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The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck (1961)

September 1, 2009 Book Reviews
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The Winter of Our Discontent by John SteinbeckThe Winter of Our Discontent: Ethan Allen Hawley has lost the acquisitive spirit of his wealthy and enterprising forebears, a long line of proud New England sea captains and Pilgrims. Scarred by failure, Ethan works as a grocery clerk in a store his family once owned. But his wife is restless and his teenage children troubled and hungry for the material comforts he cannot provide. Then a series of unusual events reignites Ethan’s ambition, and he is pitched on to a bold course where all scruples are put aside. … Steinbeck’s searing examination of the evil influences of money, immorality, greed and ambition on American drew acclaim from the Nobel Committee who hailed him as an “independent expounder of the truth.”

Before The Winter of Our Discontent, the only John Steinbeck book I have read is Of Mice and Men – which I enjoyed. Steinbeck seems to be one of those quintessentially American authors, it seems he is frequently used as a high school text. When I was in high school – a moderately sized suburban school in a lower middle-class area, not prestigious in any way – we studied mainly contemporary Australian literature, or young adult fiction that was smack-you-over-the-head heavy on themes. The only opportunity to study anything that was considered a “classic” was in Literature, I studied Sylvia Plath and Tennessee Williams, but this was stuff I was reading in my own time anyway. I wish that my school curriculum had been more diverse, more challenging. Maybe then I would have read more Steinbeck by now. (Coincidentally enough, after I’d been thinking about this for a while, Abebooks posted this article about required reading worldwide. Australia isn’t on their lists, but I’d be curious to know the differences.)

The Winter of Our Discontent follows a few short months in the life of grocery clerk Ethan Allen Hawley. His family was once wealthy and respected, but managed to lose much of their fortune. Though Hawley has little ambition or greed, the needs and desires of his family drive him to change his perspective. One thing that I loved about Of Mice and Men was Steinbeck’s use of dialogue. It flowed, he wrote as people spoke. His dialogue in The Winter of Our Discontent is supreme, whole chapters mostly of dialogue that manages to drive the narrative forward. Characters are introduced and established mainly through their conversation with Ethan.

Steinbeck paints a vivid portrait of small town America, and has a keen eye for the details of routine. The time that Ethan spends manning the grocery is filled with accurate insight into the dredge of retail work. The intimate knowledge of customers, the ability to predict the ebb and flow of business, the rapport that grows between seller and customer slowly over time.

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

Ethan Allen Hawley is a curious character. He is clearly educated – he mentions having spent a lot of time at college but none of that knowledge is useful to him in his work – and in the beginning he is level-headed, charming (some of the dialogue and scenes between Ethan and his wife Mary are just adorable), somewhat stoic and not at all concerned with possessions or social positions or any of the things which seem to bother his fellow townspeople. The story traces his transformation into a creature that is swayed by greed and ambition – however small and seemingly simple the greed and ambition is. I’m just not sure where this lust for money and social wealth comes from? Is it purely out of necessity for the growing needs of his wife and two teenage children? Is he trying to return to the respect that his forefathers inspired? Is it a subtle revolt against the system which has kept him working as a lowly grocery clerk? This corruption takes place in most of the characters, but we see it through Ethan’s eyes, and it his desperation that has the most effect.

A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers. Everyone takes what he wants or can from it and thus changes it to his measure. Some pick out parts and reject the rest, some strain the story through their mesh of prejudice, some paint it with their own delight. A story must have some points of contact with the reader to make him feel at home in it. Only then can he accept wonders.

The Winter of Our Discontent is a morality tale that forces us to ask ourselves: is the corruption of ambition worth whatever rewards it may reap?

I’m definitely going to read more Steinbeck, I’ve put East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath on hold at the library.

