Shadows on the Rock
by Willa Cather 
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Willa Cather's novel of seventeenth-century Quebec is a luminous evocation of North American origins, and of the men and women who struggled to adapt to a new world even as they clung to the artifacts and manners of one they left behind.In 1697, Quebec is an island of French civilization perched on a bare gray rock amid a wilderness of trackless forests. For many of its settlers, Quebec is a place of exile, so remote that an entire winter passes without a word from home. But to show more twelve-year-old Cécile Auclair, the rock is home, where even the formidable Governor Frontenac entertains children in his palace and beavers lie beside the lambs in a Christmas créche. As Cather follows this devout and resourceful child over the course of a year, she re-creates the continent as it must have appeared to its first European inhabitants. And she gives us a spellbinding work of historical fiction in which great events occur first as rumors and then as legends—and in which even the most intimate domestic scenes are suffused with a sense of wonder. show less
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Cather is a masterfully subtle writer. As I read this, I found myself having a familiar reaction to it—and one that I’ve noticed in many others’ reviews of Cather’s works: I kept trying to figure out why I was having the reaction I was having to it. Why do I care about these characters, why does 17th-century Quebec feel like such a real place, why am I still interested in this book which has literally no plot whatsoever? I can’t say I figured out the answer to that simmering “why” question, but I’ve read enough of Cather’s books now to say that it obviously comes down to the power of her writing. She’s evocative in the best sense of the word—not sensational, or even particularly dynamic, but you come away from her show more writing with a real sense of the people and the place where you’ve been spending time.
This isn’t my favorite of her works; I liked it quite a bit, but didn’t love it. If you’re thinking about reading something from Cather, I would definitely encourage that. This book wouldn’t be my first suggestion, though. show less
This isn’t my favorite of her works; I liked it quite a bit, but didn’t love it. If you’re thinking about reading something from Cather, I would definitely encourage that. This book wouldn’t be my first suggestion, though. show less
What a lovely book. This book might have continued forgotten at the bottom of my teetering book pile if it hadn’t been for the American Author Challenge, when someone mentioned it, and wondered if I had it buried somewhere. It was a perfect time to read it, too, as we traveled to Quebec last summer and fell in love with it. I have decided that I love Willa Cather. What I love best about her writing are her beautiful descriptions of the landscapes. She describes the light, the colors, the nuances, and the changing seasons so vividly, so lovingly, the landscapes become omnipresent beings as integral to the story as the characters, and her characters interact with their environment with awe and reverence, and in this case, love.
Ms. show more Cather tells the story of a widowed apothecary who followed Count de Frontenac when he was sent to Quebec to serve as Governor General at the direction of French King Louis XIV. While M. Auclair misses his homeland, his 12 year-old daughter Cecile loves Quebec with her whole heart. The book follows Cecile over the course of the year 1697. I found the historical details fascinating – many colonists subsisting on frozen lard and smoked eels throughout the long winter; the more prepared colonists cultivating lettuce and other greens as long as possible in their basements; the markets selling specialties from each proprietor’s native region; the fervent adherence to familiar customs and religious practices at the very edge of wild country.
Ms. Cather writes of the immigrant experience with great compassion in her novels. This book opens with M. Auclair staring down the empty St. Lawrence River – empty because the last of the ships has sailed for France, and as none will return until June, the inhabitants of Quebec are completely cut off from home for several months. Later in the book the ships return, an event so exciting the entire town gathers excitedly hours before the first sail is sighted in the channel near the Ile d’Orleans, and the townspeople are overcome. I read that section in tears, swept up in the emotion, relief and excitement of this most momentous day. The Auclairs embody the immigrant experience – a piece of their hearts remaining in France, and a cultivated devotion and loyalty to their new, beautiful, brutal homeland. I LOVED this book! show less
Ms. show more Cather tells the story of a widowed apothecary who followed Count de Frontenac when he was sent to Quebec to serve as Governor General at the direction of French King Louis XIV. While M. Auclair misses his homeland, his 12 year-old daughter Cecile loves Quebec with her whole heart. The book follows Cecile over the course of the year 1697. I found the historical details fascinating – many colonists subsisting on frozen lard and smoked eels throughout the long winter; the more prepared colonists cultivating lettuce and other greens as long as possible in their basements; the markets selling specialties from each proprietor’s native region; the fervent adherence to familiar customs and religious practices at the very edge of wild country.
