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The Professor's House

3.73 of 5 stars 3.73 · rating details · 2,760 ratings · 246 reviews

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.

Paperback, 258 pages

Published October 31st 1990 by Vintage (first published 1925)

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Jun 26, 2012 Alex rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: pedantic university professors with disappointing careers and unhappy marriages

Shelves: reading-through-history, 2012

Well, this was very pleasant and all, but...have you ever heard of a bridge version of a book? Don't feel bad if you haven't; I just made it up. What it is is you know how there are abridged versions of books, where they include the important and exciting parts and chop out some of the meandering and tangential stuff? Have you ever wondered what happens to that stuff they chop out? Well, that ends up in a bridge version of the book, and that must be the version I read because nothing fucking hap...more

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Feb 04, 2012 Roberta rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction

On the face of it, Professor Godfrey St. Peter has a good life. As Cather’s novel opens, he is married, with two grown daughters, Rosamund and Kathleen, who are also married. He has for many years taught at a small college in Ohio, where he is respected and esteemed. He has produced his magnum opus – a multi-volume work on the Spanish explorers of North America – which has won him a distinguished literary prize. With the money from that prize, St. Peter has built his wife Lillian a grand new hom...more

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Jul 25, 2012 Bev Hankins rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classic-lit, fiction

I enjoyed this story of a professor facing middle age who discovers that he has quite a disconnect with most of the people in his life. He thought he understood them all...his wife, his daughters, his friends and colleagues at the university--and even himself. But a period of solitary living in his old house makes him see that while he had what he calls a pleasant life, it wasn't what the "real" professor wanted and that he doesn't really want to reconnect (or ever live) with his family once the...more

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Aug 15, 2008 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Geoffery St. Peter (professor) moves into a new house, but keeps the old house as a study. A brilliant student, Tom Outland, invents a new engine that makes a lot of money. Tom dies in WWI, leaving his fortune to his fiance, Rosamond, one of the professor's daughters. Rosamond and her new husband become parvenus.

The book is half about primoral America - the Blue Mesa in New Mexico, swimming in delicious Lake Michigan and half about the transition from middle age to old age and wanting to sleep,...more

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Jun 25, 2008 Tom rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I actually read this before. I have a habit of re-reading books I like during the summer. Why? Who knows?

I read this for a grad class on Cather and it blew me away. Strangely intense little book. At first, it doesn't seem to be about much, but it's worth a close reading.

Her best known books (O Pioneers, My Antonia) aren't really her best. They are often taught at the high school level, and I think people often think of her as slight. But some of her books, like The Professor's House, pack a real...more

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Jan 24, 2013 Judy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was my first Willa Cather book, and while I enjoyed her skillful writing, the story didn't finish well in my opinion. The professor of the title is named St. Peter (last name), and at mid-life he has finally earned some renown and financial security as a result of a multi-volume history he has written. This success has enabled him and his wife to buy a new house, but St. Peter has no interest in leaving his old one, in particular, the drafty upstairs office has has long shared with the fami...more This was my first Willa Cather book, and while I enjoyed her skillful writing, the story didn't finish well in my opinion. The professor of the title is named St. Peter (last name), and at mid-life he has finally earned some renown and financial security as a result of a multi-volume history he has written. This success has enabled him and his wife to buy a new house, but St. Peter has no interest in leaving his old one, in particular, the drafty upstairs office has has long shared with the family's seamstress.

There are two storylines here; the first of St. Peter and his involvement with his work and reluctance to "move up," and the other about a favorite student of his, Tom Outland. By the time this story takes place, Outland has perished during WWI, but in the brief time he and St. Peter knew one another at the university, Outland managed to come up with a fabulously marketable form of gas (its particular use is never explained). Tom had been engaged to one of St. Peter's daughters, and willed his estate to her, not knowing at the time of his death the extent of the riches that would fall to her.

Rosamond has since married, and she and her husband are seemingly millionaires due to Outland's legacy. St. Peter finds the materialistic trappings of his daughter and son-in-law distasteful, and Rosamond as a character exudes no warmth. The reader has a hard time seeing what Tom saw in her.

The problem with this book is that after about two-thirds of the way through, Cather introduces a brief Book 2, narrated entirely by Tom Outland, and focusing in minute depth about his previous explorations of the Southwest and in particular, of an old settlement of Indian houses up on a mesa. I found this tedious, and not knowing how it would connect back to the saga of St. Peter and his family was distracting. This was Cather's way of showing how and why St. Peter was so enamored of Tom, but it hardly explains why his seeming passion for the long gone Indian community and its excavations would have led to his sudden brilliance in developing a marketing gas.

When Cather picks up the story again with St. Peter, he is becoming more and more distant from his family, and deciding never to move from the old house to the new. Yet he claims to love his wife, so this sort of separation doesn't make sense emotionally.

I would try another Cather novel, but this one didn't really deliver in the way I had hoped.
(less)

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Aug 16, 2011 Carol rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Willa Cather is always one of my favorites. Her reverence for the land, the colors,the textures, the vistas and the minutiae,especially of the West always stuns me. The story of Tom Outland's discovery and exploration of one of the mesa dwellings in the Southwest was exquisite. I read that part twice and was smitten with a capturing luminescence.

That Tom Outland, coming from some obscure beginnings, eventually finds his way to The Professor, and becomes a pivotal character in The Professor's li...more

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Aug 13, 2011 Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I would say that this is a very "clean" novel. The characters are respectful, their dialogues are polished, and there's not a hint of any major mischief in the plot. Professor Godfrey St. Peter is fifty-two. He has two married daughters and a wife (Lillian) of many years. He teaches and writes history books. His family is financially secure, one of his daughters is even rich, having been the beneficiary of his (St.Peter's) former student's posthumous wealth from a gas-related invention. this for...more

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Aug 08, 2011 SwensonBooks rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: jill

I wanted to read something I hadn't read before and didn't already know as a fan of Willa Cather's writing. Call it the intellectual stretch. The Professor's House (1925) is a short book with only three chapters. Now that I read the book I recognize it as three pieces written separate and apart from one another.

The second chapter, "Tom Outland's Story," stood alone for many years as an unfinished work. Today it would stand alone as a captivating short story about the Southwest during the fronti...more I wanted to read something I hadn't read before and didn't already know as a fan of Willa Cather's writing. Call it the intellectual stretch. The Professor's House (1925) is a short book with only three chapters. Now that I read the book I recognize it as three pieces written separate and apart from one another.

The second chapter, "Tom Outland's Story," stood alone for many years as an unfinished work. Today it would stand alone as a captivating short story about the Southwest during the frontier days. Thirty six pages long, this voice is Willa Cather at her storytelling best. It's the story of two young men and their archeological discovery on a mesa. A man's story: friendship, adventure, betrayal and loss. It's a masterpiece of description for a time and a place; the reader is dropped into the middle of the frontier prairie landscape and its human scenery.

The first and third chapters are wraparounds. Seventy pages of narration about the professor and his family and circumstances related to Tom Outland's premature death build up to the revelation in Chapter Two. The third chapter is only thirteen pages long and yet it's where all the plot lines pull together.

The narrative premise pulling these three pieces, written at different times, is that a professor doesn't like the direction his life has taken. Due to circumstances, Professor Godfrey St. Peter has come into more comfortable circumstances as a result of his daughter's inheritance from Tom Outland, her fiancée, and his own writing and publishing success as a scholar. His wife, Lillian, also receives a small inheritance check every month from her family and has sustained all appearances of class for his insignificant income as a college professor.

The professor and his wife Lillian have two daughters; and now two son-in-laws. His own position with regards to his own family as he faces his 50s is at stake. His wife moves into their new house, but he decides to keep his old study in the rackety-trap attic in the old house. He's stuck. He's stuck because of what transpired with Tom Outland. There is mention of a patent and his invention as a student there in the college; the professor and his family had taken Tom in as an unschooled youth and he proved a scientific genius. The exact financials are kept rather discretely; implications are that it makes the professor quite uncomfortable.

The professor won't accompany his family on their trip to Europe for the summer. He spends it in the old house in his study doing as he pleases for the first time since his youth. Seeing Lillian fall in fondness with their sons-in-law, he recognizes he has long ago fallen out of love with his wife.

He finds in the seamstress a confidante over all the years they shared the attic for their "work." She is never sexualized, but throughout the first and third chapters she is the female heroine to the professor. Augusta is St. Peter's rock.

In the third and final chapter, the Professor finally falls prey to the dangers of his woodstove and the weather in his attic. He collapsed into a sleeping stupor in the midst of a rain storm after spending the afternoon and evening contemplating the meaningless of his family relations and career; carbon monoxide filled the room. He welcomed the easy escape, before Augusta rescues him just in time for his family to arrive home from Europe.

Perhaps this felt like a cob job because I bought a crappy paperback edition. The corrupted fonts resulted in a variety of typos and pages 68-72 were duplicated passages. Something tipped me off that the narrative flow was more than a little contrived. It isn't Cather's best novel. Novella is even a stretch. Triptych maybe.

I take some solace in seeing one of my heroines trying to make a living wage from her work. Like many writers, pieces and fragments of our best work lie outside that which is easily marketable. This shows she tried to take one of her gems and work it into a fine piece of jewelry; didn't quite work, but the gem is apart from its setting. And you see how the stone is distinct from the steel. As a reader and a writer I liked looking at more of her writing and career as I see how hard it remains to make a living at this craft of writing.(less)

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Jul 03, 2011 Lissa Notreallywolf rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Willa Cather was an early preoccupation of mine, perhaps because she wrote with the gift of sympathy for her characters. She is very quotable, but her novels are best read in their entirety because she creates a world, a scene and invites you in, like a good southern host. She grew up in the Southwest, but her family was rooted in Virginia. An exceptionally large woman who preferred the freedom of mens clothes and open spaces, she grew up riding between various ethnic settlements. An early explo...more

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Mar 14, 2011 Callie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Read this in college, but this time it's for book club. I love Willa Cather! That said, I am a bit conflicted about this book. She had a plot line developing, revolving around some tensions between the two daughters of the professor, a potential lawsuit over the fortune amassed by Rosamund(or was it Rosalind?) And then she interrupts this developing plot to go into some background about Tom Outland, which I didn't mind but when she took up telling about life in Hamilton again she decided NOT to...more

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Mar 29, 2009 Judith rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Like so many of my generation, i read Willa Cather's "My Antonia" when i was in 8th grade, around the age of the heroine of the story. I loved it, and through the years, I tried "Death Comes to the Archbishop" and "O Pioneers", and found them so boring that i couldn't get past the first few pages. Now in my late 50's i find "The Professor's House", the story of a professor in his 50's looking back on his career, his travels, and his family, and I love it as much as i loved "My Antonia". Included...more

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Aug 16, 2012 Steven rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction

Cather's tender and understated prose serves well this quiet novel of mid-life crisis, encroaching modernity, and family love and loyalty. I would never call Cather's plotting tight, but somehow her gently meandering narratives remain compelling, and this novel is an excellent example. Godfrey St. Peter, a middle-aged history professor at a small Midwestern college, has a wife and two grown daughters. When he and his wife move to a new house, the Professor has misgivings about abandoning his com...more

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Jan 13, 2013 Kåre rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: litteratur

Vist en anti-social bog på den måde, at hovedpersonerne opgiver eller løsriver sig fra samfund, forpligtigelser, familie og liv for at hengive sig til deres egen indre natur og/eller naturen omkring dem.

Professoren ordner forhold for sin døde ven og protege og forlader mentalt sin familie. Vennen fandt en indiansk civilication og forsøgte at få denne placeret i et museum. De eneste, der interesserede sig for dette var imidlertid mennesker med økonomiske interesser. Også vennens ven så denne kul...more

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Apr 21, 2013 David rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, western-literature

A little, simple piece of Americana that has as much beauty and depth as you might find in a sprawling russian novel. While Cather may have produced some of the greatest American historical fiction in 'My Antonia', 'O' Pioneers' and "Death Comes for the Archbishop', this little gem has a more timeless quality; has a pressing relevance in today's world.

