My Ántonia
A Bohemian immigrant girl on the Nebraska prairie, seen through the eyes of a man who loved her without possessing her. Cather's 1918 prose is luminous and spare; its sense of place is unmatched in American literature. A feminist text before the term existed, told by a male narrator who can only see the edges of what he is missing.
The title promises Ántonia and delivers Jim. Readers object that she vanishes for chapters at a time and that his narration “deprives us of any insight into her inner life,” and once he hits adolescence a fair number report that “Jim starts behaving like a self-centered little shit.” The plot draws the flattest complaints: “pretty milquetoast” is one reader’s summary, and even an admiring critic concedes “it has no plot.” The Black Hawk town section is where readers say the focus slips. Jim’s long absence from Ántonia later on, and the reason he gives for it, convinces almost nobody.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
