Jim falls ill while Ántonia's parents almost go under (and never properly recover). The settlers retreat indoors for months on end, where they wrap up in blankets and eat taffy by the fire. Yet the longer it lasts, the more the winter takes its toll. 'As Ántonia said, the whole world was changed by the snow we kept looking in vain for familiar landmarks'. 'The sky was brilliantly blue and the sunlight on the glittering white stretches of prairie was almost blinding,' notes Jim. This is exciting, because it transforms the terrain and provides an excuse for sleigh-rides. The snow arrives in early December, when Jim wakes to see the fat flakes swirling in the red grass beyond the house.

Its unobtrusive, effortlessly vivid prose leads us from 'the windy springs and the blazing summers' all the way to a winter that's so clear, crisp and crystalline it feels as though we're witnessing it for the very first time. It shows how these people were at the mercy of nature how their life and livelihoods hung on the turn of the seasons. Willa Cather was born and raised on the Great Plains and her novel stands as a celebration of the landscape and its settlers (specifically Ántonia, the stoic daughter of a struggling Bohemian family). 'All day long, Nebraska,' marvels 10-year-old Jim Burden as he trundles across the endless prairie to start a new life with his grandparents. M y Ántonia is a tale of the American west: of wagon trains and immigrant farmers and a wild, flat country that runs out in all directions.

My antonia novel