Book Loot: Week Ending August 30th 2009

August 30, 2009 Book Loot
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This week went by so fast! I didn’t have too many book-buying opportunities this week – some might say that’s a good thing. Here’s what my rummaging about at book sales scored me this week:

Book Loot: Week Ending 30th August 2009

I was hugely, ridiculously pleased to find February House on sale for a couple of dollars, mainly due to my rampant obsession and admiration for Carson McCullers. A signed copy of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was sold on ebay for US$500 this week, I’d been following it out of interest for a while now. It was originally listed at a couple of thousand but didn’t sell. The seller relisted it as a normal auction but with a reserve price. People bid on it, but it didn’t reach the reserve so the seller relisted it with the Buy It Now price of US$500 and it was snapped up almost instantly. Alas, not to me!

Reading: I have spent a lot of time reading short stories this week. Mainly short stories on the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die List – Edgar Allen Poe, Nikolai Gogol and my favourite of the lot, Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The Yellow Wallpaper is suitably creepy and frightening, amazing that a story of just over 6000 words can explore so many themes so richly. I’m still reading the Flannery O’Connor short stories, but as I’ve said before, I am in no hurry to finish them all quickly. I read “Greenleaf” on the bus this week, and it was horrifying as I slowly realized where it was going. I started reading John Steinbeck’s The Winter of Our Discontent today, enjoying it so far, but more on that later. Next week I’ll also be starting Jane Austen’s Lady Susan as part of the Austenprose group read.

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Sex and Science by Mary Roach (2008)

August 24, 2009 Book Reviews
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Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Sex and Science by Mary Roach Few things are as fundamental to human happiness as sex, and few writers are as entertaining about the subject as Mary Roach. Can a woman think herself to orgasm? Can a dead man get an erection? Why doesn’t Viagra help women – or, for that matter, pandas? Does orgasm boost fertility? Or cure hiccups? The study of sexual physiology – what happens, and why, and how to make it happen better – has been taking place behind closed doors for many hundreds of years. In Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Sex and Science, Mary Roach steps inside laboratories, brothels, pig farms, sex-toy R&D labs – even Alfred Kinsey’s attic – to tell us everything we wanted to know about sex, and a lot we’d never even thought to ask.

This is a quick, and enormously enjoyable and eye-opening read. Roach uses a humourous conversational tone throughout, she doesn’t needlessly get bogged down in scientific terminology, and when it is necessary to do so, great care is taken to explain everything in a simplified manner. The downside of this, however, is that it sometimes seems like not enough time is spent fleshing out some genuinely interesting experiments that are being examined. Just as you begin to really get a good grasp on the information at hand, the chapter ends, and it is a little disappointing.

The chapters follow a well-crafted episodic structure, each one neatly links in to the next and the connections are explained. I can imagine that the information in this book would make a compelling documentary series, but it would need someone with the deft skill of Roach to make it so. Roach doesn’t take a dry approach to her subject, she doesn’t just spit out chunks of scientific journals. While this is generally a positive thing, I feel like it also contributes to the lack of depth. Instead, she interviews many intriguing characters and researchers – such as the Taiwanese urological surgeon, the manager of a sex toy factory, the Danish pig inseminators – and she even participates beyond the expected authorial call of duty. Roach combines her hands on participation, field experiences, and her scholarly research to fully engage the reader in to the world of sexual physiology.

The conclusion appears to be that despite all the leaps forward that science has made in the area, there is still much that we do not know, suggesting that human sexual response is such a complex one that we will never fully be able to understand all the minute facets of it. Considering that some of the research done as recently as the 1950s seems to be, by current standards, almost ludicrous in execution and conclusions, we have to wonder just how far we have to go toward a complete – if indeed such a thing is possible – scientific understanding of the sexual responses of humans.

Further Reading:

Book Loot – Week Ending August 23rd 2009

August 23, 2009 Book Loot
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The more I write these Book Loot posts, the more you will realize that I buy way more books than I could ever possibly read. Sure, eventually, over the course of a lifetime, I’ll hopefully get them all read. As a customer said to me this week, “I need more books like I need a hole in the head!” – ouch! Didn’t stop her from buying five books from me. I like to think of my book buying adventures as an investment for the future in a way. Here’s what I “invested” in this week.

