Painting a vivid picture of pioneer life in Nebraska, this novel published in 1918 illustrates the female contribution to the formation and settlement of our country. Looking back with nostalgia on the immigrant bohemian girl who had become his neighbor and friend, Jimmy Burden recalls Antonia's bravery and strength as she helped her family carve a life out of the prairie.
Fourteen-year-old Antonia Shimerda and her family come from what used to be Bohemia (now incorporated into the Czech Republic) and become toiling farmers in America's heartland. They live in a cave in the side of a small hill until the neighbors (Jimmy's family) help them build a small log home. Antonia is intelligent and eager to learn the English language, which ten-year-old Jimmy helps her with. Shortly after coming to Nebraska, Antonia's father takes his own life and the family is left to fend for themselves without the head of the household.
Eventually, Jimmy's family moves to the small town nearby, and Antonia becomes a hired girl for the Harling Family whom live next door to Jimmy. Here, in the town of Black Hawk, Antonia and Jimmy transform from children into young adults. Town dances play a huge role in their socialization and blossoming. Although it was considered taboo for town boys and country girls to get romantic with eachother, Jimmy observes that the older girls in town, like Antonia, are more interesting. He has the thought that they "helped break the sod", and learned so much from coming from an old country to a new at a tender age. These girls had become awakened early, but were considered harsh and ignorant simply because they hadn't mastered the language.
The reader is introduced to other young female characters, like the Swedish immigrant Lena who who was a feminist before her time. She decides as a young woman that she doesn't want to get married because her entire youth was spent helping raise younger siblings, never getting a moment to herself. She enjoys her own company and doesn't want to feel beholden to a man or a household; she starts her own business in Lincoln.
Shimmering with lush imagery, the plains of our country come to life. While still living in the Nebraska countryside with his grandparents, Jimmy observes that "there was nothing but land: not a country at all but the material out of which countries are made". And the air of Spring is described as nimble as a puppy: impulsive and playful, rising and sinking suddenly, pawing you and then laying down to be petted. And a Winter snowstorm of their youth is compared to thousands of feather beds being emptied.
We learn that by the age of twenty-four, Antonia comes to disgrace when she is jilted by her betrothed and left to bear a child on her own. With Antonia's trademark fortitude, she carries on and eventually makes a happy life (albeit poor) farming land with a kind husband and ultimately bearing ten more children. To Jimmy, a lawyer now on the east coast come back for a visit, she looks "worked down", but with a new kind of strength in the gravity of her face.
During this visit and now in their forties, Antonia relates to Jimmy, "Ain't it wonderful, Jim, how much people can mean to eachother?" And Jimmy tells Antonia that the idea of her is a part of him and that she influences his ideas, likes, dislikes, and even his tastes when he is not aware.
A brilliant snapshot of early America and the people that forged it, this novel is also a beautiful portrayal of the specific power of friendships formed in youth. Jim sums this up with a thought he has at the end of the book: some memories are realities and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again. 5/5
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