The Professor's House (Vintage Classics)

I wanted to read something I hadn't read before and didn't already know as a fan of Willa Cather's writing. Call it the intellectual stretch. The Professor's House (1925) is a short book with only three chapters. Now that I read the book I recognize it as three pieces written separate and apart from one another.The second chapter, "Tom Outland's Story," stood alone for many years as an unfinished work. Today it would stand alone as a captivating short story about the Southwest during the frontier days. Thirty six pages long, this voice is Willa Cather at her storytelling best. It's the story of two young men and their archeological discovery on a mesa. A man's story: friendship, adventure, betrayal and loss. It's a masterpiece of description for a time and a place; the reader is dropped into the middle of the frontier prairie landscape and its human scenery.The first and third chapters are wraparounds. Seventy pages of narration about the professor and his family and circumstances related to Tom Outland's premature death build up to the revelation in Chapter Two. The third chapter is only thirteen pages long and yet it's where all the plot lines pull together.The narrative premise pulling these three pieces, written at different times, is that a professor doesn't like the direction his life has taken. Due to circumstances, Professor Godfrey St. Peter has come into more comfortable circumstances as a result of his daughter's inheritance from Tom Outland, her fiancée, and his own writing and publishing success as a scholar. His wife, Lillian, also receives a small inheritance check every month from her family and has sustained all appearances of class for his insignificant income as a college professor.The professor and his wife Lillian have two daughters; and now two son-in-laws. His own position with regards to his own family as he faces his 50s is at stake. His wife moves into their new house, but he decides to keep his old study in the rackety-trap attic in the old house. He's stuck. He's stuck because of what transpired with Tom Outland. There is mention of a patent and his invention as a student there in the college; the professor and his family had taken Tom in as an unschooled youth and he proved a scientific genius. The exact financials are kept rather discretely; implications are that it makes the professor quite uncomfortable.The professor won't accompany his family on their trip to Europe for the summer. He spends it in the old house in his study doing as he pleases for the first time since his youth. Seeing Lillian fall in fondness with their sons-in-law, he recognizes he has long ago fallen out of love with his wife.He finds in the seamstress a confidante over all the years they shared the attic for their "work." She is never sexualized, but throughout the first and third chapters she is the female heroine to the professor. Augusta is St. Peter's rock.In the third and final chapter, the Professor finally falls prey to the dangers of his woodstove and the weather in his attic. He collapsed into a sleeping stupor in the midst of a rain storm after spending the afternoon and evening contemplating the meaningless of his family relations and career; carbon monoxide filled the room. He welcomed the easy escape, before Augusta rescues him just in time for his family to arrive home from Europe.Perhaps this felt like a cob job because I bought a crappy paperback edition. The corrupted fonts resulted in a variety of typos and pages 68-72 were duplicated passages. Something tipped me off that the narrative flow was more than a little contrived. It isn't Cather's best novel. Novella is even a stretch. Triptych maybe.I take some solace in seeing one of my heroines trying to make a living wage from her work. Like many writers, pieces and fragments of our best work lie outside that which is easily marketable. This shows she tried to take one of her gems and work it into a fine piece of jewelry; didn't quite work, but the gem is apart from its setting. And you see how the stone is distinct from the steel. As a reader and a writer I liked looking at more of her writing and career as I see how hard it remains to make a living at this craft of writing.

The consensus has it that Cather's best work is contained in the three novels that make up The Prarrie Triology and Death Comes To The Archbishop.The consensus is ,in this instance,correct.The three other Cather novels I've read are all good including this one but if she hadn't written the aforementioned novels, I'm not sure that she'd be remembered at this point.The Professors House has three parts to it.In the first part we get a depiction of the professors life in Hamilton. The professor is a mildly depressed middle age man living in a college town near Lake Michigan which is not that far form Chicago, although it is clearly not a suburb.What state is this , not clear.That is rather unlike Cather who is usually quite specfic about place.Place is usually one of the characters in the novels.I couldn't help but wonder if this wasn't a highly disguised version of the town of her alma mater Lincoln ,Nebraska which for some reason she didn't want to use as the official locale.This section isn't bad but has a somewhat stilted quality to it.The next is set in New Mexico and things liven up a bit.It deals with a key protege of the Professors.Then we're back to Hamilton where the professor almost dies and is somehow changed.The novel is fairly absorbing but it's operating on lower power than what you encounter in , say , O PIONEERS.

How refreshing to read a master who breaks the "rules" of writing with elegance and grace. The lavish description opening the story drew me in immediately, as did all the descriptions. I felt an instant connection to Professor St. Peter, and Tom's story of the mesa enthralled me. Each time I had to set the book aside, I found myself longing to return to the Professor and his world. This wasn't just a good read, it was an experience.

I've read a number of Willa Cather's books, but this novel had escaped me until now. Particularly for being one of her earliest works, written when she was quite young, the novel shows a mastery of the craft and an unusual maturity.Cather starts out slowly, building scene and character, with her signature sparse and interesting descriptions and phrases--always thought-provoking. The Professor is a particularly sympathetic character, wise and kindly. But the end of the book puts this work into a special category. The writing transforms, mirroring the transformation which occurs within the Professor at that point in his life. He rereads the diary of Tom Outland, an exceptional former student and colleague (the choice of name had to be deliberate.) In Outland's diary of his days in the Southwest, the book attains truly poetic prose and is very moving. This is followed by a remarkably deep understanding on the part of Cather of a usually later-life (if attained at all) state which the Professor undergoes. I've reread this last section several times.Needless to say, I highly recommend this book. As to this edition, there are a few typos. Those shouldn't be too distracting, at the price.

Alright. The novel is somewhat dated, it's also timeless. A man comes to the end in a structured life as" free as a bird", to borrow a John Lennon line.

I had to push myself in the middle to connect with a renewed "interest" at the end, ending with great disappointment. Why? I ordered it because I am retired and now officially an old man. I thought I would read about a man's inner thoughts and emotions and dialogs with himself over becoming introduced to the changes in body and spirit in aging. I was looking for some insights and just identifying with someone else - (her character) as they faced changes in life that one not always wants to accept. But her manner of writing I enjoyed. She is very detailed. You'll get a glimpse of the color of the lamp shade behind the desk. Things like that; and her detailed descriptions of people's faces and human shape. She was truly a gifted writer. I "think" (?) I'll try her book on the Pioneer days in the Midwest, and maybe feel more satisfaction.

Beautiful book of an author who seemed to understand the intricacies of human’s soul to the very core. Fantastic language. Lovely read.

Reminded me of 'Stoner'. Another take of a dissatisfied American professor, with disappointing women around him. Very odd bit in the middle about a mysterious Mesa in the desert, which is very poetic and evocative, though rather an odd combination.

Strangely engaging considering how unsympathetic several of the characters are, I shall be looking to read more of her novels in the future.

I have read the book before and enjoyed it. My book group has chosen it for our next book. I loaded it to my husband's Kindle, and have found that difficult to use. It doesn't come with any printed instructions. I find the print, even when enlarged, difficult to read. I think I'll stick with printed books at present.

A story of nuance and grace. Totally believable with characters you end up caring about.