The Return of the NativeThe Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy
The wilds of Egdon Heath seem like a prison to Eustacia Vye, cut off from the world in her grandfathers lonely cottage. When Clym Yeobright returns from the glittering lights of Paris, he seems to offer everything she dreams of – passion, excitement, and the opportunity to escape. However, Clym’s ambitions are quite different from hers, and marriage only increases Eustacia’s destructive restlessness. In his evocation of the ‘vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath’, Hardy’s descriptive and lyrical powers are seen at their height, creating a powerful setting which seems as vital and dramatic as the characters it sustains.

This sounds really wonderful. It has the landscape as character theme which I’m so interested in at the moment, sounds like it is dark and melancholic with a touch of romance? A sense of isolation. This summary doesn’t really give much away, but it makes me excited to read it. Eustacia Vye is such a great character name.

The Night Climbers - Ivo StourtonThe Night Climbers – Ivo Stourton
When I jumped, I felt at first that I moved very slowly through the air, accelerating only as I fell. Far below me on te cobbles, there were the upturned faces of the police and the porters, staring into the sky like children. It made me feel like a god.

I’m solely interested in this one because of its inclusion on a shelf on GoodReads, “Books Claiming To Be Just Like The Secret History.” Obviously nothing is ever going to be as good as The Secret History – well, not nothing ever but within the same broad genre – but I’m still interested in reading these supposed lesser versions. I should just reread The Secret History over and over.

A quick visit to the local secondhand bookstore – just to waste time while I was waiting for the bus, I promise! – saw me buy three William Faulkner novels. I’ve been going to this store for over ten years and now that I work in a bookstore on the same street, the owner and I are quite friendly and he always gives me a discount on the marked prices.

Light in AugustLight in August – William Faulkner
When it was first published, many critics considered Light in August to be a macabre fantasy – one went so far as to say that the novel was like “an epileptic fit.” It has now become a landmark in American fiction. The central figure, ironically called Joe Christmas, kills his perverted but God-fearing lover (who has ordered him to fall on his knees and pray at pistol point) and is pursued by a lynch-hungry populace. Through his observation of the character of this man and of the people with whom he comes into contact, Faulkner probes deep into the frightening recesses of the Calvinist spirit, and of society in the Southern United States.

Requiem for a Nun - William FaulknerRequiem for a Nun – William Faulkner
Nancy, a negro nursemaid, is about to be hanged for killing her mistress’s baby: her lawyer, Gavin Stevens, compels the mistress to confess the reason for Nancy’s crime. The law takes its course; but justice, in Faulkner’s sense, has been done.

The Unvanquished – William Faulkner
In a series of episodes set during and after the American Civil War the 1949 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature profiles the people of the South – who might surrender but could never be vanquished. The characters of The Unvanquished and the earlier Sartoris are largely based on Faulkner’s own family: in particular, Colonel John Sartoris is a fairly faithful portrait of the author’s extraordinary great-grandfather – a notable personality who fought in Mexico, was tried for murder, raised a Confederate regiment, built a railway, ran a plantation, founded a college, and published a best-seller. These tales of the Civil War form Faulkner’s least difficult novel, and serve to introduce many of the themes and characters of his famous novels of the South.

Strange, I can’t find an image of my cover of The Unvanquished anywhere online. Just when you think absolutely everything is accessible …

I also visited the local library this week, and picked up a few books that may or may not actually get read (or may just sit on the nightstand way past their due date and amass a huge fine): some of Mary Roach’s work, Stiff and Bonk; John Steinbeck’s Winter of Our Discontent and Catherine Ray’s Stepping Out. In a few weeks I’ll be digging out Jane Austen’s Lady Susan as part of A Soirée with Lady Susan as organized by the Austenprose blog. AND I’ve got some ebay purchases due to arrive next week – book buying problem? What book buying problem?

