Review of J. F. Powers’ MORTE D’URBAN
Posted on March 18th, 2010
First, let me begin by offering an observation based on years of classroom experience. The complaints that I hear most often from students if they respond negatively to reading assignments in compulsory literature courses usually include the following: (1) “I don’t get it.” (2) “What’s the point?” (3) “What does it mean?” Second, let me make the following promise: I am unlikely ever to include J. F. Powers’ Morte D’Urban (1962) on a syllabus for my literature courses. The reasons for this declaration have nothing to do with the quality of the novel, which is superb and about which I have more to say below. Instead, I am almost certain that a chorus of complaints (like those cited above) would be students’ almost certain reactions to Morte D’Urban, and I doubt that any teaching strategy short of preemptive lectures prior to student reading would change the outcome. Does this mean that Morte D’Urban is too difficult to read and appreciate? No. Instead it means that the novel’s subtle sophistication—especially its use of irony—ought to not be inflicted upon youthful readers, especially those still congenitally insensitive to life’s complicated ironies, but the novel instead ought to be savored only by more mature readers.
The story (plot) of Morte D’Urban (with spoilers included in the following synopsis) goes something like this: When we join the action, Father Urban, a “tall and handsome” priest with the undistinguished Order of St. Clementine in Chicago, is eager to see the status of the Clementines (and his own) advanced and improved. Much to his surprise, though, his enthusiastic advocacy on behalf of his order (and himself) is complicated when he is reassigned to a remote retreat in Duesterhaus, Minnesota. There he must contend with numerous physical and psychological obstacles. It is there that Urban “asked himself what he was doing there. Why had he been cast into outer darkness, thrown among fools and failures? What star had let him to this?” The answers to those questions are embedded in the lesson that Father Urban will eventually though belatedly learn, one that is foreshadowed by a comment made to him during a brief discussion of the difference between checkers and chess at the retreat. When an impatient Urban argues with his opponent, “I’d say the principle’s the same” between the two games, the rector on the sidelines reminds him, “I’d say the principle’s the same in all games.” After many ups and downs in his Duesterhaus experiences, the circle of the priest’s progress is completed when Urban is finally returned to Chicago where he is promoted to the position of authority and leadership he had long coveted. Curiously, though, at the end, Urban seems less happy in what he had long imagined would (or should) be his future. In fact, he becomes much like some other people in his spiritual calling with whom he had been so impatient.
So, the questions at the end remain much like the undergraduates’ questions cited above. The answers are numerous, but here are three clues to the answers: readers should (1) reflect upon the rector’s advice about games (i.e., life); (2) give full consideration to Urban’s advice to a layman when he says, “God writes straight with crooked lines”; (3) ponder the important differences between all that is important in a person’s spiritual and secular ambitions; and (4) realize that almost all of life is beset by ironies, and Father Urban, an ambitious, confident, and impatient priest, would have been wise to recognize and deal with those ironies throughout his life.
Tags: Classroom Experience, Clementine, Clementines, Enthusiastic Advocacy, Fools, Ironies, Irony, J F Powers, Literature Courses, Mature Readers, Novel, Observation, Outer Darkness, Psychological Obstacles, Reading Assignments, Story Plot, Student Reading, Subtle Sophistication, Syllabus, Youthful Readers
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