Review
I had an English professor who once remarked that he had chosen to specialize in British literature because all American literature was about one thing: America. He did not mean, I think, that American literature is more parochial than European literature. Instead, he meant that American literature wrestles with what it means to be an American, the effects of the ideals and myths that define ordinary Americans' self-perception, and the glories and tragedies of Freedom.
My Ántonia is about America, but a particular place in America and a particular time. The novel is structured as the recollections of Jim Burden, a New York City lawyer, who as an orphaned boy left his home in Virginia to live on his grandparents' farm in Nebraska. There he met the Shimerdas, recent immigrants from Bohemia. Jim befriends their eldest daughter, Ántonia, as his family helps hers acclimate to the new, unforgiving country.
