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Prince of Darkness, and other stories
Hardcover.
193 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1947
5 people are currently reading
114 people want to read
About the author
J.F. Powers
31 books62 followersJames Farl Powers was an American novelist and short-story writer who often drew his inspiration from developments in the Catholic Church, and was known for his studies of Catholic priests in the Midwest. Although not a priest himself, he is known for having captured a "clerical idiom" in postwar North America.
Powers was a conscientious objector during World War II, and went to prison for it. Later he worked as a hospital orderly. His first writing experiment began as a spiritual exercise during a religious retreat. His work has long been admired for its gentle satire and its astonishing ability to recreate with a few words the insular but gradually changing world of post-WWII American Catholicism. Evelyn Waugh, Flannery O'Connor, and Walker Percy praised his work, and Frank O'Connor spoke of him as "among the greatest living storytellers".
Powers was a conscientious objector during World War II, and went to prison for it. Later he worked as a hospital orderly. His first writing experiment began as a spiritual exercise during a religious retreat. His work has long been admired for its gentle satire and its astonishing ability to recreate with a few words the insular but gradually changing world of post-WWII American Catholicism. Evelyn Waugh, Flannery O'Connor, and Walker Percy praised his work, and Frank O'Connor spoke of him as "among the greatest living storytellers".
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 9, 2023
This collection of short stories was first published in 1947 but most of the stories were published earlier, between 1943 and 1947 in various magazines and newspapers. Power's writing had a devout following from early on. His stories have been published and republished not only in this collection but in many anthologies and collections - often in collections of Catholic fiction or collections of American fiction. Also, his works often end up in English literature courses.
He has two distinct types of stories, religious and cultural. His religious stories focus around the Catholic faith, the day in and day out life of clergy and laity. This first of his published collections is a mix of those archetypes. There are five secular stories and six religious stories, and overlapping both are five stories with racism, either against people of color, or Jewish heritage or Germans (Americans of German dissent). Powers does an amazing job of capturing a snapshot of American culture at a very specific time.
Reading these stories transports one back in time, to a less politically correct time, a time rife with social unrest and a world responding to the Second World War. As a modern reader looking back, these pieces are so well written that they draw the reader in and he becomes a witness to the events. Personally, being a post Vatican Council II baby, my experience of the Roman Catholic Church was very different from Powers, yet he captures something about the spirit of Catholicism, with its good its bad and its ugly, in such a way that his religious stories still speak to the minds and hearts of readers more than a half century later. Now a brief look at each of the specific stories.
The Lord's Day: This is a story about a power struggle at a Catholic parish and parochial school between the Nuns and the Rector of the Parish. In a way it is the story of all politics in a religious organization. It is a sad story with a sad ending.
The Trouble: Based around the race riots in the U.S., this story captures the feel and terror of a time when civil unrest left people dead and constantly under a threat of danger. It is also the story of faith - a woman's faith that the priest will come when her daughter is injured no matter what is happening, and her faith to protect a white man being chased by a black mob even though her daughter lies unconscious after being beaten by a white mob. This story evokes raw emotion and reminds us of a less glamorous period in our recent past.
Lions, Harts, Leaping Does: This is the story of an elderly brother living and working in a monastery. The story takes place mostly in the protagonist's mind, as he struggles with his own actions and motives and those of people around him. It is Didymus coming to an ontological self-understanding during illness and not too long before his death. He states: "With the same wonderful clarity, he saw what he had made of his life. He saw himself tied down, caged, stunted in his apostolate, seeking crumbs, the little pleasure, neglecting the source, always knowing death changes nothing only immortalizes .. and still ever lukewarm." (p. 45) Such open, honest transparency with self is rare even in fiction.
Jamesie: This is the story of a young boy who has faith, not in God but in his hero, a baseball pitcher. It starts during a specific baseball game where the pitcher is believed to have thrown the game. The boy's faith is crushed and he is left wondering, as we so often do after we have been let down by those in whom we believe.
He Don't Plant Cotton: Powers does an amazing job in this piece describing music and the playing of music. It focuses around three black musicians playing in a small club. When some white businessmen who are drunk start hassling them, they stand up for themselves and thus lose their jobs. It is a story of racism, but also human dignity.
