Sorry this post is late. I got the flu. :)

I love this book. It is everything I love about Willa Cather (except the random horrible death parts - she seems to enjoy writing those). She is so directed, clear and concise with her language that I know every word she uses is on purpose and worth reading. That is an admirable trait in a writer.

For a while there I hated Mrs Shimerda. I couldn't understand her horrible attitude and treatment of everybody around her. But the more I thought about it, I began to realize that it wasn't just selfishness - it was pangs of disappointed hope, her dreams crashing down around her and she hated not being able to control the circumstances. I can understand that. Hopefully she will start to understand that lacking control of everything around her does not mean the end of the world. That would make things easier for those around her.

One thing I've noticed is that Jim's life is portrayed as beginning at the point of arriving at his grandparents' town. He alludes to previous life, but the only reality we are allowed to know is what happens from the beginning of this novel. Cather is also blatantly letting us know that the story is being told by a biased narrator. Jim obviously idolizes Antonia and his grandparents, in addition to be writing from his memory of a child's understanding and is therefore not truly trustworthy in how things went. But, then again, he's the only narrator we've got, so I guess we need to read more in-between the lines.