Save Me the Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald (1932)

August 22, 2009 Book Reviews
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Save Me the Waltz by Zelda FitzgeraldSave Me the Waltz was written by Zelda Fitzgerald in the six hectic weeks while recovering from a breakdown. It is intensely autobiographical: Southern belle Alabama Beggs meets promising artist David Knight during war-time service, and marries him; prolonged honeymoon in Prohibition New York ‘when it was always tea-time or late at night’; then expatriate years in Paris and on the Riviera lived ‘at a broken, strident tempo’; next, Alabama’s belated efforts to succeed as a ballet-dancer … a jealous attempt to rival her husband’s fame. Save me the Waltz was a similar real-life attempt. But Zelda Fitzgerald’s book emerges as much more than a document of spite. It is a forceful, truthful picture of legendary marriage in a fabulous age: one of the most shattering self-portraits of a woman ever committed to paper.

There is a great difficult in looking at this book objectively, especially as so much of it mirrors Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s lives together. It raises all sorts of questions in regards to the – in this case – very fine line between autobiography and fiction. I have to wonder how much of writing this book was intended as therapeutic catharsis – remembering that she wrote this in a short period after a nervous breakdown, and also that F. Scott Fitzgerald had co-opted much of their life into his fictional work. As I read this book I had to wonder how much I was imagining Zelda and Francis Scott as Alabama and David rather than letting the prose create the idea these characters for me. The truth is I was letting the mythology of Zelda and Francis shape my reading of the book. Despite the lovely luscious writing, there is very little characterization – so it becomes almost necessary to draw upon the rich biographical reserves of the famous author and her husband in order to create a full image. The characters just seem to drift along on the heady, poetic writing.

Fitzgerald uses a lot of unusual and obscure language in this book, and it is helpful to keep a thorough dictionary on hand while working your way through it; I imagine that a lot of words have simply fallen out of daily or fashionable usage in the seventy seven years that have passed since it was first published. However, the eccentric use of language does not make the book entirely impenetrable. The fact that the narrative, plot and character are too often buried beneath her wonderful use of language makes this an uneven, but not unaffecting book.

Alabama could not read the letter. It was in French. She tore it in a hundred little pieces and scattered it over the black water of the harbour beneath the masts of many fishing boats from Shanghai and Madrid, Colombia and Portugal. Though it broke her heart, she tore the picture too. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever owned in her life, that photograph. What was the use of keeping it? Jacques Chevre-Feuille had gone to China. There wasn’t a way to hold on to the summer, no French phrase to preserve its rising broken harmonies, no hopes to be salvaged from a cheap French photograph. Whatever it was that she wanted from Jacques, Jacques took it with him to squander on the Chinese. You took what you wanted from life, if you could get it, and you did without the rest.

Ballet Rehearsal by Edgar Degas (1873)

Ballet Rehearsal by Edgar Degas (1873)

The first section of the book, following Alabama Beggs’ coming of age and the stories about her overbearing father and her compliant mother and her varied sisters is interesting, full of Southern charm and lilting nostalgia. This section is disappointingly short and moves quickly on to Alabama’s marriage to David Knight. Here everything gets lost in a nebulous blur as the couple embark on a continental adventure, engaging in parties with socialites and indulging in various affairs. It loses some charm here, which doesn’t pick up again until the rather beige character of David all but disappears in the third section, in which Alabama devotes herself to ballet. Again, here is a scenario close to Zelda’s own life – she too started to practice ballet late in her twenties, driving herself to mental and physical exhaustion.

At night she sat in the window too tired to move, consumed by a longing to succeed as a dancer. It seemed to Alabama that, reaching her goal, she would drive the devils that had driven her – that, in proving herself, she would achieve that peace which she imagined went only in surety of one’s self – that she would be able, through the medium of the dance, to command her emotions, to summon love or pity or happiness at will, having provided a channel through which they might flow. She drove herself mercilessly, and the summer dragged on.

The language here creates a vivid sense of atmosphere, and the characters she meets in the ballet studio are interesting – even funny – in their singular obsession of dancing success, but it is a bit aimless. Intriguingly poetic and dream-like, but without any narrative force. Her prose is engaging and evocative enough to ignore the lack for the most part.

