Through Jim Burden's endearing, smitten voice, we revisit the remarkable vicissitudes of immigrant life in the Nebraska heartland, with all its insistent bonds. Guiding the way are some of literature's most beguiling characters: the Russian brothers plagued by memories of a fateful sleigh ride, Antonia's desperately homesick father and self-indulgent mother, and the coy Lena Lingard. Holding the pastoral society's heart, of course, is the bewitching, free-spirited Antonia.
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0Set in Nebraska in the late 19th century, this novel is everything that you could imagine when you think of a classic story about the American mid-west.
Told from the point of view of Jim, a man who grew up with his grandparents after losing his parents at a young age, it is his recollections of Antonia. Antonia and her family came to Nebraska from Bohemia and Jim encounters her and her family right from the start of his new life in Nebraska.
Speaking no english, except for a little bit that Antonia knows, her and her family struggle in their new life which had at first seemed to glimmer with all the hope most had when coming to America.
Jim shares his finest memories of Antonia and all of the other Bohemian people that he encountered during his life on the farm and in the small city he and his grandparents later moved to.
This story is beautifully written and you can't help but look past the somewhat boring and long descriptive narratives that Cather goes in to because they are so very rich with detail.
This is a charming novel that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys reading historical fiction.
0I don’t have the words. This book is so precious to me.
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