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A comic masterpiece by a criminally neglected writer, J.F. Powers's Morte D'Urban has had a checkered commercial history from the very start. The original publisher failed to reprint the novel after it won the 1963 National Book Award, and although it's had various paperback reincarnations since then, these too have tended to disappear from the shelves. Perhaps any novel about Catholic priests in the Protestant Midwest would be in for some tough sledding. Still, it's hard to think of a funnier piece of writing, or one more accurately attuned to the deadpan rhythms of American speech. Doubters need only consult Father Urban's sermons, which mix pure banality and theological hairsplitting in such exact proportions as to suggest Babbitt in a clerical collar. Yet Powers also manages a kind of last-minute legerdemain, transforming his satiric romp into a deadly serious, and deeply moving, exploration of faith.
The satire, of course, is itself worth the price of admission. Poor Father Urban, mired in a 10th-rate religious order!
It seemed to him that the Order of St. Clement labored under the curse of mediocrity, and had done so almost from the beginning. In Europe, the Clementines hadn't (it was always said) recovered from the French Revolution. It was certain that they hadn't ever really got going in the New World. Their history revealed little to brag about--one saint (the Holy Founder) and a few bishops of missionary sees, no theologians worthy of the name, no original thinkers, not even a scientist. The Clementines were unique in that they were noted for nothing at all.
The clash between this ecclesiastical overachiever and his underachieving brethren never loses its comedic charge. It also occasions plenty of politicking and ex cathedra combat, involving not only the Clementines but various diocesan heavyweights. Who will win this holy war? When Father Urban lures unbelievers to the order's Minnesota property with a world-class golf course--complete with a "shrine of Our Lady below No. 5 green"--his triumph seems assured. Yet his ability to balance between the secular and the sacred is what ultimately collapses, along with his "secret ascendancy over the life around him." In an age when fiction seems to have lost some of its power to instruct and amuse (and not necessarily in that order), Morte D'Urban is brilliant enough to make believers of us all. --James Marcus
Book Description
Winner of The 1963 National Book Award for Fiction.
The hero of J.F. Powers's comic masterpiece is Father Urban, a man of the cloth who is also a man of the world. Charming, with an expansive vision of the spiritual life and a high tolerance for moral ambiguity, Urban enjoys a national reputation as a speaker on the religious circuit and has big plans for the future. But then the provincial head of his dowdy religious order banishes him to a retreat house in the Minnesota hinterlands. Father Urban soon bounces back, carrying God's word with undaunted enthusiasm through the golf courses, fishing lodges, and backyard barbecues of his new turf. Yet even as he triumphs his tribulations mount, and in the end his greatest success proves a setback from which he cannot recover.
First published in 1962, Morte D'Urban has been praised by writers as various as Gore Vidal, William Gass, Mary Gordon, and Philip Roth. This beautifully observed, often hilarious tale of a most unlikely Knight of Faith is among the finest achievements of an author whose singular vision assures him a permanent place in American literature.
Customer Reviews:
One age's satire is another age's reality.......2007-10-09
Father Urban in Morte D'Urban is perhaps one of the most fully realized characters in American fiction, and America is largely unaware of this. Like many great novels coming out of the 50's and early 60's, this story, the tale of a ambitious priest snared in a milieu of mediocrity and mendacity, is about corporate life in America (here I am especially thinking about Catch-22, written a year before Morte D'Urban). And perhaps it is a sign of our times that this satire about life in dehumanizing organizations reads like straight up realism. What was laughable satire in 1962 is grim reality in 2007. Father Urban himself was capable of inhabiting both worlds with equal grace: he can be the deeply affected human being and priest, profoundly emotional, rational and deft at his craft, and the social climber, intent on rising to the top even in his little corner of God's acre. When he gets there, the inevitable occurs, but this does nothing to detract from the masterfulness of this work. Subtle, humorous, sly, endearing, this novel should be more widely read and enjoyed.
An Urbane Knight in Minnesota.......2007-09-20
Hypocrisy reigns as Father Urban sallies forth to make the half baked schemes of his superiors profitable. It's as if Jane Austen settled in Lake Woebegone to record the foibles of Catholic priests as they preach Goodness to their flocks and manipulate business deals with the unreliably faithful. When Father Urban finally rebels the consequences are hilariously unpredictable. Full of great lines: "Chester had a complaining face and a contented voice." "The lake, a light red wine before, was now black stout, and the air was suddenly dank."