Zelda Fitzgerald

Zelda Fitzgerald

Further Reading:

Politics by Adam Thirlwell (2003)

August 19, 2009 Book Reviews
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A review in which your humble reviewer learned not to judge an author by the attractiveness of their publicity photograph or the numerous accolades heaped upon their début novel.

Politics - Adam ThirlwellPolitics tells the story of a father and daughter. It also tells the story of a ménage à trois. Politics explores crucial domestic problems of sexual etiquette. What should the sleeping arrangements be in a ménage à trois? Is it polite to read while two people have sex beside you? Is it permissible to be jealous? If you have eczema, may you complain that undinism can be painful? Politics is a comedy about kindness. And, at the same time, it is also about Milan Kundera, blow jobs, Chairman Mao’s personal hygiene, Václav Havel, half-Jewishness, Bollywood, shopping, Hitler’s sexual fetish, selfishness, Osip Mandelstam, premature ejaculation, the late Queen Mother, thrush, Stalin on the phone, politeness, pink fluffy handcuffs, and Antonia Gramsci’s theory of hegemony. Politics is not about politics.

I feel like this blurb is the literary equivalent of a high school girl squealing “omg how random!!” about something which really isn’t random at all. Look at how wide and varied our young author’s knowledge is! This book is obviously going to be quirky and edgy, right?

Politics is the story of a couple, Moshe and Nana, and later on their friend Anjali gets in on the action. Moshe is a tubby actor, Nana is a sexually unsatisfied architecture graduate student, Anjali is a secret admirer of Bollywood films. Politics follows the formation and gradual complications of the relationships between all three characters.

There are a lot of sex scenes, and I can’t help but feel that most of these are intended to be outrageous. But, this is the age of the Internet, and none of these so-called perversions are particularly shocking any more. Thirlwell seems to find a sense of schoolboy-like glee in breaking these supposed morality rules. Surprisingly, he seems to be somewhat aware of the limitations of this repetitiveness here:

Sex is not specific. It is not original. You might think your perversions are all your own, but no. Perversion is general. Perversions are universal. You have to make them specific.

My main issue with this novel is the narrator’s constant interjections. The story is told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator, which isn’t an unusual narrative technique, but the execution here is all wrong. It is grating, as he constantly tells us what is going on and how it represents a major theme or how it signifies changes to come. He even, in the first paragraph when introducing the characters in a particularly awkward sexual situation, tells us that we should probably like them:

I think you are going to like Moshe. His girlfriend’s name was Nana. I think you will like her.

No worries, but ultimately, isn’t it up to me to decide? Every aspect of this novel is analyzed and pulled apart like this by the narrator. Every moment is given a running commentary. The story is never allowed to just flow. The only part of this novel that I actually liked was the anecdotes about various historical figures, used to compare and contrast with the situation at hand. Mainly because one of these asides introduced me to the fashion designer, Elsa Schiaparelli.

Stylistically, I think Thirlwell was trying for Milan Kundera and maybe even Jonathan Safran Foer; but is neither as illuminating of human experience or as genuinely touching as either of these authors. His work comes off as a lesser version of Kundera, and the conclusions he comes to are not particularly enlightening. Miscommunication is rife between individuals, we end up doing things because we think they make other people happy, etc. etc. It all comes across as rather trite, and seems to be speaking down to the reader rather than engaging them.

Romances are complicated. They involve more than one person. This means that every detail can be ambiguous. And I quite like that idea.

While I wasn’t taken with Thirlwell’s style (or theme, or characters), I am glad I stepped out of my reading comfort zone but I would not go out of my way to recommend this one to anyone – and I am terribly glad that I only borrowed it from the library.

* * *

Then there is the anticipation of what to choose to read next. I’m working my way through Flannery O’Connor’s Complete Stories but I am in no rush to finish that one. Each story is definitely to be savoured as a treat – even if it is a treat that leaves you feeling a bit sickly afterwards. I’ve also been sitting stagnant with Sense & Sensibility (no Sea Monsters in sight) as part of my goal to read all of Jane Austen’s novels by the end of the year. I’ve been thinking about Zelda Fitzgerald a lot lately, so I might dig out Save Me the Waltz?

