Amazon.com Review
During his
famous journey through America in 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville was struck by the peculiar worldliness of religious practice. Unlike their European counterparts, who specialized in visions of heaven, "American preachers are constantly referring to the earth, and it is only with great difficulty that they can divert their attention from it." More than a century later,
J.F. Powers built an entire career on this national tendency. And nowhere did he capture the sacred-and-profane balancing act with more amusement than in his 1975 novel,
Wheat That Springeth Green. His protagonist, a Great Depression-era child of the Midwest named Joe Hackett, has early dreams of joining the priesthood:
If he decided to be a priest in a religious order, though, he could live out in the country, at a college, and have invigorating walks and talks with students ... and maybe some exciting adventures, and also do good, as often happened in the Father Finn books ("'My God!' cried the atheist") that Sister Agatha read to the class at the end of the day.
Joe eventually attends seminary, is ordained, and finds himself appointed as assistant to a high-octane contemplative, Father Van Slaag. But by the time he gets his own parish, in 1968, he's become an expert at relegating sanctity to the back burner. Overweight, agreeably resigned, Joe accepts the fact that "running a parish, any parish, was like riding a cattle car in the wintertime--you could appreciate the warmth of your dear, dumb friends, but you never knew when you'd be stepped on, or worse."
It takes the arrival of a young, over-earnest curate to jog his idealism back to life. And in return, he imparts to the younger man his knowledge of the "worldly" priesthood--a craft that Powers, no less than de Tocqueville, refuses to condemn. This exchange, which is gradual and grudging on both sides, occupies the greater portion of Wheat That Springeth Green. And the protagonist's regeneration, like that alluded to in the title, seems no less miraculous for being expected. The result is a marvelous, acute novel, which gives to Joe's spiritual rebirth the shape of a classic American comedy--trials and tribulations, and finally, a happy ending. --James Marcus
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Joe Hackett is a 44-year-old priest living in the Midwest in 1968. Once, when he was young and training for the priesthood, he was fanatical; he wore a hair shirt and gave up his vices: "smokes, sweets, snacks, snooker, and handball." Now he is middle-aged, comfortable and rather complacent, a bit of a Babbitt. He drinks too much, is overweight and over-concerned with appearances. He goes through the motions with his middle-class parish. Friction arises when a new assistant arrives. Just out of seminary, Bill hasin Joe's jaded eyescertain naive ideas. It's a gentlemanly conflict: the men like each other, and, as Joe cultivates their "priestly fellowship," through the upheavals of surreptitious parish fund-raising, a quiet evening drink or afternoon ball playing, he recognizes in his assistant his own idealistic, younger self. As a result of this introspection, and of the bureaucratic necessities that the structure of the church imposes, Joe changes from the middle-management timeserver he is surprised to realize he has become, to a less secular, more spiritual person. In his first novel in 25 years, since the National Book Award-winning Morte D'Urban , Powers writes in a casual, yet supple style. Brilliantly using details to illuminate both character and scene, and exhibiting an unerring ear for dialogue, reduced to its essentials, strikingly lifelike, often riotously funny, Powers succeeds in conveying the nuts and bolts of a clergyman's life even as he illuminates the hidden corners of his soul.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