We are introduced to a man who has become increasingly apathetic in his years; frustrated at the materialism he sees around him. He is an idealist...more

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Apr 25, 2012 Alan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Professor’s House explores a relationship between an older professor and a young, inspired student (Tom Outland), who tells a story of discovering a lost canyon leading to ancient cliff dwellings. In the last short chapter, the professor muses about how his travels with Outland improved his writing and led to his late-in-life success. With his family in Europe the professor rediscovers the essence of his childhood, his independence and excitement about learning. One reviewer I found online n...more

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Apr 01, 2012 Jessica rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-books

I read this book on my phone and I'm still not sure if I read the whole book. If I hold a book in my hands, I can check if some pages are missing or not. On my phone I'm not really sure. Furthermore, the story was a bit difficult to understand.
This story is about a family; the parents have been married for a long time. Now they are moving into a new house, but the protagonist (St. Peter) still works in his old house. It's still his home. The daughters are adults and have both married. The daugh...more I read this book on my phone and I'm still not sure if I read the whole book. If I hold a book in my hands, I can check if some pages are missing or not. On my phone I'm not really sure. Furthermore, the story was a bit difficult to understand.
This story is about a family; the parents have been married for a long time. Now they are moving into a new house, but the protagonist (St. Peter) still works in his old house. It's still his home. The daughters are adults and have both married. The daughters are in conflict. One is very rich and arrogant. The other one is in debt, but doesn't believe her sister will help her. The mom is in love with her son in laws and the father can't help solve the problem between the sisters. Mid-life crisis is one of the other major themes. St. Peter doesn't really have anything to look forward too, he doesn't know if there will ever be any joy in his life again. Because I never got to know the characters, I didn't share their sorrows and wasn't bothered by them. I felt nothing reading this book.

First, we are not directly told of the relationships between the characters. We have to find that out by ourselves.
Secondly, the book is divided into three parts. The first part tells us about the protagonist's life and that there is some kind of unspoken problem between the characters: Tom Outland.
Tom Outland is not completely introduced until the second part of the book. The narration shifts from St. Peter (the protagonist) to Tom. I actually liked this part of the book. Tom seems like the unfortunate hero of the book.
The third part of the book goes back to St. Peters point of view and ends all of a sudden. Seriously, the ending is very, very disappointing. I thought that the book on my phone was missing some pages. I will have to double check with a book in the library.

A thing I noticed is that every character has two names, a nickname and their "official" name. But I don't know why.
This book reminds me of everyday life, kind of boring, with petty problems that seem like the end of the world...(less)

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Mar 22, 2007 daniela rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The clash of impending man-made modernity and the by-gone beauty of the natural American West create a narrative full of metaphor and imagery. This theme of dimishing natural wild is certainly current today. The book is characterized by its dichotomy - new "things" changing the way we live and the mysteries of an ancient Mesa and its early American inhabitants. Rich language create lush visuals - an interesting read from an iconic American author.

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Feb 13, 2009 Tom rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I would read this again, and most likely bump it up to four stars. It was almost there this time around, but the narrative shift from Godfrey St. Peter to Tom Outland threw me off a little.

When I read My Mortal Enemy this past fall, I was surprised to see how much I enjoyed Cather working with a more urban story. And that was what I was really digging with The Professor's House - its small-town setting, and its focus on relationships between people. Being taken out of that and resituated in a wo...more

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Jun 25, 2011 Barbara rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-literature

I truly enjoy reading Cather's works; she creates vivid settings and allows the reader full access to her characters' thoughts. To call this simply a "midlife crisis story" would not do it justice. There is that, as we watch Godfrey St. Peter coming to grips with the realization that when he left behind his adolescence, he also surrendered his most vital and yearning self. Falling in love set him on a path of obligation and responsibility, a life dictated by random events; now in his fifties, he...more

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Apr 20, 2011 Ian rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books

Scholarly yet accessible, much like Professor Godfrey St Peter's eight volume work on Spanish Adventurers in Early America which has given him unaccustomed wealth. He has built a new family home, but prefers the comfortable surroundings of his former study. Set in the 20s, the novel is overshadowed by Tom Outland, St Peter's greatest pupil, a victim of the Great War, whose invention has made a fortune for St Peter's daughter, Outland's fiancee at his death. Outland was a one-off, who discovered...more

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Apr 09, 2011 Mrose46 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I loved this book. It shows how a man who is nearing retirement looks back on his life and wants to start life anew without his family and without all of the success and reputation that he has earned--in other words he faces a late stage rebellion. A sub-plot in the book introduces the reader to the pueblo dwellings of the early Indians in the Southwest. I gained a renewed appreciation for Willa Cather.

