Memories are realities

Published 100 years ago in 1918, Willa Cather's My Antonia remains a remarkable work of literature. Thomas C. Foster features it in his book Twenty-Five Books That Shaped America, observing "it is beautifully written and was recognized as such from the moment of its publication."

Although relatively short, the novel covers a lot of territory and many years. It can be said to be about  many things, among them:

"Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again."

1.  The power of memory

Two men who grew up together in a small Nebraska town decide to share written memories of a girl they both knew, a Bohemian immigrant named Antonia Shimerda. Jim Burden is the only one who actually does so, and this book is what he remembers.

Although she is four years older than him, Jim tutors her in English. He is a brilliant boy who eventually goes to Harvard and becomes a lawyer. She becomes his playmate, a lifelong friend and, thanks to the power of memory, the love of his life.

"I knew where the real women were, though I was only a boy; and I would not be afraid of them, either!"

2. The strength of immigrant women

Antonia's father becomes so lonely for the Old Country (the power of memory again) that he commits suicide. Later her husband similarly pines for the land he left behind, but Antonia's strength and optimism (and a house full of children) helps keep him focused on the present. Unlike in Glendon Swarthout's The Homesman, the female prairie pioneers are the sturdy ones, able to meet any obstacle with good cheer and a little extra effort.

Of all the girls in his rural community, Jim Burden finds those immigrant girls the most appealing. "If there were no girls like them in the world, there would be no poetry," he says.

"Everything was as it should be: the strong smell of sunflowers and ironweed in the dew, the clear blue and gold of the sky, the evening star, the purr of the milk into the pails, the grunts and squeals of the pigs fighting over their supper."

3. The lure of the prairie

The prairie was the focus of all, or at least most, of Willa Cather's books, and My Antonia was the third novel in her prairie trilogy, which also included O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark. Jim Burden's education and later career takes him far from the Nebraska home where he came of age, but as the saying goes, you can't take the country out of the boy. The prairie, like Antonia herself, remains a part of him and draws him back.