My Antonia

I finally finished My Antonia. It took me a long time to read it, not because it was hard to read, but because it did not really interest me and I found it boring in several places. As a matter of fact, I did not really get interested in the book until toward the end when Jim comes home to find Antonia a "fallen" woman with an illegitimate child. From that point on, I read voraciously, as I wanted to know what happened.

I first read a story of Willa Cather's in high school (I have no idea which one), and I did not really like it and have never picked up Willa Cather again until now. The "local color" writers have never been ones that I liked to read. I feel about My Antonia as I do about several other "classics" that I have read: I understand it and appreciate why it is an important book of the local color style, but I just did not really like it.