The Professor's House
Willa Cather
1925
Around 250 pages
There's about one female author for every ten entries on this List. I wish Willa Cather in particular was better represented. Professor's House is a weird choice as well, when she's best known for O, Pioneers! or My Antonia. I guess they were trying to subvert expectations, but excluding works from female authors is about as unsurprising as it gets.
Professor Godfrey St. Peter is a 52 year old man on the brink of a mid life crisis. He has a wife, who is a typical nag obsessed with status. He also has two married daughters. His eldest daughter was originally engaged to Tom Outland, before his untimely death. Tom was a student of Godfrey's, and the family's fond reminisces of him form the centerpiece of the novel.
Every novel, no matter how terrible, poses one question: is life worth living? Godfrey is rather obviously searching for the answer to this question. I actually like stories about men who deal with their crises in more interesting ways than buying a sports car and banging the yoga instructor.
The most remarkable element of this novel is the structure, which is either seen as masterfully fragmented or jarringly disjointed depending on how cranky you are that day. I'm leaning toward the former. Still, I feel like Cather had better novels to offer.
RATING: ****-
Interesting Facts:
Willa Cather didn't gain popularity until the 1980s with the rise of the feminist movement.
Many critics still ignore The Professor's House in her canon, largely due to its structure.
UP NEXT: The Artamonov Business by Maxim Gorky. He's always a barrel of laughs.
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