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Wheat that Springeth Green New York Review Books Classics JF Powers Katherine A Powers Books

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Wheat that Springeth Green New York Review Books Classics JF Powers Katherine A Powers Books

This is an oddball book. Towards the end I pressed on the Kindle screen to go the next page and discovered it had finished. Just like that.
But that was only one of its oddities. It's less of a story than a series of chapters over the forty-plus years of Joe Hackett's life, from his appearance as a toddler at an adult's party, where he's seen as cute, to his unexpected isolation - once again -when he's moved from a parish where he's been working with a curate (a man he's had to work hard to get to like, and vice versa) to one where he's on his own again. We don't find out anything about this parish, but it's plain it's like he's once again been thrust into his own soul without any companion.
Hackett becomes a priest (after a Rabelaisian chapter in which he's having sex with two young girls at the same time, as it were), and we journey with him through his hair-shirt days at the Seminary, where he's only marginally popular, through his administration work and his parish work. He never seems to want to enjoy any of these things, though he's good at them all, and known to be by the other priests. Sometimes he's plain obtuse, and refuses to help himself. Sometimes he's right on the button spiritually when no one else seems to be. He's a curious and not altogether likeable character.
I couldn't figure out where Powers was going with it all, for quite some time. Got to about 40% of the way through and considered giving up. And yet Powers' writing is such that when he does get going, you can't put the book down.
One of the saving graces of the book is the wry, understated humour. It's often satirical, but mostly in the subtlest way. It doesn't take Joe as seriously as he takes himself, which is a gift. And between the humour is the yearning by the reader (and author) for this character to ease up a bit on himself. Not that you want him to be any less spiritual than he is, but you want him to give himself a break. Sainthood isn't achieved by endlessly beating yourself around the head - Joe's equivalent in the later parts of the book of his wearing of the hair-shirt in the earlier parts.
He's surrounded by men who are doing their best in a difficult job, and by men who seem just plain gnarly in their approach to the priesthood. And he's concerned about the faith - or lack of it - of many of his parishioners (and some of the priests), and about his own drinking problems (not over the top, but sometimes close to it). And about his loneliness, which he tries to ride roughshod over.
I can't say I enjoyed all of it, or found myself at home in it (though, having been brought up as a Catholic, it had a kind of familiarity about it). But it has more depth than it seems, and makes you think more than you realise. I'm not entirely sure, always, about what...there's quite a lot of stuff worth thinking about here!


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Wheat that Springeth Green New York Review Books Classics JF Powers Katherine A Powers Books Reviews

Though it is a relatively old translation of one of Steiner's basic books, it's a good translation. The new cover gives it an interesting image that adds some mystery and quality to the content.
Having read Powers' other book, Morte D'Urban, I was hoping for the best, but alas this book simply does not have the depth or the diversity of characters and their interactions. No real surprises either in the plot. Entire book is centered on one character, a somewhat reluctant priest, and his travails of everyday doings, comings and goings. Yes, there is humor in there but it's just not that riotous or spirited.
Good book. Good story. Some of the dialogue gets a bit clunky. Over a good characters.
Brilliant, moving ...
Wheat took Powers some 25 years to produce, the life of a parish priest in all its vexing details, circa the mid 1960's, suburban USA, told with wit and grace, and remarkable polish. You wonder about relevance the innocence of the American Catholic Church of the sixties as Powers describes it, in the time before the great sex scandals, the cover up. Powers's ability to tell a story is just in a class of its own.
This book accurately captures the intersection between American faith and American life as well as anything I've read since Edwin O'Connor's "Edge of Sadness." Powers writes with a realism that makes all aspects of a parish world come alive. (In particular, I like how he advised the young man seeking guidance about whether to participate in the Vietnam War). What impressed me most about the novel is the way in which Powers crafts sentences in such a simple, but stylized manner. What I initially took for disorganization is actually a type of organization that only illuminates a priest's daily existence.
I've been a fan of the late J F Powers for probably thirty years. Have read his classic novel of the Church in the 1950s, Morte D'Urban (New York Review Books Classics), at least 2-3 times. And also read his three books of stories. Can't figure out how I missed this one, WHEAT THAT SPRINGETH GREEN, his only other novel, first published 25 years ago. In any case, I am most grateful to NYRB Classics imprint for reissuing all of Powers' work again. He was a writer much rspected by other writers, but often neglected and underappreciated by the general reading public, probably because of his never-changing, constant subjects the priesthood and the Catholic Church. This novel is perhaps even better than Morte D'Urban, set in a midwest diocese at the height of the Vietnam war. Father Joe Hackett is a character that will stay with you for a long time, probably because of his very human faults, his utter 'humanity.' You will laugh and wince in recognition, not just at Hackett, but also at some of the other buffoonish priests and prelates depicted here, like Cooney, Mooney and Rooney. Or at the nicknames given Shorty and Slug, Catfish, Arch (the Archbishop) and others. It is eye-opening and often a bit sad to watch Joe's gradual transformation as this tale of the modern Church spins out and winds down.

A favorite line, indicationg Joe's final loss of innocence - "... believing as he did that the separation of of Church and Dreck was a matter of life and death for the world, that the Church was the one force in the world with a chance to save it ..."

There is a kind of redemption for Joe, however, as, in the end, he takes up his "cross." I love this book and hope to find time to read it again some day. But then, "so many books ..." Highly recommended.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER
This is an oddball book. Towards the end I pressed on the screen to go the next page and discovered it had finished. Just like that.
But that was only one of its oddities. It's less of a story than a series of chapters over the forty-plus years of Joe Hackett's life, from his appearance as a toddler at an adult's party, where he's seen as cute, to his unexpected isolation - once again -when he's moved from a parish where he's been working with a curate (a man he's had to work hard to get to like, and vice versa) to one where he's on his own again. We don't find out anything about this parish, but it's plain it's like he's once again been thrust into his own soul without any companion.
Hackett becomes a priest (after a Rabelaisian chapter in which he's having sex with two young girls at the same time, as it were), and we journey with him through his hair-shirt days at the Seminary, where he's only marginally popular, through his administration work and his parish work. He never seems to want to enjoy any of these things, though he's good at them all, and known to be by the other priests. Sometimes he's plain obtuse, and refuses to help himself. Sometimes he's right on the button spiritually when no one else seems to be. He's a curious and not altogether likeable character.
I couldn't figure out where Powers was going with it all, for quite some time. Got to about 40% of the way through and considered giving up. And yet Powers' writing is such that when he does get going, you can't put the book down.
One of the saving graces of the book is the wry, understated humour. It's often satirical, but mostly in the subtlest way. It doesn't take Joe as seriously as he takes himself, which is a gift. And between the humour is the yearning by the reader (and author) for this character to ease up a bit on himself. Not that you want him to be any less spiritual than he is, but you want him to give himself a break. Sainthood isn't achieved by endlessly beating yourself around the head - Joe's equivalent in the later parts of the book of his wearing of the hair-shirt in the earlier parts.
He's surrounded by men who are doing their best in a difficult job, and by men who seem just plain gnarly in their approach to the priesthood. And he's concerned about the faith - or lack of it - of many of his parishioners (and some of the priests), and about his own drinking problems (not over the top, but sometimes close to it). And about his loneliness, which he tries to ride roughshod over.
I can't say I enjoyed all of it, or found myself at home in it (though, having been brought up as a Catholic, it had a kind of familiarity about it). But it has more depth than it seems, and makes you think more than you realise. I'm not entirely sure, always, about what...there's quite a lot of stuff worth thinking about here!