BookMarkers Discussion of My Antonia

The library's BookMarkers group met tonight to discuss My Antonia by Willa Cather. We spoke briefly about Willa Cather's life. Much of her work is based on her childhood experiences in Nebraska. Willa and her family, like Jim, left Virginia to travel to Nebraska by railroad. Willa was 9; Jim was 10. Willa's good friend Annie Pavelka inspired Antonia. Annie's father inspired Antonia's father. Both fathers were musicians; both could not adapt to the United States. About 2 years after Willa's family arrived at their Nebraska farm; they, like Jim and his grandparents, moved into town. Willa's Red Cloud echoed Jim's Black Hawk. We appreciated Willa's vivid description of the land, remembering how Jim described the country as "running....the whole prairie like bush burned with fire....She (Antonia) had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting....Sunflowers made a gold ribbon across the prairie." Several individuals recalled the immigrant experiences of their grandparents and great grandparents in Nebraska and other places in the Midwest. All agreed that Willa accurately described the hardships immigrants faced in adapting to their new country.
Please contact the library if you would like a staff member to facilitate your book discussion. The next facilitated discussion will be held on Wednesday, May 7 at the Mundelein Senior Center. It will start at 7:00 p.m.

Big Read Pictures

Today's Book Discussion Success

We had a lively book discussion this afternoon. We talked about several ideas and themes, including the novel's introduction, style, tone, setting, and characters. We thought that the novel gave a realistic view of the hardships faced by new immigrants and farmers on the prairie. We enjoyed Cather's vivid descriptions; we shared favorite parts of the book with one another. Everyone liked the book, and some said that reading Cather's My Antonia made them want to go back and read the American classics. The library has Cather's works and many more classics. If you don't find something on the shelf, ask a staff member to search other library catalogs.
Our next book discussion is on Tuesday, April 22, at 7:00 p.m. Hope to see you there!

Discussion Questions to Consider

Our first book discussion at the library is tomorrow afternoon, April 17,starting at 2:30 p.m. Please drop in.

Here are some questions to consider:
Whose story is this novel's: Jim's or Antonia's?

Jim tells his train companion:“I didn’t have time to arrange it (his story). I simply wrote down pretty much all that her name recalls to me. I suppose it hasn’t any form." Is Jim's description accurate? What effect does Cather produce by telling her story through dramatic episodes?

What relevance does the novel have today, and what does it reveal to us about our past?

Why is Mr. Shimerda unable to adapt to his new home? Does his background and education prevent him from adapting to the harshness and solitude of Nebraska's prairie?

Upcoming Book Discussions for My Antonia by Willa Cather

There will be 2 book discussions at the library. The first one is this Thursday, April 17, at 2:30 p.m. The second one is next Tuesday, April 22, at 7:00 p.m. And the Mundelein Senior Center will host one on Wednesday, May 7, at 7:00 p.m. Readers of all ages are welcome.

Willa Cather believed that My Antonia was the "best thing I've ever done...I feel I've made a contribution to American letters in that book."

On Willa's tombstone are words from My Antonia: "That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great."

Please share your thoughts about My Antonia at our book discussions or on this blog. Contact the library if you would like to host a discussion.

Come to Willa Cather Speaks, Tonight 7:00 p.m.

Tonight, we are happy to present Betty Jean Steinshouer in her one-woman show, Willa Cather Speaks. The show starts at 7:00 p.m. and will run about 1 hour. Readers of all ages are welcome.
A little bit about Betty Jean Steinshouer: She has been portraying Willa Cather on the Chautauqua circuit for nearly 20 years. She hails originally from Missouri but now lives in Florida where she is a Fellow of the Florida Studies Institute at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg. She has written 2 books: Travels with Willa Cather: Poems from the Road and Red Cloud to Cross Creek: More Poems from the Road. Steinshouer also portrays other authors, including Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Gertrude Stein, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sarah Orne Jewett, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Mr. Shimerda Speaks about Moving to Nebraska

"Standing before them (Jim Burden and his grandmother) with his hand on Antonia's shoulder, Mr. Shimerda talked in a low tone, and his daughter (Antonia) translated. He wanted us to know that they were not beggars in the old country; he made good wages, and his family was respected there. He left Bohemia with more than a thousand dollars in savings, after their passage money was paid. He had in some way lost on exchange in New York, and the railway fare to Nebraska was more than they had expected. By the time they paid Krajiek for the land, and bought his horses and oxen and some old farm machinery, they had very little money left. He wished grandmother to know, however, that he still had some money. If they could get through until spring came, they would pay a cow and chickens and plant a garden, and would do very well."
From Book One, The Shimerdas, My Antonia by Willa Cather

