Literary Award Winners Fiction Book Club discussion

Please comment here on 'Morte D'Urban' by J.F. Powers, (1963 National Book Award winner for fiction).

So what was going on in the 1960s that we have multiple major awards going to books about Catholic priests. We started this year with one and we are ending with one.
I did not get the humor. I know that written humor tends to be a problem for me. And without the humor, it was not engaging. I liked The Edge of Sadness much better.

Yes, I did find ‘The Edge of Sadness’ a more satisfying read. I quite enjoyed the story of Father Urban but found the last part of the book fairly disappointing. I never have high expectations for novel endings, but I finished this novel with a flat feeling. (?)

The first two thirds of the novel, in particular, is interesting and sometimes amusing. It’s about Father Urban and the conflict between the true religious spirit and a not exactly religious commercial practice. Father Urban is a traveling preacher in the struggling Order of St. Clement. He is social, a well received good preacher, and a somewhat astute businessman. He is transferred from a rich parish to an area where he is required to do manual labor in an old country house, which the Order is aiming to turn into a retreat. Father Urban organizes for the establishment of a golf course to attract people to the Order.

There are some humorous incidents, for example, such as bringing out a series of children’s classics, with a Catholic twist. For example, Sir Lancelot (from King Arthur), lays aside his sword and becomes a priest, or that Maid Marian (from Robin Hood), ended her days in a nunnery.

Flat is a good description of the feeling by the end of the novel. I was hanging on for some vocational insight for Urban or some religious epiphany. He just seemed to be the regular big fish in a small pond. For all his talk of his struggling order, he seemed always to be most motivated by his own aspirations.