The Professor's House (Vintage Classic)

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Summary: Another great classic
Review: Cather can be difficult: read slowly and savor! You won't be disappointed.

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Summary: A deceptively simple prose style covering great depths
Review: Cather's A PROFESSOR'S HOUSE is very different from the spirit-of-the-prairie book she's often so immediately associated with. Like O PIONEERS! and MY ANTONIA, however, this novel exhibits cather's great fascination with the American landscape, and with he posiibility of dreams left both fulfilled and unfulfilled. The experiences of Tom Outland in the Cliff City have made this book a recent favorite with Americanist scholars, but no less compelling is her portrait of a suddenly wealthy Midwestern academic family in the Twenties whose recent good fortune has begun to tear them apart despite their general good will and kind tempers.

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Summary: A surprising favorite
Review: 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.

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Summary: Melt into Gorgeous Writing
Review: I read this book in four or so hours straight. It was thefirst book I'd read by Willa Cather, but it definitely placed hersolidly in my top five greatest authors list. She's got a beautiful way with words. She's really romantic but manages to completely avert any cheesey-ness. I remember looking up after reading the last page of the novel; I felt totally displaced from my life. For that moment I was still utterly invested in the life of the family in _The Professor's House_. Read this one if you love Willa Cather, or if you've never read her before.

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Summary: Read Anything Cather!
Review: If you are interested in Willa Cather read "My Antonia" first and then read everything else, including "The Professor's House". Cather is one of the best writers of the century and don't skip over her, just start somewhere besides this book.

Rating:
Summary: Read Anything Cather!
Review: If you are interested in Willa Cather read "My Antonia" first and then read everything else, including "The Professor's House". Cather is one of the best writers of the century and don't skip over her, just start somewhere besides this book.

Rating:
Summary: On aging and acceptance
Review: Lately, I've turned away from fiction, because I haven't been able to find works that keep me turning those pages. When I stumbled across The Professor's House, I was delighted to find myself swept away and completely absorbed by Willa Cather's tender and disturbing tale of an ordinary man's confrontation with his feelings about place, family, and ageing. The professor's realization that he might have to forfeit the passion and vivacity he experienced in his youth and compromise with a "life without joy" was very poignant and provoking. Cather's prose is intelligent, but fluid and concise. I think it will go on my list of a dozen or more most memorable novels.

Rating:
Summary: On aging and acceptance
Review: Lately, I've turned away from fiction, because I haven't been able to find works that keep me turning those pages. When I stumbled across The Professor's House, I was delighted to find myself swept away and completely absorbed by Willa Cather's tender and disturbing tale of an ordinary man's confrontation with his feelings about place, family, and ageing. The professor's realization that he might have to forfeit the passion and vivacity he experienced in his youth and compromise with a "life without joy" was very poignant and provoking. Cather's prose is intelligent, but fluid and concise. I think it will go on my list of a dozen or more most memorable novels.

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Summary: One of my favorite books by Cather
Review: 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.

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Summary: book group hit
Review: Our book group, consisting of women in their 30s and 40s, enjoyed getting reacquainted with Cather through this evocative novel. The exploration of such timeless themes as midlife crisis, sibling rivalry, greed, and envy occasioned lively comments, as did Cather's beautiful imagery of nature. Reading this book has inspired several of us to read other novels by Cather.