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Willa Cather, My Ántonia (1918)
My Ántonia is the last novel of Willa Cather's "prairie trilogy" (preceded by O Pioneers and The Song of the Lark). The book received high praise when it was first published, and it catapulted Cather into the pantheon of notable American writers. Finally, a writer had written about the American West as a desirable and interesting place to live. An aura of nostalgia is ever-present in the narrator Jim's reflection on his childhood in Nebraska, which he has left behind for a career as a high-powered New York lawyer. Similarly, his friend Ántonia misses her native Bohemia. Ultimately, although the characters come to realize one can never return to the past, they likewise realize that it cannot be forgotten, and that it has an inexorable influence on the future. |