Ms. Cather writes of the immigrant experience with great compassion in her novels. This book opens with M. Auclair staring down the empty St. Lawrence River – empty because the last of the ships has sailed for France, and as none will return until June, the inhabitants of Quebec are completely cut off from home for several months. Later in the book the ships return, an event so exciting the entire town gathers excitedly hours before the first sail is sighted in the channel near the Ile d’Orleans, and the townspeople are overcome. I read that section in tears, swept up in the emotion, relief and excitement of this most momentous day. The Auclairs embody the immigrant experience – a piece of their hearts remaining in France, and a cultivated devotion and loyalty to their new, beautiful, brutal homeland. I LOVED this book! show less
Willa Cather is the perfect cure for Ford Madox Ford. Moving from his congested prose to her limpid style was like moving from sludge to spring water. Cather once stated that she felt novels had a tendency to be "over-furnished" and her writing is clearly that of an author trying to leave enough space in her stories to accomodate the reader, space where the reader can inhabit the work and find the meaningful intersection between their own stories and the fictional one. I had precisely this experience reading Shadows on the Rock. Many themes came to my mind as I read it, likely none of them having anything to do with Cather's intentions in writing it. Nevertheless these were where, with Cather's novel as the catalyst, my thoughts took show more me. Among them were: the great contrast between how first and second generation immigrants feel about their new countries; how culture, tradition, and religion fortify us as we encounter new and strange things, but at the same time impose constraints on our ability to understand and appreciate them; how we can devote our lives to an idea, a profession, or a patron, and how we find that, when faced with living without them, we can manage very well, thank you; and how, ultimately, kindness and tolerance stand head and shoulders above all else.
Shadows on the Rock is very similar in tone to Death Comes for the Archbishop, though it hasn't the grandeur and scope of this earlier work. It is about an apothecary and his daughter in 1697-98 in Quebec city. It starts as the apothecary, Euclide, watches the annual departure of the ships for France in the fall, laden with their letters to family and their requests for supplies, and the novel ends after the ships return the following year. There is a brief coda that offers a glimpse of their lives many years later. Though not much happens, Cather generates a great feeling of intimacy with Euclide, Cecile, and their fellow colonists. There have only been a handful of books, Death Comes for the Archbiship being one of them, where I have been overwhelmed by the pleasure of the reading, and where I knew, even as I read the last page, that I would read them again one day. I count Shadows on the Rocks among these books. show less
Shadows on the Rock is very similar in tone to Death Comes for the Archbishop, though it hasn't the grandeur and scope of this earlier work. It is about an apothecary and his daughter in 1697-98 in Quebec city. It starts as the apothecary, Euclide, watches the annual departure of the ships for France in the fall, laden with their letters to family and their requests for supplies, and the novel ends after the ships return the following year. There is a brief coda that offers a glimpse of their lives many years later. Though not much happens, Cather generates a great feeling of intimacy with Euclide, Cecile, and their fellow colonists. There have only been a handful of books, Death Comes for the Archbiship being one of them, where I have been overwhelmed by the pleasure of the reading, and where I knew, even as I read the last page, that I would read them again one day. I count Shadows on the Rocks among these books. show less
40. Shadows on the Rock]by Willa Cather
published: 1931
format: 280-page 1971 Vintage Books paperback
acquired: 2009 (from in-laws)
read: Jul 9 – Aug 2
time reading: 7 hr 21 min, 1.6 min/page
rating: 4
locations:1697-98 Quebec City
about the author born near Winchester, VA, later raised in Red Cloud, NE. December 7, 1873 – April 24, 1947
This is the 9th novel by Willa Cather that I've read as I work through her novels with a group on Litsy. I find it a little fascinating to watch her themes and style evolve. The classic Prairie trilogy in the 1910's evolving into bitter social criticisms in the early 1920's, turning to a place far away in time in the mystical [Death Comes for the Archbishop]. With [Shadows on the Rock] she goes even farther show more away. The novel takes place over the course of 1697 and 1698 in Quebec city - the old city still somewhat intact today, and now a World Heritage sight.
The novel explores the city, creating something of a mural of this time and little place. She traces the year though a 13 year old girl, Cécile, a happy child without a mother. Her father is an apothecary working in an almost feudal fashion for the ruling French count, Comte de Frontenac. It's a peaceful stable household. From there Cécile observes, taking in the various characters, organizations and events that make up the city and its surrounding frontier. Her direct experiences are limited, influenced by the heavily religious community, but the stories that come to her way vary over a wide range of old and new world problems, each with some striking aspect.
It's a nice story, wrapped up in some beautiful prose, sometimes palpable. "...the tarnished gold of the elms, with a little brown in it, a little bronze, a little blue even—a blue like amethyst, which made them melt into the azure haze with a kind of happiness, a harmony of mood that filled the air with content.
But there is limited bite in this one. Her city, despite her magnificent prose, is simplified, idealized. Her ideas subdued. She creates a frontiersman, Pierre Charon, maybe the most colorful character in book because of his irreverence and passion and general goodness. He's named after historical characters of the time, after the mythical ferryman Charron, but most importantly, after a 16th century philosopher and follower of Montaigne. The philosopher focused on the limitations of human knowledge and his ideas come down to, roughly, living responsibly. The city itself, carved out of the wilderness, a small fortress of culture amidst the frontier chaos, can be viewed as a real life representation of his ideas. I can't take this nearly as far as Cather would like. But the bottom line is it's subtle, subdued. Whatever societal criticism or anger she had in previous novels is pretty much washed out, this from an author who had always made a point of fierce integrity. Her 17th-century Quebec City is both historically accurate and also impossibly sanitized - a mythical bastion of culture and consideration.
It worth noting that in real life Cather was having serious personal trouble, including declining parents. She also, interestingly enough, began to be viewed in the 1930's as conservative and detached from contemporary realities, and she was heavily criticized by younger, more liberal critics.
I have come to adore Cather and I enjoyed this perspective on this historical place, especially her wonderful prose. But, also, it‘s the 1st time she hasn‘t wowed me.
2020
https://www.librarything.com/topic/322920#7241699 show less
published: 1931
format: 280-page 1971 Vintage Books paperback
acquired: 2009 (from in-laws)
read: Jul 9 – Aug 2
time reading: 7 hr 21 min, 1.6 min/page
rating: 4
locations:1697-98 Quebec City
about the author born near Winchester, VA, later raised in Red Cloud, NE. December 7, 1873 – April 24, 1947
This is the 9th novel by Willa Cather that I've read as I work through her novels with a group on Litsy. I find it a little fascinating to watch her themes and style evolve. The classic Prairie trilogy in the 1910's evolving into bitter social criticisms in the early 1920's, turning to a place far away in time in the mystical [Death Comes for the Archbishop]. With [Shadows on the Rock] she goes even farther show more away. The novel takes place over the course of 1697 and 1698 in Quebec city - the old city still somewhat intact today, and now a World Heritage sight.
The novel explores the city, creating something of a mural of this time and little place. She traces the year though a 13 year old girl, Cécile, a happy child without a mother. Her father is an apothecary working in an almost feudal fashion for the ruling French count, Comte de Frontenac. It's a peaceful stable household. From there Cécile observes, taking in the various characters, organizations and events that make up the city and its surrounding frontier. Her direct experiences are limited, influenced by the heavily religious community, but the stories that come to her way vary over a wide range of old and new world problems, each with some striking aspect.
It's a nice story, wrapped up in some beautiful prose, sometimes palpable. "...the tarnished gold of the elms, with a little brown in it, a little bronze, a little blue even—a blue like amethyst, which made them melt into the azure haze with a kind of happiness, a harmony of mood that filled the air with content.
