Comparing The Novel Demeuble And The Professor's House

In literature, it is evident that each author has their own technique of writing. Although many authors are inspired by other writers, no two authors are alike. Each writer offers something to literature that is unique and their own. As a result, each author has their own view on what successful writings should do. Willa Cather explains in her essay, “The Novel Demeuble” her thoughts of what a successful novel consists of, and includes a few authors who represent both successful and non successful novels and in her novel, The Professors House helps meet the criteria she delineates.

In the essay “The Novel Demeuble” Willa Cather introduces the artistry of a novel. Cather begins to explain authors who she agrees with and others who she does not. She believes that certain authors including David Herbert Richards Lawrence and Honoré de Balzac do not leave anything unnamed, therefore, taking away many emotions from in a story. Willa Cather states in her essay, “A novel crowed with physical sensations is no less a catalogue than one crowded with furniture” (Essay). By adding pointless details about material things that aren’t important, takes away from a novel and essentially affects characters. Cather uses Mr. Lawrence’s book The Rainbow as an example of how too much detail can “dehumanize”

characters within a story (essay). The first chapter of this story goes into much detail about the Brangwens, a family who has spent generations on a farm (Handout). DH Lawrence spends an entire chapter mentioning this family and how they were hard working (Handout). Cather disagrees with this style of writing, as she feels Mr. Lawrence reminds readers of how “distance lies between emotion and mere sensory reactions” (Essay). In The Professor’s House, Cather supports her thoughts of using to much detail in pointless areas by briefly mentioning St. Peter’s family while going into more detail of the house the Professor adored, “St. Peter was alone in the dismantled house where he had lived ever since his marriage, where he had worked out his career and brought up his two daughters” (Cather 3). In the chapters that follow however, Cather gives brief descriptions of his wife Lillian and his two daughters, Kathleen and Rosamund. With these brief descriptions the reader has just enough information to visualize each character mentioned. The first chapter of Cather’s novel differs from the first chapter of DH Lawrence’s book because Willa Cather gives information that is both necessary and interesting to the reader, while DH Lawrence gives information that will make the reader question why it is even there.
Willa Cather believes a successful novel doesn’t go into so much detail about irrelevant things, rather it tells you what you want to hear. Cather mentions Honoré de Balzac, and how much of his writings tried to value literalness. She mentions how Balzac reproduces the “actual city of Paris; the houses, the upholstery, the food, the wines, the game of pleasure, the game of business” and “the game of finance” (Essay). This is seen in Balzac’s novel Cousin Bette, Balzac recreates all specific details rather than just recreating one image or one scene. With overly descriptive prose, Balzac creates lines that make the eyes “glide” over them (Essay). Cather, on the other hand, creates lines that hold so much imagery, when you reach the end of the line it leaves you with such a satisfying feel:
It was light up there long before it was with us. when I got up at daybreak and went down to the river to get water, our camp would be cold and grey, but the mesa top would be red with sunrise, and all the slim cedars along the rocks would be gold-metallic, like tarnished gold-foil. Some mornings it would loom up above the dark river like a blazing volcanic mountain. It shortened our days, too, considerably. The sun got behind it early in the afternoon, and then our camp would lie in its shadow. After a while the sunset colour would begin to stream p from behind it. Then the mesa was like one great ink-black rock against a sky on fire. (Cather 171)
Cather takes an important part of Tom Outland’s story and emphasizes the mesa, by creating an image so beautiful and fulfilling. Both Balzac and Cather are talking about a place, however Cather doesn’t talk about every part of the mesa while Balzac doesn’t leave anything unnamed. Cather rather, focuses on the lighting and the colors the sun creates when reflecting off of nature. She believes that describing a certain image does more justice to a novel than recreating an entire place.
Letting “literalness” be “literalness” and using it in the correct way helps support Cather’s criteria for a successful novel (Essay). Leo Tolstoi is one of the few authors Willa Cather mentions in her essay that creates favorable novels. She believes that Tolstoi and Balzac more were great lovers of material things, however, Tosltoi creates images that are relevant to the emotions of characters. This is seen in Tolstoi’s novel Anna Karenina;
The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him. This position of affairs had now lasted three days, and not only the husband and wife themselves, but all the members of their family and household, were painfully conscious of it.... The wife did not leave her own room, the husband had not been home for three days... (Handout)
Here, it shows the emotions and feelings of a few characters without over doing the descriptions. Throughout The Professor’s House, are also many examples of this;
Beside this spring stood some of the most beautifully shaped water jars we ever found-I gave Mrs.

St. Peter one of them- standing there just as if they’d been left yesterday. In the back court we found a great many things besides jars and bowls: a row of grinding-stones, and several clay ovens, very much like those the Mexicans use to-day. There were charred bones and charcoal, and the roof was thick with soot all the way along.... There were corncobs everywhere, and ears of corn with the kernels still on them-little, like popcorn. We found dried beans, too, and strings of pumpkin seeds, and plum seeds, and a cupboard full of little implements made of turkey bones. (Cather

187)
Expressed in these few lines are the details that stand out to help reveal the emotions running through Tom Outland’s mind. Giving these minor details of these findings helps support how important this discovery meant to Outland and plays a major role in Tom Outland’s Story. Cather and Tolstoi seem to believe that descriptions are apart of the minds of the characters within a story, and through Cather’s novel, she proves this to be true.
Nathaniel Hawthorne is another author who, through detail, connects a relationship between people, place, and emotions. Cather believes that this is a prosperous novel being that it creates a mood of an intense place; “A THRONG of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak and studded with iron spikes” (Handout). These first lines of The Scarlet Letter set the tone of the beginning of the novel making the atmosphere intimidating and gloomy. Cather also does this in The Professor’s House;
I got off the train, just behind the Capitol building, one cold bright January morning. I stood for a long while watching the white dome against a flashing blue sky, with a very religious feeling. After i had walked about a little and seen the parks, so green though it was winter, and the Treasury building, and the War and Navy, I decided to put off my business for a little and give myself a week to enjoy the city. That was the most sensible this I did while I was there. For that week I was wonderfully happy. (Cather 203)
The Professor for the first time in a while is embracing life and considers himself happy. The tone and imagery used in this paragraph makes the reader feel graceful and happy as well. It sets a positive tone and helps show a happier side of the Professor the reader doesn’t normally see. By using the emotions of St. Peter, and describing the places he sees, helps benefit this story therefor becoming prosperous.
Willa Cather has a strong perception of what creates successful novels. Lawrence and Balzac are two authors who Cather does not fancy all too well. Tolstoi and Hawthorne on the other hand, are two authors who give Cather’s essay, “The Novel Demeuble” more meaning. In order to fit Cather’s criteria, she believes author’s should add just the right amount of details in the right place. In doing so, the novel will draw the readers attention, flow smoothly and not make the readers eyes “glide”.