The Professor's House

Willa Cather's early novels of life on the American prairie, such as "My Antonia" and "O Pioneers" are well known. Her novel "The Professor's House" is much less familiar, but it is Cather at her best. The book tells the story of Professor Godfrey St. Peter. When we meet St. Peter, he is a respected academic and scholar, age 52, who has written an eight volume history called "Spanish Explorers" dealing with the Spanish in Mexico and the American Southwest. He has persevered in his writing and received awards. As a result, St. Peter and his family are able to build a new house and move away from the ramshakle rented quarters in which the Professor and his wife have lived and raised their family. The family consists of two daughters who, when we meet them, have married and gone their own ways. The younger daughter is married to a struggling news reporter who has impressed his bosses by his ability to turn out hack prose-poems for the paper on a daily basis. The older daughter was at one time engaged to a man named Tom Outland who is, perhaps the real hero of the book. Outland invented an important scientific device and willed it to her upon his death in WW I. She then marries an engineer and entrepreneur who develops and markets Outland's invention. The couple build a large home and name in "Outland". The book tells a story of change, frustration and acceptance. The Professor is unhappy with the new home and refuses to leave his old study. His relationship with his wife and daughters has cooled. He is unhappy with the modernization of the university and of academic learning with its emphasis on technology and business rather than study and reflection. Most importantly, he is dissatisfied with his honors, his leisure, and his comforts. He thinks of his youth of promise and study, of his life of solitude, and yearns for adventure and meaning. The first part of the book tells the story of the Professor and his family. The second, shorter, part is a flash-back and tells the story of Tom Outland who Professor St. Peter befriended many years before and who grew up in mysterious circumstances in New Mexico. We learn in the second part of the book of Outland's life on the railroad and on the range. We see his somewhat ambiguous friendship with an older man and their discovery of an ancient Indian village on the mesas. There is a wonderfully drawn picture of Washington D.C. as Tom tries, without success, to interest officials in his discovery. In the third part of the book, the Professor reflects on Tom and on his own life. It seems to me that Tom's life mirrors the theme of the Professor's lenghty studies in "Spanish Explorers" It is the kind of life in its rawness, closeness to nature, and independence that the Professor thinks he would have liked to lead rather than settling for a middle-class life of conformity, comfort, and boredom. We see how the Professor tries to struggle on. There is a frustration built into life when

This Cather novel can best be compared to a small symphony in a minor key. It is a gentle, bittersweet portrait of a successful scholar who finds himself emotionally isolated from his family in a transitional time in the family's development. A move from their familiar, too-small home to a newer, larger home highlights tensions and jealousies between his newly married daughters and the distance between himself and his wife. The first portion of the novel focuses on the professor's disappointing relationships with his family and colleagues, relationships he observes with poignancy and sadness. A smaller but equally important portion of the novel tells the story of Tom Outland, a young man whose life and death provide a backdrop for the professor's story. Cather's prose is lean and unadorned, giving every word meaning. This lends itself particularly well to her treatment of the southwest. Her portrait of the professor as ineffectual and alienated is consistent with Cather's general treatment of males and reflects her distrust of marriage. It is nevertheless a poignant and realistic portrayal of a man confronting the disappointments of an otherwise successful life. It is a must read.

I have to admit that when I was assigned this book for an Amer. Lit. class I was anything but excited at the prospect. A further contribution to my misguided dread was born from the rather poor synopsis of the book on the back cover which fails miserably in "selling" the great story hidden within its pages. Yet another example of why one shouldn't judge a book by its cover. It is far more than just another story of inward rebellion and emotional "renewal"; it is instead, a story about the American dream, the family, higher education, friendship, nature, and the elusiveness of American history. The way that Cather blends this varied subject matter is a testament to her great talent as a writer, but more impressively, this book bears witness to her keen insight into the deepest recesses of the American psyche. The story centers around an aging professor(St. Peter) , and his close and yet mysterious friend Tom Outland. Complicating this is the professor's strained relationship with his own family,(his two daughter's and their husbands and his wife). Cather's nonlinear narrative of their interactions and the various relationships that result works to pull the reader ever deeper into a work that soon spirals out of the professor's small study into a world of arid mesas, mysterious strangers, ancient skeletons and forgotten yesterdays. In the end, this story could be seen as an exposition on the American dream, one that probes deep below the surfaces of what that dream entails, and what is lost to acheive it.

Somewhere I read that Cather will eventually top Hemingway as America's finest and most esteemed writer. This book floated Cather above Hemingway in my estimation and this was only the fourth book of hers that I have read. A wonderful, timeless story set in the early twenties (could very well be today!). A remarkable tale of how the appearance of a young man in the lives of one family can have such impact. Cather develops each character around their reaction to the man, Outland. Outland, a perfect name for a character that sweeps in, lives intensely, whose intellectual capabilities create wonder and who gives it all away.The main character, the Professor, begins by tutoring Outland, even as Outland tutors the Professor's own daughters. Outland betrothes the eldest who benefits from Outland's creations with enormous riches. The youngest daughter languishes in the shadow of her older daughter's consumerism, which the mother encourages, much to the disinterest and dissatisfaction of the Professor.The middle and last sections of this three-part book are wondrous and provide the ultimate redemption and "tutoring" for the Professor who is "saved" by the life which Outland has lived.The setting for this book moves from the attic-office of the Professor in a small college town set on Lake Michigan to the mesas of the southwest. Each setting is beautifully described, in economical and lovely language. This novel is a wonder! Perfect, and the best that I have read in a very, very long time.

Objectively speaking, this book as a whole is perhaps not quite as excellent as some of her other books like DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP, but this nonetheless is one of my three favorites of her novels. The book consists of three parts, not all of them of equal strength (the only real criticism of the book in the end is that the sections are not sufficiently integrated with one another and that they do not quite balance one another), but a couple of them containing some of her most powerful writing. A very, very good book. Anyone who enjoyed DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP would in particular like it.