My Ántonia

I had a bizarre experience recently, when I started reading a copy of 'National Geographic' and there was a brilliant article about recent attempts to conserve North America's tall-grass prairie, which once covered a massive proportion of the Mid-West. I felt such sympathy for the plight of these beautiful meadows, and such a strong love for all the people trying to stop the urban spread. I was then clubbed rudely over the head when I realised, upon looking at the cover of the magazine, that it was from 1982. Well, you'll be happy to know, as was I, after frantically reading about more recent developments on Wikipedia, that thankfully, the prairie is still around in some areas. Phew!
The point is, since then, I have cherished a strange glowing feeling whenever I think of these meadows, probably because the part of Russia where I am from is very near to the epic steppe lands so beloved of Anton Chekhov. So when I picked up 'My Ántonia' by Willa Cather, I was hooked. The book is set in the late 19th/ early 20th Century, when North America was still vast swathes of wilderness, when people worked hard on their land and built small prosperous towns. The Ántonia of the title is a Bohemian girl (from what is now the Czech Republic), the narrator, a boy called Jim Burden meets when her family move to Nebraska. Ántonia comes to symbolise a bright light of life for Jim, her vivacity and hunger for laughter and love is drawn wonderfully by Cather. Even when she is middle-aged and worn from hard work,

'...I was thinking, as I watched her, how little it mattered -
about her teeth, for instance. I know so many women who
have kept all the things she had lost, but whose inner
glow has faded. Whatever else was gone, Ántonia had not
lost the fire of life. Her skin, so brown and hardened, had not
that look of flabiness, as if the sap beneath it had been
secretly drawn away.'

Ántonia seems to me like a beautiful, strong tree, at first a resilient, bright, colourful sapling, then a rich, fertile bearer of fruit, then brown and rough, but still sturdy and unbeaten.
Willa Cather is extremely gifted with her ability to let you visualise a character, planting them very firmly in your imagination.
For example, the beautiful sleepy-eyed, 'a little too plump' Lena Lingard, 'always kissed one as if she were sadly and wisely sending one away forever.' Isn't that wonderful? and don't you somehow know exactly what she means?
Or the fearsome Mrs Cutter, a minor character, still looms large in my mind...

'...She was a terrifying-looking person; almost a giant-
ess in height, raw-boned, with iron-grey hair, a face always
flushed, and prominent, hysterical eyes. When she meant to
be entertaining and agreeable, she nodded her head inces-
santly and snapped her eyes at one. Her teeth were long and
curved, like a horse's; people always said babies cried if she
smiled at them. Her face had a kind of fascination for me: it
was the very colour and shape of anger. There was a gleam of
something akin to insanity in her full, intense eyes...'

*shiver* What a scary lady...

But we must not forget about this prairie, definitely one of the stars of the book, rustling, ever changing.
I will leave you with this; a sunset over the prairie, and urge you to read this gentle but at the same time, gorgeously thrilling book:

'As far as we could see, the miles of copper-red
grass were drenched in sunlight that was stronger and fiercer
than at any other time of the day. The blond cornfields were
red-gold, the haystacks turned rosy and threw long shadows.
The whole prairie was like the bush that burned with fire
and was not consumed. That hour always had the exultation
of victory, of triumphant ending, like a hero's death - heroes
who had died young and gloriously. It was a sudden transfigura-
tion, a lifting-up of day.'