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Editor Eric

Gentle letdown

It doesn't sound promising. Like one of those dreary, early Canadian novels we had to read in school about settlers in rural North America. Immigrants set up house and farm in the new land, discover the country and weather are harsh. Some overcome hardship, others don't.

But forget all that. My Ántonia is a delight. The title character is Ántonia (stress on the first syllable as in Antony) Shimerda and, while all that pioneering stuff does happen to her mid-European family in rural Nebraska, she and her friends are interesting enough to keep you turning the pages as you laugh and weep your way through their growth from children to adulthood. The story is told through the eyes of an American-born male friend who gains success in New York but reminisces about the unsophisticated girl he was in love with since childhood.

If the writing reminds me of any other writer, it's Maxim Gorky in My Childhood, his memoir of growing up in a Russian village. This may seem a stretch but both writers knew the harshness and cruelty of people, as well as the heart-filling kindnesses. Most importantly though, both writers could evoke people and places so well that they become your own friends and homes.

Cather, however, is much sweeter and I find the last few chapters of My Ántonia somewhat pat and sentimental. She may be too realistic to provide the happy ending that one might secretly yearn for but she does let the reader down very gently indeed.

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