The Forks: Is the story of conflict within the church, of differing opinions and interpretations of what it means to be Christ's ambassadors. For the older established priest, it is about status, and people's opinions; for the young curate it is about serving, helping and loving. It also highlights the struggle within the church for those who take stands on current issues, in this case social justice and those who support the old order or tradition. When I was a candidate discerning a vocation to the Catholic priesthood, the conversations in this story could have taken place between priests, seminarians and students like me, around the table or on road trips in the car. Even though this story is dated by the vehicles in it, it could just as easily have been an experience of a friend of mine. It even has overtures of anti-Semitism.
Renner: This story was harder to follow and though I grasp some of the anti-German sentiment in it, I do not grasp the real meaning of the story. I know I am missing something from this story of an evening spent in a roadhouse and the various groups interacting with each other over the evening.
The Valiant Woman: This story is about a priest who has allowed himself to be overrun by his maid. She is really the one running his life and the parish. Some joke that he is like an old married man nagged until giving in. In part that is true, and he realizes it but does not know how to change the situation without hurting her, and she has served him and the church for many years. It captures the struggle that can take place between what should happen and what does happen; about the struggle to find balance between following the letter of the law and extending mercy, even if at the cost of self.
The Eye: This story has strong, powerful, raw emotion in the form of racism. It focuses around a group of white men responding to rumors of a white woman being raped and attacked by a black man. The story is visceral in how it evokes anger over wrongs done, and wrongs done in response to perceived injustice.
The Old Bird, A Love Story: Written about an old couple during the great depression, Charlie wants to work but he is older than most looking for work and slower when he starts. It is a sad story of failures.
Prince of Darkness: This is a story about mediocrity - about a priest, the only one from his seminary class without his own parish. It is about his desire for a parish, even a rural one if he must. He is almost past the point of caring or even of hoping, yet when he is summoned to the Cathedral he cannot but get his hopes up.
In this collection Powers addresses issues of his time, and captures experiences of ordinary people living their day-to-day lives. His stories have the power to evoke emotions and sentiments and a response from readers. His characters are real and I could name one or two clergy I've known in my life that are almost the men he creates in his story. Maybe that is what has contributed to Powers' lasting impact - his characters are real, and a reader cannot help but think of people they know, and see them or even themselves, in his stories. These are some of his earliest published works that show his writing at the beginning of his career, and are thus excellent starting points for a study of his collective fictional works.
(First written for RS398 - The Religious Fiction of J.F. Powers.)
He has two distinct types of stories, religious and cultural. His religious stories focus around the Catholic faith, the day in and day out life of clergy and laity. This first of his published collections is a mix of those archetypes. There are five secular stories and six religious stories, and overlapping both are five stories with racism, either against people of color, or Jewish heritage or Germans (Americans of German dissent). Powers does an amazing job of capturing a snapshot of American culture at a very specific time.
Reading these stories transports one back in time, to a less politically correct time, a time rife with social unrest and a world responding to the Second World War. As a modern reader looking back, these pieces are so well written that they draw the reader in and he becomes a witness to the events. Personally, being a post Vatican Council II baby, my experience of the Roman Catholic Church was very different from Powers, yet he captures something about the spirit of Catholicism, with its good its bad and its ugly, in such a way that his religious stories still speak to the minds and hearts of readers more than a half century later. Now a brief look at each of the specific stories.
The Lord's Day: This is a story about a power struggle at a Catholic parish and parochial school between the Nuns and the Rector of the Parish. In a way it is the story of all politics in a religious organization. It is a sad story with a sad ending.
The Trouble: Based around the race riots in the U.S., this story captures the feel and terror of a time when civil unrest left people dead and constantly under a threat of danger. It is also the story of faith - a woman's faith that the priest will come when her daughter is injured no matter what is happening, and her faith to protect a white man being chased by a black mob even though her daughter lies unconscious after being beaten by a white mob. This story evokes raw emotion and reminds us of a less glamorous period in our recent past.
Lions, Harts, Leaping Does: This is the story of an elderly brother living and working in a monastery. The story takes place mostly in the protagonist's mind, as he struggles with his own actions and motives and those of people around him. It is Didymus coming to an ontological self-understanding during illness and not too long before his death. He states: "With the same wonderful clarity, he saw what he had made of his life. He saw himself tied down, caged, stunted in his apostolate, seeking crumbs, the little pleasure, neglecting the source, always knowing death changes nothing only immortalizes .. and still ever lukewarm." (p. 45) Such open, honest transparency with self is rare even in fiction.
