![]() I did not say my prayers that night: Here, I felt, what would be would be. ![]() “There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but material out of which countries are made….Between that earth and that sky I felt erased. She provides one of those rare aha! reading experiences that remind us what great writing really is. Nothing is superfluous, no character unnecessary. ![]() But Cather never needs clever devices to immediately capture readers, carrying them along on a seemingly effortless trajectory from beginning to end. An immediately engrossing tale pulls the reader in without any of the silly modern “grabber” gimmicks of murder, mayhem or mysterious prologues that elude to the future or the past. My Antonia is mostly a quiet story and Cather introduces us subtly and gracefully to the many facets of the human character. His story concludes with that visit and the anticipation of more to come, as he returns to New York where he has become a thriving lawyer. We follow Jim on to University in Lincoln where he loses touch with Antonia-an innocent childhood romance perhaps realized in retrospect as love?-but reconnects with other hometown immigrant friends including Lena Lingard, who twenty years later insists he re-connect with Antonia who has married and has a flock of kids. The best days are the first to flee, laments the narrating Burden in retrospect, and someone familiar with the book might think the telefilm flees the farm too soon as impractical dramatically. ![]()
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