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This novel, by the best new-to-me writer that I’ve read this year, has been described as a satire. It’s not. More of a situation comedy with wry but kind humour. It’s a fish thrown back into the water of mediocrity after the life of being feted as a prominent ‘missioner’ in the wide untroubled water of 50’s Catholic America. The ‘mission’ is the analogue for Catholics of the camp revival meeting without the indecorous slaying in the spirit. Fr. Urban is a star who has been given the green banana. He is taken off the circuit by his Provincial c.i.c. and sent to an artic station in the frozen mid-west. This is an ex-sanitarium previously poorhouse mansion ravaged by squirrels with a cast of woebegone prelates whose hope it is to turn this wreck into a retreat centre. They have no money so DIY reigns under the guiding hand of the incompetant Fr.Wilf, Wilfrid with two is. He is a demon of the sort of thrift that ends up fouling the universe with end of stock green paint and varnish that won’t dry. There is also Fr.John who is a saint of the charitable observation that may not quite align with reality. Who said saints had to be intelligent?
Duesterhaus is a difficult arena for the talents of Fr.Urban not that he was reared in ease and comfort in his early days as Harvey Roche whose father was a greenkeeper. Golf plays a role in this novel. A benefactor buys up a neighbouring farm to make a course that will attract the better sort of retreatant the sort that might leave a donation to cover their stay. Needless to say Urban is a just under professional level golfer and his match with the Bishop’s champion has more than a touch of the tourney about it. By the way don’t expect Urban to die at the end. The Morte is a sly sneer at the publication of Morte d’Arthur an attempt at diversification that like fizzles out.
On the way to discovering the dark side of his various benefactors there are lighter moments like the sad saga of Fr. Chmielewski’s pants and Fr.Jack and the two lost railway passes. It’s very subtle, you’d need to read it. A punch line:
“Wilf was in possession of the telephone, was saying good-bye, hanging up. Apparently he hadn’t trusted Jack to do the talking, after all. “I don’t know what Father Chmielewski must think of us here!” he said to Father Urban. “I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life!” And then to Jack: “Both wallets where you left them! Don’t you see what this means?”
Jack obviously didn’t.
“You’re still wearing Father Chmielewski’s pants!”
Jack looked down at himself in horror.
“What the hell,” said Father Urban, trying to take Jack’s part, but not finding it easy. “Why, a thing like this could happen to anybody!”
This is probably the best novel that I read last year. It won a Pulitzer prize in ‘63 often a mark of decent quality. Read and say a prayer for my intentions.
