Willa Cather

In an earlier post I mentioned my neighbor Sher.  We had a short-lived book club - just three people - until her husband was transferred to Issaquah.  The first book we read was her suggestion - Willa Cather's My Antonia - a book that had been on a list of hers for a long time and she wanted to finally read it.

I loved that book - it was beautiful.  The Professor's House is another of her novels, and like Sher, it has been on my Amazon wish list for a while and I finally decided to read it.

I think when I read books that the quality of the prose is the most important thing to me - in reflecting on books I love the story is important, but it's secondary to the prose.  When an author gets both things right it's such a gift to read their work. 

The Professor's House is a bit disjointed - in fact when I read the last page I didn't know it was finished.  I was on my iPad and flipped to the next page and it asked for a book review.  I did that twice I was so surprised.  It's not a bad ending it just didn't feel finished.  So I will say that the story is not as good as the prose, but parts of the story are really really well done.  I went online to read what others said about the story and the best description I found was an analogy of the three distinct parts of the book:  they're like a turquoise bracelet, with the middle the beautiful centerpiece joined by the silver on either end.

I guess I should provide some plot summary - the book is about a professor in his late 50s who achieved some success and his family convinces him to build a new house.  He doesn't want to move, so he keeps renting his old house so he can work in his familiar study, and the first part of the book is about how life has moved on for the rest of his family and he wants it to stay the same.  (sort of - forgive the brevity)  We learn about all the members of his family and the conflicts between them.

The second part of the book is the story of Tom Outland - a former student who became friends of the family and then died in the war.  This is the "turquoise" of the story - a wonderful account of Tom's younger life and his discovery of a cliff dwelling community in the southwest.  The last part of the book is about the professor himself.  It's the weakest part of the story, but Cather writes so beautifully it's still very enjoyable to read.

So my advice on Willa Cather is to read My Antonia first.  If you love it, you will want to read The Professor's House.  Also I thought it was cool that the professor's house had a view of Lake Michigan.  My favorite body of water.