Morte D'Urban

by J.F. Powers and I F Powers

Book Overview

This comic masterpiece follows the journey of Father Urban Roche, a Chicago priest with a silver tongue and a lot of charm and charisma. With a tendency to confuse good intentions with personal... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0940322234
• ISBN13: 9780940322233
• Release Date: May 2000
• Publisher: New York Review of Books
• Length: 360 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.0" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

All-too-comic consequences of the religious-secular clash

If only each priest of the Clementine order would pay as much attention to the condition of their worshippers' bank accounts as he does to the status of their souls, then the organization's needless poverty and lowly status would vanish. That is the comic premise of "Morte D'Urban," which portrays the priests of a fictional order in the Midwest who are challenged by a man of the cloth via Madison Avenue: a priest who pays as much attention to public relations and material wealth as he does to the spiritual good of his Catholic flock. Father Urban is the go-getter with high hopes for his order. A popular preacher--the type of priest with whom you can have a beer (or something stronger)--Urban is on the constant lookout for potential donors and is quite willing to overlook a little vice among his flock in exchange for higher congregational participation and the greater financial good of his organization. The problem, however, is that the Clementine headquarters in Chicago and its Father Provincial share one intractable quality: bureaucratic inertia. Urban's grand plans to secure his order's economic well-being, increase its visibility, and transform its old-fashioned torpor to a flashier modernity are stymied by his fellow priests' contentedness with their lowly standing. For his efforts, Urban is soon sent packing to the Protestant backwaters of Minnesota, to a decrepit retreat house run by a penny-pinching and somewhat incompetent rector. Making the most of a bad situation, Urban applies his charm to the local Catholic population, to a new group of potential donors, and, eventually, to the refurbishment of the retreat itself, including the addition of a nine-hole golf course. As his goals become grander, however, his transgressions and indulgences multiply, and the result is a series of hilarious episodes that teach Urban that being a faithful Catholic and being an American materialist, more often than not, are difficult to reconcile. Powers's humor takes many forms: dry wit, social satire, situation comedy, and even slapstick. The result is a brilliant morality tale describing the daily challenges that a 2000-year-old religious institution faces in a 200-year-old secular nation. "Morte D'Urban" is a loving portrait of Catholics and Americans and of the unintentional comedy created by those who try, in good faith, to be both.

God and Mammon in the Midwest

This unduly neglected book won the National Book Award in 1963. It is the story of Father Urban, a Catholic Priest in the little know religious order of the Clementines. It takes place in Chicago, where Father Urban is headquarted as the "star" and best known speaker in the Order. He is also something of a fund-raiser with a wealthy, arrogant benefactor named Billy. Father Urban is transferred to a remote town in Minnesota, Duserhaus, shortly after the novel begins as a result of a disagreement with the head of the Order.This novel operates on many levels. It shows the tenacity of Father Urban in creating a role for himself in the community surrounding Dusterhaus after what was deemed to be his exile there. It is a funny, tightly-written story and the characterization, of Father Urban's colleagues, of the Catholic hierarchy, and of the townspeople and parishoners is acute. Most important it is a story of the difficulty of serving both God and Mammon and of the need and nature for compromise in the work of the Catholic Church in a pluralistic, materialistic, and essentially secular America. There are wonderful descriptions of scenery and people. I particularly enjoyed the discussions of train travel in the Midwest which recall an America vanished not so very long ago... The book features a thoughtful introduction by Elizabeth Hardwick who describes the book as a "most valuable and lasting American novel."This book is for you if you are interested in books about the United States, about religious experience in the United States, or in unjustly neglected American classics.

Bless me, father

One of the best books I read in 2000. "Morte" takes apart the pre-Vatican II Catholic church and puts it back together, complete with a compelling hero. Father Urban, exiled to Garrison Keillor's prairie,takes his lumps and does the best with what he's dealt. And in two courageous acts late in the novel, he discovers, almost by accident, the meaning of Christianity and of his priesthood. It's hard to figure out quite where Powers stood on the Roman church, but he certainly creates a world where any believer can find delight and meaning. It's a great dynamic read.

Vatican rag on the prairie

The brilliance of this narrative is that it's hard to tell where J.F. Powers stands in his opinion of the Roman church. Our lead character, Father Urban, is a smooth operator, at once completely faithful and compellingly human. There's rich religious satire as he heads to a run-down retreat in Minnesota run by his order. He's a snob, but a lovable one. Then he has two wonderfully heroic moments,and you start to see him as a martyr. An extremely well-written novel, impossible to put down, especially if you're religious.

Coming back into fashion subject matter

I discovered this book after reading the recent obituary on J.F. Powers. Now I'm recommending it to everyone. Father Urban is a priest who sounds more like a rotary member, a fund-raiser, a PR man. When the powers that be send him to the hinterlands, he bows to the inevitable. Other victories seem to turn on him at the same time. Hob-knobbing with the weathly, which at first seemed to benefit his order, turns into a nightmare in which he remembers his duty at just the last minute. This prose is so dryly humorous you must read it carefully to catch it all. You will become enchanted with Father Urban and sorry to leave him at the story's end. I wanted this story to go on and on.