A fine novel of life in Quebec City beginning 1697. Some of the story takes place on Holy Family Street. The marriage of my 6th gr.grandparents took place in a church on that street. I loved reading about life as they probably lived it. In 2003, my daughter and I visited this wonderful city. Our family owned a rock house at the bottom of the street mentioned. Those of my blood lived, married and died in that area. Touching! ( )

1079 Shadows on the Rock, by Willa Cather (read 20 Sep 1970) I found this a beautiful book. Heavy on sentiment, plotless, but it touched me greatly. It is the story of an apothecary in Quebec in 1697 and 1698--the latter date is the year Count Frontenac died. Bishop Laval and his successor, Saint-Vallier, are in the story. Quebec has 2000 people. One has the idea that the book is carefully researched, and is as good a portrayal of Quebec in 1697 as is possible. I was struck by the statement "You see, there are all those early memories, one cannot get another set; one has but those." I am sure the early memories of Nebraska were prominent in Willa Cather's mind. (And all my early memories are bound up in some 320 acres of land in Sections 9 and 10 of Westphalia Township and never can any other place take their place.) The importance of communication with France for these Quebec residents is well brought out, but also that Quebec was a stable life is a prominent feature of this so well-written book. There does not seem a false note in it--I suppose because I know nothing of French Quebec. A delight. ( )

I read this book while traveling in Quebec and recommend it. There are many shocking bits, but Cather states them simply and they are true to life in 17th century Quebec: kids drinking wine or brandy, the belief that the Indians were savages, eating cold grease to get through winter, cauterizing the arm to treat a leg injury, jars of pulverized human skulls at the apothecary shop, vows of absolute silence, cannibalism, torture, ....

And yet, the hardiness of the people enable them to endure so far from France; some excerpts:

"Why, the priest wondered, were these fellows always glad to get back to Kebec? Why did they come at all? Why should this particular cliff in the wilderness be echoing tonight with French songs, answering to the French tongue? He recalled certain naked islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence; mere ledges of rock standing up a little out of the sea, where the sea birds came every year to lay their eggs and rear their young in the caves and hollows; where they screamed and flocked together and made a clamor, while the winds howled around them, and the spray beat over them. This headland was scarcely more than that; a crag where for some reason human beings built themselves nests in the rock, and held fast. ... A little group of Frenchmen, three thousand miles from home, making the best of things, - having a good dinner. He decided to go down and join them".

"These coppers, big and little , these brooms and clouts and brushes, were tools; and with them one made, not shoes or cabinet-work, but life itself. One made a climate within a climate; one made the days, - the complexion, the special flavour, the special happiness of each day as it passed; one made life".

"A feeling came over her that there would never be anything better in the world than this; to be pulling Jacques on her sled, with the tender, burning sky before her, and on each side, in the dusk, the kindly lights from neighbors' houses".

"There was something in Saint-Vallier's voice as he said this which touched Auclair's heart; a note humble and wistful, something sad and defeated. Sometimes a neighbour whom we have disliked a lifetime for his arrogance and conceit lets fall a single commonplace remark that shows us another side, another man, really; a man uncertain, and puzzled, and in the dark like ourselves".

I'm told the title of the book is derived from a sundial in a Quebec seminary courtyard which reads "Dies nostri quait umbra", or, "Our days as if a shadow" (Chronicles 29:15); that's pretty cool too. ( )

This novel was a very pleasant read. It is laid in colonial Quebec, about which we seldom read. Cecile lives with her father Jacques, a pharmacist, his only child, and her mother is deceased. We are taken through the rigors of life, a long winter, but also the relationships of people with each other and with the government and church. We see the distant relationship with France, the mother country, but we can see Quebec as its own unique place coming into being. It is a fairly gentle novel, and as it is tld from the perspective of a twelve year old, it doesn't always reach deep into adult concerns. ( )