Book Loot – Week Ending August 16th 2009

August 16, 2009 Book Loot
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I did some book-shopping-as-therapy on Wednesday, and here’s what I managed to pick up and will probably get around to reading sometime after 2013.

House of Meetings - Martin AmisHouse of Meetings – Martin Amis

There were conjugal visits in the slave camps of the USSR. Valiant women would travel continental distances in the hope of spending a night, with their particular enemy of the people, in the House of Meetings. In this short novel of great depth and richness, Martin Amis tells the story of one such liaison. It is a triangular romance: two brothers fall in love with the same girl, a nineteen-year-old Jewess, in Moscow. When both brothers end up in a slave camp above the Arctic Circle, their rivalry slowly complicates itself over the course of a decade.

The Information – Martin Amis

The Information - Martin AmisHow can one writer hurt another where it really counts? This is the problem facing novelist Richard Tull, contemplating the success of his friend and rival Gwyn Barry. Revenger’s tragedy, comedy of errors, contemporary satire, The Information is an extraordinary novel of dark humour and piercing insight.

My experience with the work of Martin Amis is limited – I remember reading London Fields immediately after I finished my final high school exams, but don’t really remember too much about it. The bits and pieces I’ve read from this are really good, seems to be very funny and sharp. I’d like to put this higher on my to-read list, but I think it might be a bit too similar – in theme, maybe, rather than style? – to the book I’m reading at the moment.

I’m quite keen on these Vintage published covers of Amis’ fiction. Strikingly designed. Then there’s this brooding portrait of Amis, photographed by his fiancée Angela Gorgas in 1980.

Martin Amis photographed by Angela Gorgas in Paris in 1980

Martin Amis photographed by Angela Gorgas in Paris in 1980

The Coast of Akron – Adrienne Miller

The Coast of Akron - Adrienne MillerThe Coast of Akron is the story of the gloriously unorthodox, maladjusted, brilliant Haven family from Akron, Ohio. In the thirty years since artists Jenny and Lowell met, inspired each other, and separated, Lowell has achieved international fame. But five years ago, he suddenly stopped painting and the world wants to know why. The answer lies with Merit, Lowell and Jenny’s daughter, who is running as fast as she can from her family. In an attempt to solve the mystery and heal old wounds Fergus, Lowell’s dyspeptic lover, lures the family and guests back to the hallowed faux-Tudor mansion where it all began. It is at this lavish gathering that long-standing secrets, as well as bonds, will be revealed.

I’ve had my eye on this one for a while, but I don’t really know why. I’ve just realized that some of the review quotes liken it to White Noise, the book I am reading at the moment that I mentioned as possibly being too similar to The Information. Consistency? Serendipity? Either way, it’s clearly meant to be in my possession.

If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things – Jon McGregor

If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things - Jon McGregorOn a street in a town in the North of England, perfectly ordinary people are doing totally normal things – children play cricket, window-frames are painted, a couple argues, students pack up their belongings, and nameless people pass each other like every other day, interweaving yet never connecting. But a terrible event shatters the quiet of the summer evening and no one who witnesses it will ever be the same again.

That’s a rather vague summary! This book gets quoted on lj/literaryquotes a lot so there is a strong possibility that as a whole it will disappoint. And the reference to students packing up their belongings just reminds me of the opening paragraph of White Noise …!

Speaking of which, I’ve spent all day cleaning (all my books are most definitely not in any order, but at least they’re now a bit more manageable) and I have the empty quiet house all to myself, a bit of Cadbury Fruit & Nut, so I think I’ll go and do some reading.

My Ántonia – Willa Cather

August 11, 2009 Book Reviews
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My Ántonia – Willa CatherToday I finally finished My Ántonia, which I’ve been reading via DailyLit for about a month now. I most recently used DailyLit to read Proust’s actually-not-so-intimidating-after-all first volume of In Search of Lost Time, Swann’s Way. I wouldn’t be able to read all of my books through the service, and it is probably the closest I’ll ever come to using ebooks, but it does have some usefulness. I just prefer the physicality of a book, I suppose I’m a bit old-fashioned in that way. That’s a discussion for another time.

