It seems almost sacrilege to infringe upon a book as soulful and rich as Willa Cather's My Ántonia by offering comment. First published in 1918, and set in Nebraska in the late 19th century, this tale of the spirited daughter of a Bohemian immigrant family planning to farm on the untamed land ("not a country at all but the material out of which countries are made") comes to us through the romantic eyes of Jim Burden. He is, at the time of their meeting, newly orphaned and arriving at his grandparents' neighboring farm on the same night her family strikes out to make good in their new country. Jim chooses the opening words of his recollections deliberately: "I first heard of Ántonia on what seemed to be an interminable journey across the great midland plain of North America," and it seems almost certain that readers of Cather's masterpiece will just as easily pinpoint the first time they heard of Ántonia and her world. It seems equally certain that they, too, will remember that moment as one of great light in an otherwise unremarkable trip through the world.

Ántonia, who, even as a grown woman somewhat downtrodden by circumstance and hard work, "had not lost the fire of life," lies at the center of almost every human condition that Cather's novel effortlessly untangles. She represents immigrant struggles with a foreign land and tongue, the restraints on women of the time (with which Cather was very much concerned), the more general desires for love, family, and companionship, and the great capacity for forbearance that marked the earliest settlers on the frontier.

As if all this humanity weren't enough, Cather paints her descriptions of the vastness of nature--the high, red grass, the road that "ran about like a wild thing," the endless wind on the plains--with strokes so vivid as to make us feel in our bones that we've just come in from a walk on that very terrain ourselves. As the story progresses, Jim goes off to the University in Lincoln to study Latin (later moving on to Harvard and eventually staying put on the East Coast in another neat encompassing of a stage in America's development) and learns Virgil's phrase "Optima dies ... prima fugit" that Cather uses as the novel's epigraph. "The best days are the first to flee"--this could be said equally of childhood and the earliest hours of this country in which the open land, much like My Ántonia, was nothing short of a rhapsody in prairie sky blue. --Melanie Rehak


From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up--In Jim Burden's accounting of his life with, and without, Antonia Shimerda, listeners are transported to the hardscrabble Nebraska prairie and the rural immigrant experience. When Jim first sees the Shimerda family, immigrants from Bohemia, disembarking from the same train that is taking him West to live with his grandparents, he has no idea the impact they will have on his life. Nostalgically, he remembers the good and bad times they had on their respective farms and creates his portrait of Antonia, an independent and tough survivor. The brief biography of author Willa Cather at the beginning of the CD explains how her life mirrors Antonia's life in many ways, helping listeners understand the context of the story. Patrick Lawlor's rich, fluid voice lends an air of sophistication to Burden, reinforcing the class structure inherent at the beginning of the 20th century. Lawlor's attempts to create voices for the characters often falls flat. Since the novel is Burden's reminiscence, it would have been better told in Burden's voice alone. Since My Antonia continues to be a staple in many English curriculums, this is a good audiobook for schools and public libraries to have available.--Lynn Evarts, Sauk Prairie High School, Prairie du Sac, WA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Library Journal
Cather's classic gets the red carpet treatment here. Along with the full text, the volume also includes historical essays and explanatary notes by scholar James Woodress along with 15 photographs and two maps.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Yarman's diction is very precise and measured. Both the pace and the articulate style make this version an excellent choice for ESL programs. R.F.W. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister
My Antonia is set in Nebraska at a time when "there was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made." Through the eyes of young Jim Burden, the reader sees the land which rolls "as if the shaggy grass were a sort of loose hide, and underneath it herds of wild buffalo were galloping, galloping." The people who live here are immigrants - the blue-eyed Burdens, the tragic Russian brothers, Norwegian Lena Lingard with her violet eyes and determination never to marry, and most importantly, Bohemian Antonia Shimerda. Their stories stand out like framed portraits against the backdrop of the prairie and remind us how many different countries make up the United States. Warm as the perfect summer, Jim's memories tell of the land and of Antonia, a girl who works the fields like a man and who hears the songs of old Bohemian women in the cries of a cricket. In Antonia, Willa Cather portrays one of the great women of literature - strong, capable, and honest. My Antonia is a book to read to children to show them what women can be, or to read - and remind - yourself. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14.

FROM OUR EDITORS

A masterful story of primitive themes told with elegance and affection, this novel depicts the violent yet inspiring existence of the foreign and native-born settlers to Nebraska in the early years of this century. Considered by the author to be her best work.

ANNOTATION

Willa Cather's masterful portrait of prairie culture, based on her own life. Against Nebraska's panoramic landscape, Cather recreates the life of an immigrant girl who becomes, in the memories of narrator Jim Burden, the epitome of strong and dignifed womanhood.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Willa Cather's My Antonia is considered one of the most significant American novels of the twentieth century. Set during the great migration west to settle the plains of the North American continent, the narrative follows Antonia Shimerda, a pioneer who comes to Nebraska as a child and grows with the country, inspiring a childhood friend, Jim Burden, to write her life story. The novel is important both for its literary aesthetic and as a portrayal of important aspects of American social ideals and history, particularly the centrality of migration to American culture.

SYNOPSIS

At the age of ten, Cather moved with her family from Virginia to a Nebraska ranch where she grew up among the immigrants from Europe that were homesteading on the Great Plains. My Antonia is Cather's portrait of a remembered American girlhood: her hardships and difficulties as well as her search for happiness are the themes of this novel.

FROM THE CRITICS

AudioFile - Robin F. Whitten

Yarman￯﾿ﾽs diction is very precise and measured. Both the pace and the articulate style make this version an excellent choice for ESL programs. R.F.W. ￯﾿ﾽAudioFile, Portland, Maine

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING