Average customer rating:
- Worth reading but not Cather's best
- A Classic Dud
- A most enjoyable reading experience
- I really really really wanted to like this book
- Memorable characters
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The Professor's House (Vintage Classics)
Willa Cather
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Cather, Willa
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The Song of the Lark
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Death Comes for the Archbishop (Vintage Classics)
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A Lost Lady (Vintage Classics)
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One of Ours
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O Pioneers!
ASIN: 0679731806
Release Date: 1990-10-31 |
Book Description
A study in emotional dislocation and renewal--Professor Godfrey St. Peter, a man in his 50's, has achieved what would seem to be remarkable success. When called on to move to a more comfortable home, something in him rebels.
Download Description
The moving was over and done. Professor St. Peter was alone in the dismantled house where he had lived ever since his marriage, where he had worked out his career and brought up his two daughters. It was almost as ugly as it is possible for a house to be; square, three stories in height, painted the colour of ashes -- the front porch just too narrow for comfort, with a slanting floor and sagging steps.
Customer Reviews:
Worth reading but not Cather's best.......2007-05-19
I am a huge Willa Cather fan and have been reading her novels in the order she wrote them. I started "The Professor's House" in eager anticipation, because I just LOVED "A Lost Lady," the book that preceded it.
"The Professor's House" has many, many good elements, but ultimately I was disappointed. The last part of the book was unworthy of what had gone before. In the end, I felt as though I'd invested a lot in the Professor and that that investment had not paid off. I'm glad I read it, but think it's nowhere close to one of Cather's best.
I thought the first two section of the book were excellent. I believed almost everything about the Professor's life and his relationships. My only criticism of the beginning portion of the novel was Cather's superficial and, yes, bigoted attitude toward the Jewish son-in-law, Louie Marsellus. I didn't have a problem accepting Louie as a real person. But Cather could only see him and comment on him as "the other." One of Cather's great strengths is her understanding of how the world looks to the different characters in her novels. She may not agree with who they are and how they act, but she is usually deeply empathetic. Not so with Louie. The fact that he is a Jew is somehow taken as an explanation for everything. Even in 1925, I expect better of a writer of Cather's insight and talent. Interestingly, Louie is ultimately one of the most sympathetic and generous characters in the novel. But Cather writes as though she'd never had a close Jewish friend, or never applied her prodigious imagination to contemplate Louie's psychology and point of view.
Still, even with the problem with Louie, I thought the first book was very good. It was filled with the wonderful writing and the psychological, sociological and philosophical depth that I so admire in Cather.
I also enjoyed the second book, Tom Outland's story. I agree with an earlier reviewer that the section set in Washington, D.C. was particularly good. I was raised in Washington, and my mother's family has lived there since the 1840's. Cather just NAILED the town.
But it all came to a crashing halt in the final section, when we return to the Professor's story. Did Cather lose interest? Did she not know where to go with the Professor? This section was too short and undeveloped. The first two parts of the book deserved a more thorough and satisfying conclusion. I particularly objected to the section about how the Professor had gotten back in touch with the unthinking boy he'd been back in Kansas. Hogwash. Not credible. This guy's an intellectual. He might come to see the limits of what many academics pretentiously call "the life of the mind." But jettison it entirely for some romantic, unreal Tom Sawyer fantasy? I don't think so.
My advice: do read "The Professor's House," but don't make it your first Cather book.
A Classic Dud.......2007-03-23
Those expecting something as vivid and moving as "My Antonia" will be sorely disappointed by this book. Ms. Cather was at her worst when she wrote in imitation of earlier lady novelists such as Edith Wharton or Henry James, and the entire first half of this novel concerns the intrigues of a Midwest Brahmin family. During this part there is absolutely no plot, just tedious description and some of the most stilted dialogue ever written. The cardboard characters include the good-natured protagonist, Professor St. James, and his two daughters, one sweet (Cordelia?) and one rapacious (Goneril?). The bad daughter is lolling in luxury due to the avaricious machinations of her husband, who, naturally, is a Jew - a stereotypical Jew, the worst kind.
If that weren't bad enough, when a plot is finally introduced it concerns a preposterous device (or substance) called "the Outland vacuum" which is said to concern bulkheads and be a boon to aviation. It seems as though the novel will now hinge on the moral issue of who is entitled to the rewards for this great discovery (the Outland vacuum may also be a gas), but I suspect that at this point Ms. Cather realized that she had gone in over her head, and the novel comes to a sudden halt. The next page begins a second novel, about as bad as the first but which takes place among cowboys out West who discover a lost Indian city.
Alas, this likewise amounts to little, and we eventually return to the warmhearted professor who comes to the good-ol' American conclusion that being rich and famous is not all it's cracked up to be, and real happiness is found among the plain folk.
Y'know, people, just because something is old and ostensibly literature doesn't mean it's really great. My only worry is that schoolkids will be forced to read this - under the theory that classic fiction is "good" for them - and they will thus be alienated from reading books because they're so dull.
A most enjoyable reading experience.......2006-08-19
I've been reading some of the Cather books and have enjoyed all of them. The best part of this book is her story within a story technique. Her descriptions of the American southwest are outstanding. This book held my attention, especially as it progressed. It is not as good as "My Antonia", which to me is her all time best, but it is an excellent reading experience.
I really really really wanted to like this book.......2006-05-02
I read My Antonia and loved it so much that I consider it one of my favorite books. And, that's why I really really really wanted to like this book. But after giving it a chance for about 218 pages, I couldn't bear it any longer.
The problems I have with this book are as follows:
1) I understand the book's plot of the professor trying to find meaning in his life. That's the book I was looking for. The problem is that the Tom Outland character does not get you there and most of the text of the book is on this character.
2) Which brings me to my biggest gripe about this book, and Cather in particular. Cather cannot, to save her life, write a believable male character. Tom Outland is supposed to be an orphaned boy turned cowboy around the turn of the century, but Cather managed to make him out to be so unbelievably feminine that I found myself in wonder at how little she knows about men. She holds Outland out to be the hero of the story, the inspiration behind the Professor's motivation. That's fine, but if I'm supposed to conclude the Professor part of the story, then I have to buy Outland's character and it's just not possible. Here are some examples of Cather not being believable:
a) When she describes Tom Outland's hands through the professor's eyes, she describes them as beautiful and delicate. Worse still, she bothers to describe them in detail. Men don't do that.
b) Around page 218 when she begins Outland's tirade against Blake she makes Outland sound off like a nagging wife about how Blake shouldn't have sold the pottery etc. Men don't argue this way with friends; they don't have hissy fits - they stay quiet!
c) After the argument in (b) above, as Blake leaves the scene, she describes Outland wishing to run after him and hold him in his arms. Men just don't think like that.
d) When Outland is in Washington D.C. trying to get people to take interest in the pottery he discovered, he lets himself get ignored, disrespected, and he waits by tolerantly while being stepped on by people in positions of power. That's not a description of a turn of the century orphaned cowboy; that's a description of a turn of the century well-to-do woman of society - the only world Cather appears to know.
e) Whenever Tom Outland meets other men in his life as a cowboy, they are always really "nice and pleasant". Indeed they are overly accommodating. Huh? I could see cowboys being really respectful and accommodating to a beautiful woman of society (like Cather) but an orphaned cowboy? She just puts too much of herself in this character. I couldn't buy it.
3) Now before reviewers think my gripes are based on some sort of homophobia, let me just say that if it had been a story about men in love with each other, I would have accepted that as at least being believable. But that's not Cather's intention. Outland ends up marrying the professor's daughter. Is Cather trying to send out a bisexual message of some kind? Was the professor gay? The text just does not support any kind of homosexual message either explicitly or implicitly.
4) Cather plays out Outland to be this super human being. Indeed he is the inspiration to the Professor and all the other characters in the book. But if that's the case, why is he on the wrong side of the moral debate on the Dreyfus affair? Cather wrote this book in 1925; twenty five years after all the facts had already come out on that case and yet Cather has Outland take the side of bigots?
5) In Outland's tirade against Blake, Outland chews him out for selling ancient pottery belonging to native Indian tribes. Earlier in the book it's concluded that the tribe was decimated by outsiders. In chastising Blake, Outland declares that Blake was wrong to sell the pottery because it was not his. He says that the pottery belongs to his country, to the State etc. That's the best our hero can do? Wouldn't the right thing to do be to leave the ruins to themselves and not dig up the belongings of the decimated people - i.e. let them rest in peace?
Anyway, I was sorely disappointed. I gave The Professor's House one star more than it deserves only because My Antonia deserves six.
Memorable characters.......2006-04-22
This is the first book by Cather that I have read and I'm glad that I did. It is so beautifully written that one could feel as though they have been gently placed within the walls of the professor's house. Cather included so many characters, at times it was hard to keep up with the names and personalities. However, to take away any one of the characters would have taken away from this great read.
Book Description
The six works in this volume--"A Lost Lady," "The Professor's House," "Death Comes for the Archbishop," "Shadows on the Rock," "Lucy Gayheart," and "Sapphira and the Slave Girl"--are at once intensely lyrical and highly controlled. Their fascination with the American Southwest, early Canada and Catholicism reflects the older Cather's search for alternatives to the grasping civilization she felt was increasingly replacing the spirit of the early pioneers. validation-form-field.keypoints: The Library of America is an award-winning, nonprofit program dedicated to publishing America's best and most significant writing in handsome, enduring volumes, featuring authoritative texts. Hailed as "the most important book-publishing project in the nation's history" (Newsweek), this acclaimed series is restoring America's literary heritage in "the finest-looking, longest-lasting edition ever made" (New Republic).
Customer Reviews:
Her talent is breath-taking.......2006-06-21
Somehow, though I love to read,I had missed Willa Cather. I had already read and loved Jane Austen but it was not until I read "My Antonia" that I realized what I had missed all of these years. Willa Cather is truly a genius of the written word. To call her writing 'good' or her stories 'enjoyable' is to understate her talent. Her writing is beautiful though the stories are simple. Each place she writes about makes one believe that she lived there all her life. Her book "Saphira and the Slave Girl" would make you think she had lived there and in that time. Many of her stories are out on the prairie and seem to glow with the golden light from the sun on the fields of grain. Her characterizations are simple but profound and she often throws in a dramatic tale told by a character. And yes, this physical book is also beautiful and a joy to read. It makes one wonder about ever reading a cheap paperback again.
My Antonia.......2001-09-02
This book was very interesting had a good theme and plot.
It kept the reader on edge throughout the entire book. I would recommend it to everyone.
My Antonia.......2001-09-02
This book was very interesting had a good theme and plot.
It kept the reader on edge throughout the entire book. I would
recommend it to everyone.
Some of Cather's finest work.......2000-10-03
Like all the volumes in the Library of America series, this book is beautiful and made to last. Some readers may be bothered by the thin paper, but it allows so much to be packed into a handy book. As the title states, this is a collection from Cather's early work (her first "first novel," _Alexander's Bridge_, is missing). _The Troll Garden_ is a collection of Cather's early short stories, most in the manner of H. James and have a fin-de-siecle tone. "The Sculptor's Funeral," which depicts a town's inability to recognize achievement in any form but monetary, is perhaps the best. That and two other stories were revised by Cather for _Youth and the Bright Medusa_ (1920 an available in LoA 57 _Stories, Poems, and Other Writings_). Reading the versions side-by-side, one can achieve insight into Cather's growing abilities as a writer. However, the most rewarding read in this volume is _My Antonia_. Cather's first masterpiece depicts the lives of Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerda from their arrival in Black Hawk, Nebraska to twenty years after Jim leaves Black Hawk for a life in the East. Antonia remains in Nebraska, becomes a maid in town, and marries (twice). The theme of the book, from Jim's perspective, is aptly captured in the epigraph: "optima dies . . . prima fugit" (from Virgil's _Aeneid_). Again like all volumes in the LoA, a chronology of the authors life, a "Note on the Texts" and a few notes, containing information on allusions and translations of foreign words and phrases appear at the end of the volume.
Absolutely perfect fiction.......1999-05-21
One of my all-time favorite books. Attractively packaged on acid-free paper. Very classic looking. And the fiction is excellent! Her stories about the Plains, the Southwest, Chicago, and Quebec are perfect works of art. I especially liked "Tom Outland's Story" contained within "The Professor's House."
Book Description
This magnificent tribute brilliantly showcases the variety of styles that belong to this tradition. Splendid photographs, taken by a prominent architectural photographer, present Pioneer, Queen Anne, Spanish Colonial Revival, Craftsman, and English and Tudor revival homes. See exactly what makes cottages different from other houses and how to make the most of their beauty.
Customer Reviews:
A MAJICAL JOURNEY INTO COTTAGE LAND.......2007-02-15
I never thought a design book would become one of my all-time favorites...but this book is the exception. If you're ready to curl up with a warm cup of tea, a lap blanket and an exceptionally good book, filled with wonderful photographs of charming cottages...this is your ticket. I could not put it down until well past midnight, when I had read it cover-to-cover. Even now I go back to it once a week for enjoyment and inspiration. It makes you really think about the kind of home you want to live in with the people you love most and the kind of home you want your children to remember their childhood in. [Warning: It will make the big, boxy, look-alike, "I've finally made it!", homes you see now even uglier!]
Nine California Style Cottages.......2004-06-13
Nine different California communities of well-loved cottages through photographs are accompanied by text to reflect a time, a place, and a need for shelter, as well as available building materials, traditions and collective memories of their builders and owners in this charming 144 page book. You can understand the duel forces of the charm and challenges of cottage living from brilliant photography and text with intense vibrant historic detail.