But there is limited bite in this one. Her city, despite her magnificent prose, is simplified, idealized. Her ideas subdued. She creates a frontiersman, Pierre Charon, maybe the most colorful character in book because of his irreverence and passion and general goodness. He's named after historical characters of the time, after the mythical ferryman Charron, but most importantly, after a 16th century philosopher and follower of Montaigne. The philosopher focused on the limitations of human knowledge and his ideas come down to, roughly, living responsibly. The city itself, carved out of the wilderness, a small fortress of culture amidst the frontier chaos, can be viewed as a real life representation of his ideas. I can't take this nearly as far as Cather would like. But the bottom line is it's subtle, subdued. Whatever societal criticism or anger she had in previous novels is pretty much washed out, this from an author who had always made a point of fierce integrity. Her 17th-century Quebec City is both historically accurate and also impossibly sanitized - a mythical bastion of culture and consideration.
It worth noting that in real life Cather was having serious personal trouble, including declining parents. She also, interestingly enough, began to be viewed in the 1930's as conservative and detached from contemporary realities, and she was heavily criticized by younger, more liberal critics.
I have come to adore Cather and I enjoyed this perspective on this historical place, especially her wonderful prose. But, also, it‘s the 1st time she hasn‘t wowed me.
2020
https://www.librarything.com/topic/322920#7241699 show less
Historical fiction set in Quebec is bound to pique my interest. This book is told from a settler’s perspective, following Euclide Auclair, an apothecary, and his daughter Cécile as they go about their lives in Quebec City. I don’t recall seeing a single Indigenous person get screen time; Indigenous people are talked about mostly as people to be converted to Christianity. That said, it was probably better to leave people off-screen if the alternative would have been a potentially terrible stereotype. I totally called how Cécile’s story arc was going to end up and thought setting the epilogue 15 years after the main story was an interesting touch.
This is a book for people who like character-driven novels, and it’s shorter than show more many historical novels published these days, so it has that going for it as well.
I read this book as a public-domain ebook from Faded Page (fadedpage.com). show less
This is a book for people who like character-driven novels, and it’s shorter than show more many historical novels published these days, so it has that going for it as well.
I read this book as a public-domain ebook from Faded Page (fadedpage.com). show less
Lovely story about colonial Quebec through the eyes of the local apothecary and his daughter, Cécile. Inside their warm home are the old ways of France, while outside lurk the hardships and chaos of the New World. Cécile bridges the divide between old and new worlds, upper and lower classes, savagery and refinement. Her cooking and the food they eat is an important aspect of the story through which Willa Cather conveys many nuances of tone and characterization and uses to draw contrasts to the outside world of fur traders, missionaries and the lower classes on the rock. Bon appétit!
This is a historical novel set in Québec at the turn of the century—18th century that is—when Quebec was a French colony and Louis XIV was king of France. For the most part, it deals with the life of an apothecary and his 12-year old daughter. The apothecary accompanied the Count of Frontenac to Québec some 8 years previously. He was in essence the personal physician to the Count, also a close neighbor and confidant. A few years after they arrive, the apothecary's wife dies, but not before, she hopes at least, her daughter, Cécile has been properly trained to keep house for her father.
We follow their lives through a calendar year and learn about the isolation of the winter when the St. Lawrence River freezes over and shipping is show more stopped. We learn about the lives of some of the people with whom the apothecary and his daughter interact: a fur trapper; the two bishops of the town, one rather worldly; religious mystics and missionaries; the lost son of a fallen woman; a disfigured and rather strange homeless man who makes his way doing odd jobs for food. And so forth. In a way, little happens in the book. In another way, what we have is a nice description of people's lives in that time, the people who long to return to the glorious France they have left behind and those who only know the life of the glorious New France in the wilds of Canada.
Like all Willa Cather books, this one is well written, calm and engaging. I never expected that I would ever grow up to read all of Willa Cather's works, but I expect that will soon be the case (two or three to go). And I am all the richer for it. Actually, I never expected to read any of her books, after feeling some vague distaste for her from high-school English. I mean, what could be less cool than a spinster woman from the Midwest with a hick name like Willa? What in the hell could she know? Yeah, at 17 we definitely know more than our teachers (although I do admit that I am forever hopelessly in love with my 11th grade English teacher, Miss Garner). Whatever, someone made me read one of her books, twice actually (Death Comes for the Archbishop). It wasn't so bad. I stumbled across a couple more at the church fair book table. They were quite good. So, now I've become rather a fan of old Willa. She is a true literary gem who deserves much more acclaim that she is now generally given. show less
We follow their lives through a calendar year and learn about the isolation of the winter when the St. Lawrence River freezes over and shipping is show more stopped. We learn about the lives of some of the people with whom the apothecary and his daughter interact: a fur trapper; the two bishops of the town, one rather worldly; religious mystics and missionaries; the lost son of a fallen woman; a disfigured and rather strange homeless man who makes his way doing odd jobs for food. And so forth. In a way, little happens in the book. In another way, what we have is a nice description of people's lives in that time, the people who long to return to the glorious France they have left behind and those who only know the life of the glorious New France in the wilds of Canada.
