My Antonia

How did I Come add My Antonia to my favorite books list? A number of years ago, some friends and I had an informal book group. Different members would pick the books we would read. A friend picked My Antonia. I know I would not have picked it up on my own. I started reading it grudgingly (I have since read 3 other novels by Willa Cather). However, I was quickly captured by the story and especially the shimmering beauty of the language. Descriptions such as the following captivated me.

" We sat looking off across the country, watching the sun go down. The curly grass about us was on fire now. The bark of the oaks turned red as copper. There was a shimmer of gold on the brown river. Out in the stream the sandbars glittered like glass, and the light trembled in the willow thickets as if little flames were leaping among them. The breeze sank to stillness. In the ravine a ringdove mourned plaintively, and somewhere off in the bushes an owl hooted. The girls sat listless, leaning against each other. The long fingers of the sun touched their foreheads.
"Presently we saw a curious thing: There were no clouds, the sun was going down in a limpid, gold-washed sky. Just as the lower edge of the red disk rested on the high fields against the horizon, a great black figure suddenly appeared on the face of the sun. We sprang to our feet, straining our eyes toward it. In a moment we realized what it was. On some upland farm, a plough had been left standing in the field. The sun was sinking just behind it. Magnified across the distance by the horizontal light, it stood out against the sun, was exactly contained within the circle of the disk; the handles, the tongue, the share—black against the molten red. There it was, heroic in size, a picture writing on the sun.
"Even while we whispered about it, our vision disappeared; the ball dropped and dropped until the red tip went beneath the earth. The fields below us were dark, the sky was growing pale, and that forgotten plough had sunk back to its own littleness somewhere on the prairie."

How can one deny the sheer beauty of such language? However, the novel throbs with power as it tells the story of the pioneer who heroically breaks and tames the "wild Prairie", as his plough breaks the clods and renders the soil suitable for farming. Some are conquerors others are conquered. Then the time of the pioneer passes and fades into history.
At the close of the story, the narrator, Jim Burden, reminisces, "I took a long walk north of town, out into the pastures where the land was so rough that it had never been ploughed up, and the long red grass of early times still grew shaggy over the draws and hillocks. Out there I felt at home again."
Cather has painted and woven a rich tapestry. The land itself throbs and vibrates with life. Some break themselves against the land, others flee from it, but the pioneer conquers it; and then fades away to a faint memory. But the land lives on forever.

Dostoevsky, the First Blogger

The great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky published the equivalent of a blog in the 1870s; it was called The Diary of a Writer. It was issued by Dostoevsky in monthly installments beginning in 1876. It ran until his death in January of 1881 except for when he was writing Brothers Karamazov. They have been translated and published in a book by Boris Brasol. He records in his preface:Even today the prolific literary heritage of Dostoievsky is not fully appraised and evaluated, If Pushkin can be called the Raphael of Russian literature, Dostoievsky should he recognized as its Michelangelo. His fame reached its climax in 1880, after his brilliant speech at the unveiling of the Pushkin monument in Moscow. This famous address is recorded in the Diary for the year 1880.Dostoievsky died in St. Petersburg, on January 28, 1881. Enormous crowds attended his funeral: men and women from all walks of life—statesmen of high rank and downtrodden prostitutes; illiterate peasants and distinguished men of letters; army officers and learned scientists; credulous priests and incredulous students—they were all there,Whom did Russia bury with so great a reverence? Was it only one of her famous men of letters? Indeed not, in that coffin lay a noble and lofty man, a prudent teacher, an inspired prophet whose thoughts, like mountain peaks, were always pointed toward heaven, and who had measured the depths of man’s quivering heart with all its struggles, sins, and tempests; its riddles, pains and sorrows; its unseen tears and burning passions. For he did teach men to live and love and suffer. And to the meekest he would offer his brotherly compassion—to all who labor and are heavy laden. He would come to them as an equal, laying before them the wisdom of his soul, his tender understanding of all that, in modern man, is human and even inhuman. He would counsel the doubting and soothe the wounds of those afflicted with distress. And many a hope would thus be restored, many a soul resurrected by the grand visions and magic of his genius.

Certainly what more need be said regarding Dostoevsky’s renown. His great novels require more than one careful reading to release their treasures. Dostoevsky was indeed “an inspired prophet whose thoughts, like mountain peaks, were always pointed toward heaven.” Like the bible his insights require study and careful mining to reveal its riches.