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Mar 04, 2013 Lauren Schumacher rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This impulse read was really rather something. It has the stink of quiet genius all over it, with its precise characterizations and effortless minimalism. Well, perhaps it isn't minimalism so much as a total lack of "over-written-ness"--minimalism implies an intentional restraint, whereas this work feels almost carelessly laconic. The book was nonetheless full of beautiful gems of human observation, particularly on the subject of middle-age; I will have to return to this little novel every ten y...more

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Mar 19, 2012 Scott rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Based on this one book - my introduction to Willa Cather - I'm really looking forward to reading more by her. Although this book is a simple story about a professor who is in the process of moving from the old house, where he raised his two daughters and made his career, into the new one that his recent success has enabled the purchase of, it contains surprisingly powerful insights.

Compared to the professor, I'm on the opposite spectrum in my life and career cycle, but I can appreciate the theme...more

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Sep 19, 2012 Michael Chiappini rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is positively pivotal in understanding the 1920s. While our literary conceptions of the decade revolve around Gatsby parties and Hemingway in Paris, this manages to deftly present those still at home who are leading those quiet lives of desperation. While Cather's frequent hearkening of ancient Native Americans seems dated and somewhat racist at this point in time, it serves as a provocative backdrop for the industrialization and standardization of America at this point. The novel is o...more

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Jul 24, 2010 Helen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library-books

Willa Cather is an author I've heard a lot about but whose work I've never read until now. I should probably have started with her most famous book, My Antonia, but something drew me to this one, The Professor's House.

The Professor of the title is Godfrey St Peter, a man in his fifties, around the same age as Willa Cather was when she wrote this novel. At the beginning of the book, St Peter and his wife are preparing to move into their new home. At the last minute the Professor decides that he d...more

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Mar 03, 2013 Kamila Forson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

The Professor's House is composed of three books, but it is the second one, "Tom Outland's Story," that truly shines. The story slowly gains momentum and tension throughout the first book -- at times too slowly, so by the time you reach the second book, and the point of view shifts to the mysterious Tom Outland, it's as though someone had suddenly opened the window in a stuffy room. I read that Willa Cather wrote the second book first, and built the rest of the story around it, which is (unfortu...more

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Jul 29, 2011 Booklady rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Professor Godfrey St. Peter lives with his saucy wife, Lillian, (who has her own money), an even more saucy daughter, Kathleen, whose husband is a gold-digger and a spend-thrift, and his plain daughter, Rosamond. The professor just wants to teach: "He 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 an eager eye, one doubting,...more

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Oct 13, 2009 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: i-own

I'm having a hard time deciding how to review The Professor's House. The plot itself is very straightforward and easy to describe. The characters are vivid and well-defined which adds to the realism of the novel. But it seems to me that the meat of this novel is in the themes and nuances.

I have read some of Cather's short stories many years ago and only have vague memories of them other than a memory that she had exquisite attention to detail. As I read this book I found that memory to be true....more

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Jan 02, 2009 bookczuk rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bookcrossing, favorite-author, read-on-recommendation

I just finished with Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, another post war story-- but what a difference! This was much bleaker compared to Jim. I think it hit me especially hard as I am watching my 86 year old mother adapt to a world that holds fewer and fewer people she knew and loved in her youth. There is a sadness in old age as well as a resiliency (did I spell that right?) Plus, I'm moving into a time in my own life when I am trying to pare down and shed the trappings of materialism. Leave a smalle...more

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About Willa Cather

Wilella Sibert Cather is an eminent author from the United States. She is perhaps best known for her depictions of U.S. life in novels such as O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and Death Comes for the Archbishop.

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“In great misfortunes, people want to be alone. They have a right to be. And the misfortunes that occur within one are the greatest. Surely the saddest thing in the world is falling out of love--if once one has ever fallen in.” — 10 people liked it

“A man long accustomed to admire his wife in general, seldom pauses to admire her in a particular gown or attitude, unless his attention is directed to her by the appreciative gaze of another man.” — 7 people liked it

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