My Antonia by Willa Cather – a brilliant author, who has four books on The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list, along My Antonia, which is 193rd on The Greatest Books of All Time site, you have One of Ours, The Professor’s House and A Lost Lady, reviewed on my blog, together with hundreds of other books and motion pictures, the plug for the best gig is https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 My Antonia by Willa Cather – a brilliant author, who has four books on The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list, along My Antonia, which is 193^rd on The Greatest Books of All Time site, you have One of Ours, The Professor’s House and A Lost Lady, reviewed on my blog, together with hundreds of other books and motion pictures, the plug for the best gig is https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

 

9 out of 10

 

A few months back, I have read A Lost Lady https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2023/12/a-lost-lady-by-willa-cather-author-of.html and I wonder why she did not get The Nobel Prize for Literature, while that was given to so may less significant writers (I was going to put in Bob Dylan, then thought maybe not, but finally, here he is)

 

Though the title of this entertaining book is My Antonia, I think the hero is the narrator – the one behind the My – Jim Burden, albeit the girl, and then later in the plot the woman Antonia Shimerda have a great role to play, probably the second most important, they start together, while he is moving to live with his grandparents

The Shimerda family has just sailed from Europe, Bohemia we are told, notwithstanding the fact that there is a region of that name (and the bohemian life style, which now seems to mean a sort of epicureanism) but not a country, and they settle in Nebraska, where they would have a very hard time to begin with

 

In fact, by this time few, if any still read these lines (let us be fair, the figure is most likely to be zero) and therefore a spoiler alert might be inserted and then all secrets revealed, such as the sad outcome that we have – the heroine does not make it, even if she had been thought likely to succeed, it would be Lena who makes it

Tragedy is not the name of the game, but we certainly have a great share of it, even in the stories told about Europe, such as the one in which this wedding party is riding sleighs in winter, and then they are surrounded by wolves, apparently hundreds of them, the prey animals get closer and the result is terror and death

 

One by one, the horses, sleighs are overcome and the people are killed, until there is only the bride and I think Ivan was the name of the fellow and the groom, and the bride is thrown out to the wolves and this Ivan is now an outcast, he has to emigrate to America, and he is part of the…Russian community (to be sardonic, what else?)

We also have that other short tale, inserted in what is anyway a compact novel, of the vagabond, who comes to ask for beer, he finds none, and is told that the Norwegians may have it, but then he just throws himself into the threshing (or some other) machine and he is killed, the tool would never work properly after that

 

The Shimerda struggle in America, Mr. Shimerda had not wanted to come there, they also have this son, who is challenged, and he would be harsh with his sister, Antonia, and the progress in Nebraska is limited, Mrs. Shimerda blames the failures on circumstances, her bread is not that good, because of the shortages

At some point, Jim’s grandmother finds some frozen potatoes and when she is asking, she finds that these were discarded by someone else, eventually, Mr. Burden gives them a cow, and does not ask for money, except for some ten dollars, but Mr. Shimerda would commit suicide, and Antonia has to go into service

 

Now I remember another horror – Lena works with this family, where the husband is attracted to her, he traps the wife by sending her to Ohio, and then comes home to abuse, rape the handsome girl, only to find…Jim, in her bed, so the narrator gets beaten, just because his grandmother thought it is better for him to be there

This same fellow is very bitter, does not want the spouse to inherit the one hundred thousand (quite a few tens of millions today) she is entitled to, if she survives him, and thus he just takes a pistol and kills her…https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/04/the-professors-house-by-willa-cather.html

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html  – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’