Beneath the amusing but spare storyline a soul is being made. Fr Urban--who lives up to his name by being very urbane--eventually sees his plans unravel. Somehow it all never really amounts to much and when his dream of being elected provincial comes true he doesn't have the gumption to take the order into the heights he aimed for. In the process maybe he learns humility and a new trust in the strange ways of providence.
The book is somewhat uneven. The supporting characters intrude at times, and perhaps the cast and crew of the story are too varied, with minor characters neglected and other minor characters intruding. However, the whole thing works well enough and it is a story worth re reading. It's unfortunate that Powers is not better known and that he did not complete more work. This one novel has more depth than at first sight--like Brideshead Re-Visited it is the story of God's providence working its way out in the depths of one man's life, and the result is surprising, inspiring and not a little bit disconcerting.
5 comments:
This sounds like an interesting novel to read. I'm adding this to my list of must reads.
gimme 'Men of Honour' Trilogy anyday, Padre
in this age our forebears made safe for
'Hooper'
[then read 'Scoop' and have a laff, ED]
I don't think he "somehow" can't take the order to new heights -- his incident with the woman and the shoe teach him the hard way that the old Clementines (ha ha, love that name) were right and he was wrong. Fr. Urban learns humility, a little too late. It is supposed to be an allusion to The Morte D'Artur but I never quite figured it out.
Yes, he learns humility and humility is a kind of death, thus the title, Death of Urban.
I think you would like Wheat that Springeth Green by the same author, which shows the strength and weakness of American Catholicism in the 1950s (the supposed good old days). There is a review of his book at The New York Review of Books,
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