Comments on: Grown-up table: My Antonia, by Willa Cather http://www.parenthetical.net/2008/10/16/grown-up-table-my-antonia-by-willa-cather/ YA reviews and book geekery Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:38:24 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Eric with a c http://www.parenthetical.net/2008/10/16/grown-up-table-my-antonia-by-willa-cather/comment-page-1/#comment-52786 Eric with a c Fri, 17 Oct 2008 20:06:14 +0000 http://www.parenthetical.net/?p=374#comment-52786 I remember reading this in 10th grade English and that it was one of the few books I really liked in that class, and I'm pretty sure the beautiful descriptions were the main reason. There's a paragraph towards the end of the book with the sun setting behind a plow that I recall quite fondly. I'm glad to hear it's still a good book even at the grown-up table. By the way, I highly recommend reading classics as an adult. I sometimes think we waste good books on people too callow to appreciate them. Because of one particular English teacher, half of everyone in my HS (the ones who had this teacher) had to read Moby Dick. It was the dreaded book of junior year, everyone hated it. I was in the other class, so I didn't read it until I was 27, at which point I decided it was one of the best books I ever read. I've read it again since then, and I know I'll read it a few more times before I die. Were all those poor HS students wrong? I doubt it. They just weren't mature enough yet - intellectually, mostly - to appreciate it. No classic I've read as a grown up has hit me as hard as Moby Dick, but I've enjoyed a lot of canonical works after college that I never got to in any of my schooling. Now I get why they're classics. I remember reading this in 10th grade English and that it was one of the few books I really liked in that class, and I’m pretty sure the beautiful descriptions were the main reason. There’s a paragraph towards the end of the book with the sun setting behind a plow that I recall quite fondly. I’m glad to hear it’s still a good book even at the grown-up table.

By the way, I highly recommend reading classics as an adult. I sometimes think we waste good books on people too callow to appreciate them. Because of one particular English teacher, half of everyone in my HS (the ones who had this teacher) had to read Moby Dick. It was the dreaded book of junior year, everyone hated it. I was in the other class, so I didn’t read it until I was 27, at which point I decided it was one of the best books I ever read. I’ve read it again since then, and I know I’ll read it a few more times before I die. Were all those poor HS students wrong? I doubt it. They just weren’t mature enough yet – intellectually, mostly – to appreciate it.

No classic I’ve read as a grown up has hit me as hard as Moby Dick, but I’ve enjoyed a lot of canonical works after college that I never got to in any of my schooling. Now I get why they’re classics.

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