Jamesie: This is the story of a young boy who has faith, not in God but in his hero, a baseball pitcher. It starts during a specific baseball game where the pitcher is believed to have thrown the game. The boy's faith is crushed and he is left wondering, as we so often do after we have been let down by those in whom we believe.
He Don't Plant Cotton: Powers does an amazing job in this piece describing music and the playing of music. It focuses around three black musicians playing in a small club. When some white businessmen who are drunk start hassling them, they stand up for themselves and thus lose their jobs. It is a story of racism, but also human dignity.
The Forks: Is the story of conflict within the church, of differing opinions and interpretations of what it means to be Christ's ambassadors. For the older established priest, it is about status, and people's opinions; for the young curate it is about serving, helping and loving. It also highlights the struggle within the church for those who take stands on current issues, in this case social justice and those who support the old order or tradition. When I was a candidate discerning a vocation to the Catholic priesthood, the conversations in this story could have taken place between priests, seminarians and students like me, around the table or on road trips in the car. Even though this story is dated by the vehicles in it, it could just as easily have been an experience of a friend of mine. It even has overtures of anti-Semitism.
Renner: This story was harder to follow and though I grasp some of the anti-German sentiment in it, I do not grasp the real meaning of the story. I know I am missing something from this story of an evening spent in a roadhouse and the various groups interacting with each other over the evening.
The Valiant Woman: This story is about a priest who has allowed himself to be overrun by his maid. She is really the one running his life and the parish. Some joke that he is like an old married man nagged until giving in. In part that is true, and he realizes it but does not know how to change the situation without hurting her, and she has served him and the church for many years. It captures the struggle that can take place between what should happen and what does happen; about the struggle to find balance between following the letter of the law and extending mercy, even if at the cost of self.
The Eye: This story has strong, powerful, raw emotion in the form of racism. It focuses around a group of white men responding to rumors of a white woman being raped and attacked by a black man. The story is visceral in how it evokes anger over wrongs done, and wrongs done in response to perceived injustice.
The Old Bird, A Love Story: Written about an old couple during the great depression, Charlie wants to work but he is older than most looking for work and slower when he starts. It is a sad story of failures.
Prince of Darkness: This is a story about mediocrity - about a priest, the only one from his seminary class without his own parish. It is about his desire for a parish, even a rural one if he must. He is almost past the point of caring or even of hoping, yet when he is summoned to the Cathedral he cannot but get his hopes up.
In this collection Powers addresses issues of his time, and captures experiences of ordinary people living their day-to-day lives. His stories have the power to evoke emotions and sentiments and a response from readers. His characters are real and I could name one or two clergy I've known in my life that are almost the men he creates in his story. Maybe that is what has contributed to Powers' lasting impact - his characters are real, and a reader cannot help but think of people they know, and see them or even themselves, in his stories. These are some of his earliest published works that show his writing at the beginning of his career, and are thus excellent starting points for a study of his collective fictional works.
(First written for RS398 - The Religious Fiction of J.F. Powers.)
January 26, 2025
There are some amazing stories in here and some that don't work for me. Powers tends towards the understated character study and those are by far the best stories in this volume. He has a talent for examining the lives of normal people through the lens of normal days.
My personal favorites were The Lord's Day and The Valiant Woman.
My personal favorites were The Lord's Day and The Valiant Woman.
January 9, 2022
Good character studies. Often too Catholic for me to understand.
Want to read
August 24, 2022Read so far:
*The Lord's day --
*The trouble --
*Lions, harts, leaping does --
Jamesie --
*He don't plant cotton --
*The forks --
Renner --
*The valiant woman --
*The eye --
*The old bird, a love story --
*Prince of darkness --
*The Lord's day --
*The trouble --
*Lions, harts, leaping does --
Jamesie --
*He don't plant cotton --
*The forks --
Renner --
*The valiant woman --
*The eye --
*The old bird, a love story --
*Prince of darkness --
August 19, 2019
I read this many years ago and found it a great book of short stories and an interesting peak behind the Roman Catholic clergy of the late 1940s through the early 1960s.
May 11, 2024
I firmly believe J F Powers is the master of character studies in short fiction. What a treat!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews