Hidden Eroticism in My Ántonia, a Memoir in Disguise

Episode 53: MY ÁNTONIA, the standout of Willa Cather's Great Plains Series, is memoir in disguise. Among other things, the book celebrates the vitality of the female body and the fleeting beauty of youth and time
Books mentioned:
My Ántonia, by Willa Cather, published in 1918
O Pioneers! by Willa Cather, published in 1913
The Song of the Lark, by Willa Cather, published in 1915
Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather, published in 1927
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1924
#myantonia #greatplainsnovels #willacather

Пікірлер: 6

  • @BreezeTalk
    @BreezeTalk7 ай бұрын

    ✌✌

  • @ikeameltdown8012
    @ikeameltdown80127 ай бұрын

    Thank you. I have been considering reading this book. This helped.

  • @book_rants

    @book_rants

    7 ай бұрын

    It's one of the greats!

  • @kevinrussell1144
    @kevinrussell11443 ай бұрын

    I was going to call BS on you about the eroticism (I read the book a long time ago), but your arguments are persuasive. I still wouldn't call MA a memoir so much as experiences transmuted into a novel, but you are correct about how much of Cather's own life is worked into the novel. I'm a big fan of hers, with my favorites being A Professor's House, Sapphira, and the first half of One of Ours (of course I like Lost Lady, Shadows on the Rock, and Death Comes, too, and none of her work is sub-standard) but none of these shows as much of the Actual Willa as MA. IF you can transmute Willa into Jim (and I think you can), much of the puzzling aspects of the book make sense. Willa obviously had identity issues and (at least) SSA. But who really cares? She was a superb artist, and her oddness and unease likely made her a very good observer. I maintain that when the reader really gets lost in one of her better passages, it's about as good as it gets....we're drawn into something bigger and more wonderful. It's the land of the timeless, artistic storyteller.

  • @book_rants

    @book_rants

    3 ай бұрын

    This is a wonderful comment, Kevin. Thanks for it. You clearly know a lot more about her work than I do. I agree that very few writers have ever written better, and that is what matters most about her work.

  • @terrapinalive6192

    @terrapinalive6192

    4 күн бұрын

    @@book_rants yours is one of the best I've read on KZread.