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So, I finally got around to reading My Antonia--it seems like everyone else read it in high school--and I'm really enchanted by this one, too. It's basically the story of some 19th-century immigrant farmers in Nebraska told largely from a kid's perspective, though it follows the characters into adulthood.
I spent the first 23 years of my life in the midwest, and I didn't grow up on a farm but both of my parents did, so the whole farming thing was definitely mixed into our culture growing up. Plus I was always fascinated as a kid with the whole phenomenon farm families settling the midwest in covered wagons--the proto-feminism of the situation, the idea of life outside the mainstream, the independence and hardship . . . lots of aspects of it.
Then I moved to New York City and discovered that plenty of people think "midwestern culture" is an oxymoron (jerks!
) plus gained the perspective of looking at my childhood environment from the outside (sort of like when you live abroad and gain a whole new perspective on the U.S.) plus fell in love with a New Englander. So now I'm even more fascinated by regional differences in the U.S. (a topic near and dear to the hearts of many oft-moved medspouses, I'm sure!) and more defensive of the unsung joys of the Midwest.
And My Antonia is definitely all about the joys of the Midwest. I've even cajoled my boyfriend into reading it ("You'll understand me better if you read this book"). It paints a pretty glowing picture of that life that's just fun to read. Even my boyfriend plowed through half the book without putting it down.
So I recommend it to anyone with a connection to, or a curiosity about, life in the midwest.
I spent the first 23 years of my life in the midwest, and I didn't grow up on a farm but both of my parents did, so the whole farming thing was definitely mixed into our culture growing up. Plus I was always fascinated as a kid with the whole phenomenon farm families settling the midwest in covered wagons--the proto-feminism of the situation, the idea of life outside the mainstream, the independence and hardship . . . lots of aspects of it.
Then I moved to New York City and discovered that plenty of people think "midwestern culture" is an oxymoron (jerks!
) plus gained the perspective of looking at my childhood environment from the outside (sort of like when you live abroad and gain a whole new perspective on the U.S.) plus fell in love with a New Englander. So now I'm even more fascinated by regional differences in the U.S. (a topic near and dear to the hearts of many oft-moved medspouses, I'm sure!) and more defensive of the unsung joys of the Midwest.And My Antonia is definitely all about the joys of the Midwest. I've even cajoled my boyfriend into reading it ("You'll understand me better if you read this book"). It paints a pretty glowing picture of that life that's just fun to read. Even my boyfriend plowed through half the book without putting it down.
So I recommend it to anyone with a connection to, or a curiosity about, life in the midwest.
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