (1920 an available in LoA 57 _Stories, Poems, and Other Writings_). Reading the versions side-by-side, one can achieve insight into Cather's growing abilities as a writer. However, the most rewarding read in this volume is _My Antonia_. Cather's first masterpiece depicts the lives of Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerda from their arrival in Black Hawk, Nebraska to twenty years after Jim leaves Black Hawk for a life in the East. Antonia remains in Nebraska, becomes a maid in town, and marries (twice). The theme of the book, from Jim's perspective, is aptly captured in the epigraph: "optima dies . . . prima fugit" (from Virgil's _Aeneid_). Again like all volumes in the LoA, a chronology of the authors life, a "Note on the Texts" and a few notes, containing information on allusions and translations of foreign words and phrases appear at the end of the volume.

This book was very interesting had a good theme and plot.
It kept the reader on edge throughout the entire book. I would recommend it to everyone.

Somehow, though I love to read,I had missed Willa Cather. I had already read and loved Jane Austen but it was not until I read "My Antonia" that I realized what I had missed all of these years. Willa Cather is truly a genius of the written word. To call her writing 'good' or her stories 'enjoyable' is to understate her talent. Her writing is beautiful though the stories are simple. Each place she writes about makes one believe that she lived there all her life. Her book "Saphira and the Slave Girl" would make you think she had lived there and in that time. Many of her stories are out on the prairie and seem to glow with the golden light from the sun on the fields of grain. Her characterizations are simple but profound and she often throws in a dramatic tale told by a character. And yes, this physical book is also beautiful and a joy to read. It makes one wonder about ever reading a cheap paperback again.

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.

The narrator of this story makes a point of mentioning that the name of the heroine is pronounced with a stress on the first syllable, like the male name 'Anthony', with an 'a' on the end. This is not an insignificant choice by the author, who in her youth dressed in men's clothes and called herself 'William'. Not that this is a 'lesbian novel' as such, but it is a very particular viewpoint, in which strong, androgynous women carve a civilization out of a hostile landscape often despite their menfolk rather than thanks to them.

There are some parallels with Owen Wister's The Virginian, where the narrator often leaves the scene to be replaced by the heroine, so that the two take turns in interacting with the idealized hero. Here, Cather has a male narrator speak for her and to interact with Antonia. However, he often adopts a distinctly womanly perspective, with feminine references to hairstyles and fashions and so forth, references that sound somewhat out of character. Many readers have been puzzled by the relationship between the narrator and Antonia, but if you occasionally think of him as really being a woman, it all makes perfect sense.

The story unfolds in a gentle, understated manner. It is about characters and their relationship to the landscape, and how the former and the latter evolve together. There is a hint of mystery associated with a violent death early in the story, but this is not developed or remarked on again.

What makes the novel worthwhile is the fine quality of the writing and the authenticity that Cather brings to the narrative. This is my second Cather novel, the other being Oh Pioneers! which I did not particularly like. If you are new to Cather, I think My Antonia is the place to start.

The Barnes & Noble Classics edition has an excellent introduction by Gordon Tapper (but, as with all introductions to novels, you should read it after reading the novel itself, as it summarizes the plot) plus useful notes. As it is also cheap, it can be heartily recommended.

I had previously read "Death Comes to the Archbishop" by Willa Cather and was disappointed in this book. Although Ms. Cather's descriptive writing made the raw Nebraska farmland very real, the story line and the characters were, in my opinion, weak. I really didn't care too much what happened to any of them. The title character, Antonia, was especially disappointing. What made her such a delightful playmate? What about her was so special to the author? If she was so special, why didn't he form more of an adult relationship with her? There was nothing about the story's narrator to make him likeable or detestable. He was just a "good" kid who did what was expected of people in his social class, lacking the character to take action on his alleged love for Antonia. Again, the descriptive passages regarding the farmland and the hardships faced by the immigrants who came to Nebraska were excellent but, overall, I was disappointed in this classic.

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!