My Ántonia

      I have always believed that a real benefit of book groups is reading things that are outside one's regular reading routine; so, although I am not in a book group, my friend Dee Stefanelli is and, thanks to her, I have read 3 books I might not have picked up on my own. I have already written about Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet and Caleb's Crossing. My Ántonia by Willa Cather is the 3rd. One of the things I said I would do when I retired was read some of the classics I had previously missed and now I've started. This is an incredibly moving and heartfelt love story for the land in the middle of America and the immigrants who settled it. These were the first generation Scandinavians and Europeans who homesteaded an often harsh land and brought it under the plow to become the breadbasket of America. The story of Ántonia is told from the adult viewpoint of Jim Burden, now a successful lawyer in New York City,  who came to Black Hawk, Nebraska as an orphaned 10-year old on the same train as 14-year old  Ántonia and her family in the late 1800's. Jim was fortunate in that he came to live with his grandparents who were already successful farmers with a real house. The Shimerda family, of Czech or "Bohemian" nationality, came to live in a large hole in the ground. Due to the dishonesty of their agent, their money bought them only broken down farming equipment and animals and they knew nothing about farming, the father having been a professional musician. They would have starved except for the generosity of neighbors like Jim's grandparents, and yet Mrs. Shimerda and even Ántonia were haughty and critical of these efforts. Mr. Shimerda killed himself out of grief for all he had lost and  Ántonia mourned him all her life. She and Jim were, in spite of their age difference, nearly constant companions and Jim adored her.  After his grandparents leased out the farm and moved to town, some of the "country girls" came to town to work and help out their families financially.  Ántonia became the live-in maid/cook/nanny for the family next door to the Burdens and, although always a hard and cheerful worker, became enamored of the town life and eventually lost her position. After Jim had gone away to college, he no longer saw  Ántonia but kept tabs and learned that she had been engaged, then deserted and left with an illegitimate child. Broken-hearted, she returns to the family farm to work and raise her child, then soon marries a fellow "Bohemian" with whom she builds a successful farm and large family. Twenty years later, Jim reluctantly goes to see her, fearing that circumstances have beaten her down and changed the girl/woman he has idolized through the decades. But  Ántonia has preserved her love of life and restores Jim's faith in the future. 

     Part of what I reflected upon while reading this book is that this has always been a country of immigrants, those whose first language and history and customs are not of this country; they have built America. It dismays me that we continue, as a people, to disregard this truth and discriminate against whichever group is the newest to seek refuge here. The language and passion of this book will vividly recreate the people and the places for the reader and it's well worth taking the trip to Black Hawk.