I chose this book rather on a whim after reading a brief preview on wikipedia and a few reviews on GoodReads. I was particularly drawn to – mainly for my own stilted creative writing attempts – in the use of landscape, as a metaphor and as a character in itself. This is a book about family, friendship and filial love in Nebraska. Narrated by Jim Burden looking retrospectively at his childhood, it is told with the same dreamlike tendency we tend to give our own personal histories; at the heart of the story is his friendship with an immigrant girl, Ántonia Shimerda. They grow up together, they evolve separately. The book begins with a quote from Virgil “Optima dies … prima fugit” – that is, “The best days are the first to flee.” And fittingly, My Ántonia is told with a type of golden nostalgia.

“I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.”

I really loved how isolated and earthy the story feels, full of details of pioneer and farming life, it has a certain rustic authenticity about it (although I am quite aware of how problematic it is to use the term authenticity in this regard.) The description of nature and the prairie is strong and evocative. Despite being strongly rooted in the sense of the land, there is also sense of real human connection. The characters are all interesting, both the Burdens and the Shimerdas, as well as Jake and Otto at the Burden household, and the Russian fellows who fed the bride to the wolves in their homeland.

“I can see them now, exactly as they looked, working about the table in the lamplight: Jake with his heavy features, so rudely moulded that his face seemed, somehow, unfinished; Otto with his half-ear and the savage scar that made his upper lip curl so ferociously under his twisted moustache. As I remember them, what unprotected faces they were; their very roughness and violence made them defenceless. These boys had no practiced manner behind which they could retreat and hold people at a distance. They had only their hard fists to batter at the world with.”

However, it gets quite dark very quickly, with Mr. Shimerda’s suicide. Ántonia disappears into the background for much of the story here, as the Shimerdas, in their darkest time, show themselves to be boastful, manipulative and liars. Ungrateful. When the Burdens move closer to town, Jim’s grandparents take a lesser role, as he grows up and moves beyond the family unit. The writing here is just as evocative:

Winter comes down savagely over a little town on the prairie. The wind that sweeps in from the open country strips away all the leafy screens that hide one yard from another in summer, and the houses seem to draw closer together. The roofs, that looked so far away across the green tree-tops, now stare you in the face, and they are so much uglier than when their angles were softened by vines and shrubs.

In the morning, when I was fighting my way to school against the wind, I couldn’t see anything but the road in front of me; but in the late afternoon, when I was coming home, the town looked bleak and desolate to me. The pale, cold light of the winter did not beautify — it was like the light of truth itself. When the smoky clouds hung low in the west and the red sun went down behind them, leaving a pink flush on the snowy roofs and the blue drifts, then the wind sprang up afresh, with a kind of bitter song, as if it said: ‘This is reality, whether you like it or not. All those frivolities of summer, the light and shadow, the living mask of green that trembled over everything, they were lies, and this is what was underneath. This is the truth.’ It was as if we were being punished for loving the loveliness of summer.”

Wow. Just … this speaks so loudly, it feels alive. Cather has a knack of making long passages of descriptive prose seem so vivid and vital. Jim’s affections for Ántonia seem to be rather innocent, even as he looks back at his memories of her from middle age, it never seems bawdy or crass. Sentimental, maybe, but unaffectedly romantic. When he speaks of going back to visit Ántonia and her children, it is so beautiful and hopeful. The importance of human connection, of friendship. It is undoubtedly sweetly nostalgic, but I can’t fault it. Does Jim idolize Ántonia and put her on a pedestal, making her an unreachable object of desire? It never feels like it, although she clearly represents something to him – his youth? His past, a shared history, his link to the land?

I did not want to find her aged and broken; I really dreaded it. In the course of twenty crowded years one parts with many illusions. I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.

I liked this a lot more than I expected to. Sweet without being saccharine, and Cather has a wonderful, deceptively simple, grasp of poetic, lyrical language.