Jim Burden describes his first winter on the farm

"The basement kitchen seemed heavenly safe and warm in those days--like a tight little boat in a winter sea. The men were out in the fields all day, husking corn, and when they came in at noon, with long caps pulled down over their ears and their feet in red-lined overshoes, I used to think they were like Artic explorers. In the afternoon, when grandmother sat upstairs darning, or making husking-gloves, I read The Swiss Family Robinson aloud to her, and I felt that the Swiss family had no advantage over us in the way of an adventurous life. I was convinced that man's strongest antagonist is the cold. I admired the cheerful zest with which grandmother went about keeping us warm and comfortable and well-fed. She often reminded me, when she was preparing for the return of the hungry men, that this country was not like Virginia; and that here a cook had, as she said, 'very little to do with'....Our lives centered around warmth and food and the return of the men at nightfall. I used to wonder, when they came in tired from the fields, their feet numb and their hands cracked and sore, how they could do all the chores so conscientiously..."
From Book One, The Shimerdas, My Antonia by Willa Cather

Jim Burden first meets Antonia

Jim and his grandmother visited the Shimerdas, Antonia's family, the first Bohemian family to come to "this part of the country."

"I saw a sort of shed, thatched with the same wine-coloured grass that grew everywhere. Near it tilted a shattered windmill frame, that had no wheel. We drove up to this skeleton to tie our horses, and then I saw a door and a window sunk deep in the draw-bank. The door stood open, and a woman and a girl of fourteen ran out and looked up at us hopefully...Antonia (her eyes) were big and warm and full of light, like the sun shining on brown pools in the wood. Her skin was brown, too, and in her cheeks she had a glow of rich, dark colour. Her brown hair was curly and wild-looking....Antonia came up to me and held out her hand coaxingly. In a moment, we were running up the steep drawside together...When we reached the level and could see the gold tree-tops, I pointed toward them, and Antonia laughed and squeezed my hand as if to tell me how glad she was I had come....We went with Mr. Shimerda back to the dugout, where grandmother was waiting for me. Before I got into the wagon, he took a book out of his pocket, opened it, and showed me a page with two alphabets, one English and the other Bohemian. He placed this book in my grandmother's hands, looked at her entreatingly, and said, with an earnestness which I shall never forget, 'Te-e-ach, te-e-ach my An-tonia!'" From Book One, The Shimerdas, My Antonia by Willa Cather

Cather's language

"I slipped from under the buffalo hide,got up on my knees and peered over the side of the wagon. There seemed to be nothing to see; no fences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields. If there was a road, I could not make it out in the faint starlight. There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made. No, there was nothing but land--slightly undulating." Jim Burden describing Nebraska, Book One, My Antonia by Willa Cather.

Willa Cather Foundation

About the Cather Foundation

The Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial and Educational Foundation (Cather Foundation) was founded in 1955, through the efforts of a small group of volunteers in Red Cloud, Nebraska, led by Mildred R. Bennett. Today the Foundation is directed by a thirty-member Board of Governors that includes nationally recognized scholars, teachers, and business and professional people from throughout the United States. The Cather Foundation is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to preserving and promoting understanding and appreciation of the life, time, settings, and work of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Willa Cather.

For the first 20 years of its existence, the Cather Foundation concentrated on preserving and restoring sites important to the life and works of Willa Cather. Today, six of the restored properties are owned by the Nebraska State Historical Society, but managed by the Cather Foundation. These sites are the Garber Bank Building, the Cather Childhood Home, the Grace Episcopal Church, the St. Juliana Catholic Church, the Burlington Depot, and the Pavelka farm, located fourteen miles north of Red Cloud. In addition, the Cather Foundation owns and manages the 1885 Red Cloud Opera House, the Baptist Church, the Harling House, and the Moon Block. Taken together, the Cather Foundation historic site has the largest number of national historic designated buildings devoted to one author in the United States. In addition, the Cather Foundation owns and manages the Cather Memorial Prairie, a 608 acre tract of unbroken prairie located five miles from Red Cloud.

The Cather Foundation offices are presently located in the newly restored 1885 Red Cloud Opera House. A bookstore within the Opera House carries all of Cather's works as well as many books written by others about Willa Cather. Art and educational exhibits regularly hang in the GALLERY, located on the main level of the Opera House. Both town and country tours of sites related to Cather are available; for more information, please contact us or review our visitor's guide. The Foundation also holds a Spring Conference annually in Red Cloud. Symposiums, international seminars, and workshops related to Cather's works are regularly held in Nebraska and throughout the world.

For more information about international seminars and workshops, visit the news and events page on the foundation's website, www.willacather.org,or call the Cather Foundation at 1-866-731-7304