There are funny scenes on the golf course and fishy doings in boats, all while going about "God's Business". I savored every page.
Pre-Vatican II: Middle America & the Church Triumphant?.......2007-08-22
Re-reading this novel, the winner of the National Book Award for 1963 and the author's first full-length fiction after his stories collected in "The Prince of Darkness" (1947) & "The Presence of Grace" (1956--both reviewed by me) after a few decades, many of its scenes remained vivid. The scotch-fueled reveries of a Father Urban, middle-aged preacher, about what he could if not should have been if he had drifted away from the faith and became an easygoing, silvertongued womanizer before settling down with one gal-- she who's trying to seduce him as he wanders into "what if" even as she waits on Belleisle, a little crenellated castle in the middle of a Minnesota lake. The struggle of a deer to avoid drowning at the hands of the priest's benefactor as he and the crony take an ill-fated canoe trip in search of fish. The endless conversations of his superior, Fr. Wilf, about how best to sand the shelves-- you go with the grain-- as the urbane sub-Fulton Sheen finds himself toiling at a new vocational calling at his third-rate Order of St. Clement's retreat house on truly a woebegone lake.
This droll tale, constructed out of short stories that Powers had been writing on as he created the Dioceses of Great Plains and its suitably downmarket dreadful neighboring see of Ostergothenberg, takes the pacing of his briefer narratives and generally sustains it for pages of effortless tragi-comic insight and deadpan commentary, filtered through a likable but slightly vainglorious success story in a religious community too good for him, or so he-- and we-- think. Critics have not always praised the deus ex machina (or bolus ex dei?) which brings Father Urban's apostolate at golf course and retreat house, visiting parish assistant and man-about-the Midwest for his Order to a jarring halt. The shift in the novel I find on perhaps my third reading of this novel appropriate, even if the coda remains rather too nuanced and low-key for full clarification of the novel's denouement.
Yet, this is Powers' intent. If "God writes straight with crooked lines," and if the Church's once-vaunted efficiency as a monolithical power "second only to Standard Oil" finds that the divine plan and the clerical bureaucracy will both recruit Fr. Urban for their own slightly opaque purposes that neither we nor literary critics nor the faithful can follow, so be it. The novel does show its scaffolding, and not all of it moves so smoothly. The Malory references and the whole Lancelot-Guinevere analogy appear strained and their incorporation may have come from shorter segments that Powers shoehorned into the larger framework at a oblique angle. I do sense that portions of the novel appear more polished than others, and one does read the whole with the suspicion that the stories were cobbled together and intervening sections had to be created to provide stepping stones from one narrative rock to another across a more fluid, less stable patch of multiple possibilities and competing directions for the author's quest.
But, the tonal adjustments add to the verisimilitude both of Fr. Urban's life and the craft of Powers, who must have worked a half-dozen years on this novel if my knowledge of his extremely slow rate of composition is any guide. Powers rests his reputation on the five or so best stories of his first collection-- among them his two best, "Lions" and "Prince." He adds to his achievement with the consistency, if slightly less awesome peaks, of the more unified stories in "Presence." And, with his novel, he entered, albeit briefly, the ranks of the most esteemed American writers of four or five decades ago. Thomas Merton, Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy-- this novelist influenced them all, and ranks among as their peer.
This, published as Vatican II was in progress, ironically foreshadows the decline of the Catholic ghetto and clerical domination that the novel limns and critiques and celebrates somehow all deftly. It remains the best portrayal of how the Church once ruled Middle America, and those who have grown up since may marvel at the rapidity of the decline in clerical power. But, Fr. Urban and Powers seem to agree, such a fall from supposed grace had to happen if the Church was to remain intact and true to its divided calling. Whether or not Powers or his fictional priests and parishioners would have wanted the Church to shift so dramatically, or whether such a move was inevitable, I leave to you readers.
(Images: 1963 Red Letter cover; 2001 New York Review Press reissue.)
J. F. Powers--better than Joyce and as meaningful as Flannery O'Connor.......2006-11-28
J. F. Powers is one of the great American novelists and short-story writers. He is little known because he intended to be that way. For many years, he kept to himself in an attic office at Saint John's University in Minnesota. That is where I met him. He had a way with telling people concisely what he thought about their writing. He would not be happy about mine in this review, I am sure. But nevertheless I feel compelled to say these few, brief sentences. Powers is an artist, and he crafts sentences, each sentence, with extreme care. There are no throwaway words or phrases. Every single word--every word, do you hear?--has a reason for its existence. That is why he wrote so little. And yet, master of his craft though he was, his stories read effortlessly. Because of his care, there is much to re-read in his books. The entire story of Father Urban shimmers with untold richness. The richness comes partly from Powers' familiarity with Minnesota and the mid-west. Partly from his familiarity with Catholic orders, particularly the Benedictines. Partly from his dry wit. But just like _Wheat That Springeth Green_ you will miss the forest for the trees if you see it as a simple comment on Catholicism. There is at work here layer after layer. Powers loved jazz. His books read like jazz, I think. You need to find the play, the rhythm. I believe that history will judge him differently than we have. We do not even know him yet. His novels are as sad as a Minnesota tundra in January with the Northern Lights overhead. In other words, not sad at all and full of possibility.
Great read!.......2005-09-03
Powers knows how to develop a character. I will read more of his stuff.
Average customer rating:
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Morte D'Urban
Manufacturer: Popular Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000BVEGBM |
Product Description
Popular Library No. PC1030 - approx. 4 3/8" x 7".
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Morte D Urban
J F Powers
Manufacturer: DOUBLEDAY & CO INC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UCRSDU |
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MORTE D'URBAN
J.F. POWERS
Manufacturer: Modern Libary
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000I1RXAG |
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Morte d'Urban
J.F. Powers
Manufacturer: Doubleday
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000O7K4Z0 |
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Morte D-urban
J.F. Powers
Manufacturer: Doubleday & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000TRI4VQ |
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Morte D'Urban
J. F. Powers
Manufacturer: Modern Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NOZ2L0 |
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- Great book
- Oathbreakers
- Great Book
- Mercedes Lackey
- Best of all her books
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Oathbreakers (Vows and Honor, Book 2)
Mercedes Lackey
Manufacturer: DAW
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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The Oathbound (Vows and Honor, Book 1)
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ASIN: 0886774543 |
Customer Reviews:
Great book.......2007-05-07
Mercedes Lackey at her best, love the adventure, strong, smart, and magic women.
Oathbreakers.......2006-06-03
If you enjoyed the Oathbound then you will be entranced by Oathbreakers. This was quite a wild ride lots of fun and a few new characters to get aquainted with. This is a real page turner and a great weekend read. When you open the book you are hooked from the start.
Great Book.......2005-07-21
This is a very good book and complements the whole story line. I was very impressed with the whole series about the mercs. It is a great addition to the whole Valdemar story line and gives a good look into where Kerowyn from the other books gets her moral code. I would recommend this book and The Oathbound to anyone, but the next book Oathblood was a disappointment due to it being a collection of short stories when I was expecting a continuation of this book. Over all you won't go wrong with any of the Valdemar series...
Mercedes Lackey.......2003-12-31
I have read Oath Bound, Oath Broken and By the Sword, I have one word to say for all three of these books FANTASTIC!! If you love Xena, Amazons, Warrior Women or just plain down right butt kicking you have got to own these books. I read my copies until the pages fell out.
Best of all her books.......2003-06-15
"Oathbreakers" is my favorite Mercedes Lackey book.
Here's why: in "Oathbreakers," Ms. Lackey put together a very appealing plotline with believable, complex characters, just enough humor to balance the action and violence, and a tiny bit of romance to leaven the mix.
Other reviewers have explained the plot; I don't want to do that again. I will say, however, that to me, the best parts of the book are the Tarma-Kethry friendship, the Warrl-Tarma friendship, the Warrl-Jadrek friendship, and the strong, romantic marriage of Stefansen of Rethwellan and his wife Mertis. (I hope I'm remembering her name right; I can picture the page where she's introduced -- something about a "frank, soft gaze" and brown eyes and a crisp, competent manner. But I'm really bad at remembering character names.)
In fact, although this book definitely is feminist (and well it should be, considering it's featuring a woman warrior and her fighting mage partner), I think the best part about it is how it shows real-life partnerships.
Marriage and family are valued commodities, here; not only do we have the Stefansen-Mertis pairing, there's the eventual Jadrek-Kethry pairing (which resurrects Tale'sedrin, as another reviewer so pithily said), the Sewan-Tresti union (Sewan is Lady Idra's second in command of the Sunhawks; Tresti is a Healing Priest of Shayana, because Shayana's devoteés make no difference between priest and priest_ess_), and Tarma's rapport with the children only adds to the "family values" theme.
Most people have missed this, because, once again, we're talking about a woman warrior, a _neuter_, a sworn votary of her goddess, and a woman fighting mage.
However, just because they are fighters, that doesn't mean they've forgotten what's important. Love matters; friendship matters; honor matters.
Those three things are what drives the very real people who populate "Oathbreakers," and it helps add a great deal of realism and depth.
Btw, some of what is shown here is very, very graphic; not so much the killing, but some of the aftermath of killing, along with a few other things. I definitely wouldn't recommend this book for someone under the age of 12 or so; even then, it'd have to be an awfully mature 12 year old to understand some of what's going on, and not just be repulsed by it.
To conclude: this is my favorite book of all of Mercedes Lackey's output, mainly because it has everything. It has a great plot, wonderful, believable characters (yet flawed and very human -- even if Warrl the neuter kyree would disagree with me), and a satisfying conclusion.
Definitely one of my favorite books.
Book Description
In this storming tale of courage and heroism, a band of dwarf adventurers make a doomed attempt to reconquer the lost dwarf hold of Karak Varn.
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The Oathbreakers
Geoffrey Tingle
Manufacturer: The Book Guild Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Historical | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0863324436 |
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Oathbreakers
Mercedes Lackey
Manufacturer: Daw Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000S5SDXI |
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Oathbreakers
Manufacturer: Turtleback Books Distributed by Demco Media
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0606275711 |
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- Throy
- A serious disappointment
- A too short conclusion to a wonderful story.
- I can only surmise that Vance was tired of Cadwal.
- Welcome conclusion to monumental trilogy
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Throy (Cadwal Chronicles, Book 3)
Jack Vance
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0312851332 |
Customer Reviews:
Throy.......2005-11-30
Sad as it may seem, my credibility as a reviewer rests on reporting that "Throy" is a disappointing ending to the otherwise excellent Cadwal Chronicles trilogy. This volume picks up shortly past where "Ecce and Old Earth" left off. Glawen and Wayness return to Cadwal, bearing the new Charter and giving the good guys proper legal authority for defending the planet. The villains, as is usually the case, care very little for their proper legal authority. Proper illegal authority will be quite good enough for Julian, Smonny, Dame Clattey and Titus Pompo, thank you very much.
Consequently, it falls on Glawen to take yet another jaunt through the galaxy to unravel their sinister schemes. The problem, as others have reported, is the simplicity of the plot. There are insufficent twists and turns, Glawen and his new sidekick (same as the old sidekick) simply pursue a lead straight to the destination. While there are a couple of semi-interesting planets to visit along the way, nothing stands out for particular brilliance in "Throy". None of the societies on parade can match the wonderful silliness of the Bold Lions from "Araminta Station", or the Funusti Museum in "Ecce and Old Earth".
"Throy" does contain a few Vancisms - i.e. classic one-liners dripping with irony, and an appropriate final fate for all villains of significance. However, the ending may carry certain problems beyond just the simplified plot. Without giving too much away, I will say that it involves death in large numbers. Fur sure it's the villains that do the killing. However, the alleged good guys, if they feel any sorrow for what happened, conceal it remarkably well. The dead people were not largely good people, yet most weren't precisely guilty of any capitol crime. The unspoken assertion that the political situation on Cadwal could only be resovled by mass slaughter may leave some feeling a bit queasy. The idea of a "happy" ending where most of the planet lies dead may leave one wondering whether Vance's normally perfect moral compass somehow ended up pointing south when he wrote it.