Looks like a great book.......2004-06-11
Great coverage on all of the cottage styles.
Awesome.......2004-06-11
Superb descriptive writing, delicate exposure of photography, this book is a must for those articulately inbued with historic archectural dignity. Nine prominent California style cottages are revealed with discriminating taste.
Book Description
This acclaimed volume provides a strong, multidisciplinary foundation for individual and family clothing choices as it balances theory with actual applications. The authors present a broad base of knowledge at an introductory level for readers' general education—unlike other books, which focus more narrowly on the needs of fashion professionals. Packed with activities, learning objectives, illustrations, and photographs, this user-friendly book meets the needs of future fashion professionals. The authors address fashion and personal appearance issues such as influences on consumer clothing selection, target market influences, cultural, socio-psychological and physical influences, design elements and principles applied to clothing, and consumer clothing selection issues such as fit, quality, care and planning. For fashion professionals and others interested in the fashion industry.
Average customer rating:
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Professor's House, The (The Collected Works of Willa Cather)
Willa Cather
Manufacturer: Classic Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding
Cather, Willa
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ASIN: 1582015740 |
Average customer rating:
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Memorial Fictions: Willa Cather and the First World War
Steven Trout
Manufacturer: University of Nebraska Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
World War I
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ASIN: 0803244428 |
Book Description
Memorial Fictions offers a major reassessment of Willa Cather's career and artistic achievements, provides a plethora of information on popular culture during and immediately after the Great War, and demonstrates the importance of literature as a cultural forum for addressing issues and ideas fundamental to American culture.
Based on extensive archival research and a variety of scholarly sources drawn from several disciplines, Steven Trout shows how Cather's analysis of the First World War in One of Ours and The Professor's House represents a considerable accomplishment, one worthy of standing next to her groundbreaking treatment of Nebraska settlers in O Pioneers! and My Ántonia and her virtual reinvention of the historical novel in Death Comes for the Archbishop and Shadows on the Rock. Furthermore, he argues that Cather's First World War–related fiction deserves consideration alongside such established classics as Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, and Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth.
Though awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1923, One of Ours was a frequently maligned and misunderstood book. Contemporary male reviewers reviled the work, and it has been Cather's most neglected novel among later generations of readers and scholars. Trout not only reevaluates the impact of the First World War on Cather's fiction but also demonstrates that One of Ours, far from representing a dubious achievement within the Cather canon, renders the American experience of the war with prophetic insight and considerable imaginative vigor. He also offers a detailed reappraisal of The Professor's House, showing it to be a novel haunted by the phantomlike presence of the Great War.
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The Professor's House
Willa Cather
Manufacturer: Alfred A. Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Cather, Willa
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ASIN: B000NUO8NW |
Book Description
Five complete makeovers—bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living room, and dining room—show exactly how to transform a space with great results. From choosing the look to laying the flooring, here’s how to decorate a first home with flair and on a budget. See how to create an effective color scheme; work with paint, paper, and tiles; figure out measurements and quantity; set up focal points; restore a floor or cover it up; and take the house from bare to beautiful.
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From Mesa Verde to the Professor's House
David Harrell
Manufacturer: Univ of New Mexico Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
20th Century
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ASIN: 0826313868 |
Customer Reviews:
Excellent as a textbook.......2006-11-22
I use this book in teaching a Bankruptcy class to California paralegal students. It is an excellent introduction to the bankruptcy system, and includes discussions of both consumer and business bankruptcies (with a definite emphasis on the consumer side). I expecially appreciate the thorough treatment of the BAPA (laws that changed in October 2005).
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Basic Bankrupt Law for Paralegals
David L. Buchinder
Manufacturer: Panel Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1567065074 |
Average customer rating:
- Need to locate David L. Buchbinder
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Basic Bankruptcy Law for Paralegals: Forms Manual
David L. Buchbinder
Manufacturer: Aspen Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0735511969 |
Customer Reviews:
Need to locate David L. Buchbinder.......2000-10-04
Dear David: I hope somehow you get this. I was a client of yours in 1992-3 with my company RNH Enterprises, Inc. I need to ask you a question or two. Hoping to hear from you. Richard
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Bankruptcy Basics for Small Business (Clark Boardman Callaghan/Estrin Paralegal Practice Series)
S. Suzanne Walsh
Manufacturer: Clark Boardman Callaghan
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0876329865 |
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Basic Bankruptcy Law for Paralegals
Manufacturer: Aspen Law & Business Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0735525072 |
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Im: Basic Bankruptcy Law Paralegals 6e
David L. Buchbinder , and
Buchbinder
Manufacturer: Aspen Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0735557543 |
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