Quit: "My Antonia" by Willa Cather

Quit: My Antonia by Willa Cather, 1918, Paper edition from 1977, 0395083567.

I read half this book and nothing happens. Nothing of interest anyway. 10-year-old-ish boy is orphaned and moves from Viriginia to his grandparents in Nebraska. Grandparents are nice and run a successful farm. Boy becomes friends with older Bohemian girl, Antonia, on neighboring farm. And then nothing else happens.

Even the suicide of the Bohemian father is kinda lame. The blizzard is lame. The new pony is lame. Selling the farm and moving into town is lame. It's all lame.The only bright spot is Cather's many descriptions of the terrain, the sky, the weather, the crops. But, unless you are a Nebraskan True Believer in the Church of Cather you're bored fucking solid.

You're bored but unwilling to quit the book because maybe - Maybe - something will happen. You've already dedicated the leisure time after all. But, the book is so boring you keep putting off doing any reading and are barely able to force yourself to open the book. Since you don't much like Nebraska anyway why are you even reading this? You're reminded off all those assholes and their Nebraska Football Will Never Be Beaten, Ever! gloating back in 1999.

The delicious schadenfreude of Nebraska's recent failures are not enough to overcome the lack of substance in this novel.

Comments:
1. Garber's Honda-Kawasaki looks to still be in business. I took my 1980 Honda CB750C there for service a couple times. They had a 1976 or 1977 CB750F Super Sport there. That would have been a neat bike.