Memoirous

“Some memories are realities and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.” My Ántonia A book I seem to come back to again and again is My Ántonia by Willa Cather. Often I don’t have time to read all the books I want to—so why do I continue to re-read ones from the past? Always I am seeing something new, or traveling back over worn roads that in their familiarity call me home. Some reduce My Ántonia to an immigrant’s story. It is Jim’s the narrator’s memoir as well as the story of a Czech (Bohemian) neighbor girl. Or cast in another light—we are all newcomer’s to a place we have to conquer and eventually tame, we all strangers here. I love Cather’s work. It is her descriptions of place that transport me. In Death Comes for the Archbishop we read about New MexicoppLand of Enchantment, of pastel pink clouds, golden sunsets, of sagebrush mesas and waterless arroyos, of Kit Carson and horse thieves. It also contains many racial stereotypes and a...