Like all Willa Cather books, this one is well written, calm and engaging. I never expected that I would ever grow up to read all of Willa Cather's works, but I expect that will soon be the case (two or three to go). And I am all the richer for it. Actually, I never expected to read any of her books, after feeling some vague distaste for her from high-school English. I mean, what could be less cool than a spinster woman from the Midwest with a hick name like Willa? What in the hell could she know? Yeah, at 17 we definitely know more than our teachers (although I do admit that I am forever hopelessly in love with my 11th grade English teacher, Miss Garner). Whatever, someone made me read one of her books, twice actually (Death Comes for the Archbishop). It wasn't so bad. I stumbled across a couple more at the church fair book table. They were quite good. So, now I've become rather a fan of old Willa. She is a true literary gem who deserves much more acclaim that she is now generally given. show less
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Author Information
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Willa Siebert Cather was born in 1873 in the home of her maternal grandmother in western Virginia. Although she had been named Willela, her family always called her "Willa." Upon graduating from the University of Nebraska in 1895, Cather moved to Pittsburgh where she worked as a journalist and teacher while beginning her writing career. In 1906, show more Cather moved to New York to become a leading magazine editor at McClure's Magazine before turning to writing full-time. She continued her education, receiving her doctorate of letters from the University of Nebraska in 1917, and honorary degrees from the University of Michigan, the University of California, Columbia, Yale, and Princeton. Cather wrote poetry, short stories, essays, and novels, winning awards including the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, One of Ours, about a Nebraska farm boy during World War I. She also wrote The Professor's House, My Antonia, Death Comes for the Archbishop, and Lucy Gayheart. Some of Cather's novels were made into movies, the most well-known being A Lost Lady, starring Barbara Stanwyck. In 1961, Willa Cather was the first woman ever voted into the Nebraska Hall of Fame. She was also inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners in Oklahoma in 1974, and the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca, New York in 1988. Cather died on April 24, 1947, of a cerebral hemorrhage, in her Madison Avenue, New York home, where she had lived for many years. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Willa Cather has a Legacy Library. Legacy libraries are the personal libraries of famous readers, entered by LibraryThing members from the Legacy Libraries group.
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Later Novels: A Lost Lady / The Professor's House / Death Comes for the Archbishop / Shadows on the Rock / Lucy Gayheart / Sapphira and the Slave Girl by Willa Cather
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Shadows on the Rock
- Original title
- Shadows on the Rock
- Original publication date
- 1931
- People/Characters
- Cecile Auclair; Euclide Auclair; Jacques; Pierre Charron; Louis de Buade Frontenac
- Important places
- Québec City, Québec, Canada; New France; Québec, Canada
- First words
- One afternoon late in October of the year 1697, Euclide Auclair, the philosopher apothecary of Quebec, stood on the top of Cap Diamant gazing down the broad, empty river far beneath him.
- Quotations
- "Vous me demandez des graines de fleurs de ce pays. Nous en faisons venir de France pour notre jardin, n'y ayant pas ici de fort rares ni de fort belles. Tout y est sauvage, les fleurs aussi que les hommes". - Marie de l'Inca... (show all)rnation (lettre a une de ses soeurs). Quebec, le 12 aout, 1653.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)While he was closing his shop and changing his coat to go up to his daughter's house, he thought over much that his visitor had told him, and he believed that he was indeed fortunate to spend his old age here where nothing changed; to watch his grandsons grow up in a country where the death of the King, the probable evils of a long regency, would never touch them.
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- ISBNs
- 29
- ASINs
- 39