Shadows on the Rock

By Willa Cather

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 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Aug 24, 2011
• ISBN: 9780307805263

Willa Cather

WILLA CATHER (1873–1947), the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of more than fifteen books, was one of the most distinguished American writers of the early twentieth century.

Reviews for Shadows on the Rock

[nossanna_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a wonderful book in the style of Death Comes For the Archbishop, but set in French Canada in the 1600s. Very atmospheric, capturing life in an outpost of a strange land, Catholic influence, and having part of your heart and identity still in France. This will be a book that I read over again from time to time for it's beautiful writing.

[auntmarge64 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A gentle, delightful tale of life in 17th century Kebec (Quebec City), told primarily from the perspective of the apothecary's daughter, 12-year old Cécile Auclair, who cares for her father following her mother's death. Cécile is fascinated by stories from the many visitors to their shop, and she spends much of her time with a little boy whose mother, a local prostitute, pays scant attention to him. Religion and the lives of the saints, especially those from Canada, are of great interest to the people of Kebec, and in the pages of the book the reader is introduced to many of their histories and to other real-life figures, several of whom feature in the story. This was a real pleasure to read, and it would be wonderful for a break from whatever heavy reading one may be doing.

[drfuriosa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Cather brings late 17th century Quebec alive in this richly imagined story of a young girl coming of age in Canada. It's one of my Cather favorites.

[arubabookwoman · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This novel, set in 1697 Quebec follows a year in the life of 12 year old Cecile and her father, apothecary Auclair. It gave me a real feel for what it might have been like to leave your home for the New World with the possibility of never returning to go live in an unknown and untamed wilderness, all the deprivations you would suffer, but the adventures and discoveries as well.While I enjoyed the book, I felt that it had a very YA feel to it (not my favorite genre), although it made me really want to visit Quebec, where I've never been. I would recommend for fans of The Little House on the Prairie series who have grown up a bit.3 stars

[thornton37814 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Cather, best known for her portrayals of the American West, relates the story of a widowed 17th century apothecary and his daughter living in Quebec. Readers are treated to wonderful descriptions of the place and period with insights into the church (Catholic Church) and politics of the period. I especially enjoyed reading about Count Frontenac for whom the famed hotel in Quebec City is named. Although the story refers to the chateau in which the governor (Count Frontenac) resided, it was not the modern-day Chateau Frontenac. I also found the apothecary to be an interesting person. Although he was a traditionalist in many ways, he recognized the benefits of some more modern treatments while doubting the usefulness of others. The church seems to be of central importance to those on the French Canadian frontier. I found the title embedded in a scene in which Cecile and Pierre Charron take a short trip downriver. It is later implied in a scene as the Count is dying. I'm still pondering the imagery of the title. The characters are portrayed well in this short gem. There is not really an over-arching plot unless it is the forging of a life in a new country, but the descriptions and characters make this work a true literary gem.

[janeajones · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In that this novel is set in 17th c. Quebec, it's rather anomalous for Willa Cather. I don't really know what her affinity for the setting or people was. However, it's a gentle, if gritty, picture of life for an apothecary, Euclide Auclair, and his motherless daughter, Cecile. The novel is steeped in French colonialism, Roman Catholicism, and the hardships and joys of life in a settling into a new life in Canada. The book is character and environment, not plot driven, but it is meant to savored. Cather evokes the people and the sense of place with skill and grace.

[bevwel_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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!

[schmerguls · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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.

[gbill_7 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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.

[vpfluke · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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.