Morte d'Urban

Ever has so much been made from so little - in fact I'm glad that I never read a description of J F Powers's novel Morte d'Urban (1962) because I never would have read it, or started to. You'd think there 's no way a novel about a priest reassigned from Chicago to a remote site in Minnesota where he works w three others, each his his own version of incompetence, to turn a wreck of an old mansion into a religious retreat for devout laity. The project is so obviously doomed and the protagonist, Father Urban, is so obviously smarter and more shrewd than the other priests and so obviously out of place - in his previous assignment he traveled the country giving rousing and entertaining speeches and he befriended a slick mobster and enjoyed the perks of his lifestyle - that the novel is an exercise in high comedy from base materials, as in say Don Quixote. Father jack is an especially obvious target for humor at his expense , including his devotion to checkers and the episode in which he thinks he lost both of his wallets , as is father Wilf w his false economies as he leads the futile efforts to spruce up the beyond repair church property and his ridiculous attempt to draft a brochure advertising the never to be religious retreat .

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