Every once in a while I read a "classic" and surprisingly I'm surprised at how well written it is. I just read Willa Cather's My Antonia. It's great. Not a lot happens. There is a weird framing device that I want to discuss with Amateur Reader (the first person narrator of the introduction never explicitly appears again. Who is it?). There are long descriptions of prairie summers and winters (I've lived through prairie summers and winters. Cather knows what she is writing about.) Sixteen-year-old Mister hated it. I can see why. It's not a book for everyone.
But My Antonia is fabulously written.
And somehow I'm surprised.
What classics have wowed you?
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3 comments:
1. I have not read My Ántonia.
2. Having said that, I assume it is one of those trick books where the narrator turns out to be the killer.
3. Having said that, I actually assume that the first narrator is "Willa Cather" distancing herself from her book. What does she get from having Jim Burden narrate that would be lost if "Cather" told the story ("My own story was never written," ho ho ho), or if it were a third person story?
4. E.g., it is Jim Burden whose writing you are praising, not Willa Cather, who contributed nothing but the introduction and light editing ("substantially as he brought it to me").
AR- Of course you are exactly correct. The narrator did it and Jim is a great writer with an amazing memory for detail.
I love to read classics because they are usually really good! I read My Antonia this summer and loved it. Right now, I'm reading Vanity Fair by Thackeray and loving it.
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