A serious disappointment.......2003-10-11
I adored the first two books in this series and despaired at ever being able to find a copy of Throy on sale. Finally, it surfaced on Marketplace, and I snapped it up...to find a book about a third the size of the others, no sub plots, and abrupt solutions to plots carried throughout the other two books. "Gutted", as we say in the UK! Sure, the Vancian humour is there...but this is a pale imitation of the man at his best. A real anticlimax :(
A too short conclusion to a wonderful story........1999-08-03
In the first two books of this trilogy was set a tangled web of intrigues so complex that you would have expected a much more elaborate conclusion. But as is often the case in Vance's stories, the end is rather abrupt (see the Lyonesse trilogy for another example). It evokes me of a child building a nice tower with blocks, then destroying it in a blow when she's had enough. If you've read the preceeding books, you might want to refrain from reading this one to keep the magic alive. You can't? I know, it's irresistible... But you've been warned!
I can only surmise that Vance was tired of Cadwal........1999-05-04
The first two books ("Araminta Station" and "Ecce and Old Earth") were wonderful creations. "Throy" is a conclusion, of sorts: but your heart will sink when you see how short it is, and you realise that, given that the storyline had to be wrapped up, it could hardly be any shorter. With one bound, the Yip problem is solved forever. -Still, having read the earlier books, you'll want to read this one, too. Good luck finding it.
Welcome conclusion to monumental trilogy.......1999-04-20
In the Cadwal Chronicles, as in all his work, Jack Vance's sparse and succinct but wonderfully idiosyncratic mode of expression allows the reader to flesh out specific imagery on the bones of his narrative. While the Demon Princes pentology may be his masterpiece, the Cadwal Chronicles set is definitely worth a read. Glawen Clattuc continues Vance's tradition of strong but vulnerable (if not damaged) protagonists who find their destiny through adversity. I wish I could lay hands on 'Throy' for a second read!!
Customer Reviews:
TOULOUSE WHOSE MOTHER WAS A CONTESS.......2000-10-26
Even those who are not interested in art know TOULOUSE-LAUTREC, he has become universal.Yes he is the guy who used to hang around bordellos and the MOULIN-ROUGE will always be associated to him.ARISTIDE BRUANT and YVETTE GUILBERT two popular FRENCH singers were immortalize by him.TOULOUSE-LAUTREC was never interested in doing landscapes, he was mostly a portraitist who had fun as a caricaturist of his society LA BELLE EPOQUE.The book summarize his life the way it should be and has some useful documents that makes it interesting.
Really interesting (even if you don't like his art).......1999-12-26
I prefer the smaller size of this book (compared to "coffee table" editions). Even though it is a practical size, the reprinted art is vivid and does not suffer from the smaller pages. Also this book is really informative (not alot of meaningless art jargon and expert opinions) like so many of those coffee table books suffer from.
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Throy
Jack Vance
Manufacturer: Underwood & Miller
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MVTJO0 |
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Throy
Jack Vance
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OTJY9U |
Book Description
Spirituality has long been regarded as "off-limits" in clinical practice, leaving family therapists and counselors uncertain as to how to approach it. Yet the majority of families regard religion as important in their lives, and research has begun to document the psychological and health benefits of faith and congregational support. Further, many who seek help for physical, emotional, or interpersonal problems are also in spiritual distress. Filling a crucial void, this volume explores the influences of faith beliefs and practices on suffering, healing, and health. Leading family therapists describe how attending to this vital dimension of human experience can inform and enrich therapy, illuminate spiritual sources of distress, and help clients tap into wellsprings for resilience and growth.
Customer Reviews:
A pioneering book in the field of "spiritual psychology".......2000-02-05
I became aware of this book at the University of Chicago. Dr. Walsh is again pushing the envelope in the field of family counseling and therapy. She is exploring new constructs and interventions that are based on a significantly broader definition of health and happiness. This is important reading for clinical counselors and family therapists alike!
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- Mrs. Bridge: A Novel
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- On Being Told That Her Second Husband Has Taken His First Lover and Other Stories
- One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand (Eridanos Library, No 18)
- Oxherding Tale: A Novel
- Pafko at the Wall: A Novella
- Path of the Assassin
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