Lucky Professor's House

As mentioned in the previous post, sometimes you need a certain book, but frequently you don't know what book you need. Maybe it's just my heightened awareness, but this year I have felt particularly lucky about reading the right books at the right time.

Last weekend that meant walking into our book room and noticing Willa Cather's The Professor's House for the first time. It was lucky timing, because I was feeling gloomy about grading my first big batch of tests (I have 15 students who answered that there are 10 or fewer cells in a tiger!) and I encountered Professor St. Peter, who would "willingly have cut down his university work, would willingly have given his students chaff and sawdust-- many instructors had nothing else to give them and got on very well-- but his misfortune was that he loved youth-- he was weak to it, it kindled him. If there was one eager eye, one doubting, critical mind, one lively curiousity in a whole lecture room full of commonplace boys and girls, he was its servant."

Professor St. Peter was a necessary reminder that students have always been lackluster and university life has always been full of silly politics, but that's not why he was teaching in 1920 and not why I'm doing it now.

As for the book as a whole, I loved it. I don't know why. Plot-wise I can't decide if I think there's too much going on or not enough going on. I found Death Comes for the Archbishop altogether a much better book. Still, Willa Cather charmed me with her fantastic descriptions of the midwest and the southwest and college life, and I plan to read more of her.

Photo of the side door to this professor's house, taken in early July to be a contrast to the June flood photos.