Within the pages of Dr Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare lives a phrase that has stuck in my head since I first dutifully read it, during college days. From familiarity with the dramas of Shakespeare, says Johnson, "a hermit may estimate the transactions of the world." It's the highest praise, this idea that Shakespeare had mastered the whole human scene and that his treatment of every inch of bandwidth leaves the indelible impression that there is nothing more to be said on this topic, and that one, and this one, until in the end what's captured is all the world's transactions.
One is tempted to say that the fiction of J.F. Powers raises the question of whether you can work it in reverse, for the subjects of his two novels (Morte D'Urban and Wheat that Springeth Green), and all his best short stories, are Roman Catholic clergymen--priests, a variety of hermit. The hermits are to read Shakespeare to learn about the transactions of the world, but what if it's the hermits who interest you? They have their own transactions, presumably. As a kid growing up with lots of Catholic friends, I was pretty interested in their exotic customs, how they had their own schools and told what must have been tall tales about the nuns, and then this horrible necessity of "going to confession." I'd listen, rapt, as they casually explained how in that booth they'd fess up to having fought with their siblings, or cursed, or entertained "impure thoughts." I began to be interested, too, in the bachelors who listened to this stuff. What a crazy life! And you can't read about it in the works of Shakespeare.
We do however have Powers, who for years lived in central Minnesota, teaching English at St. John's University and producing five books, one per decade starting with the story collection Prince of Darkness in the '40s and concluding with Wheat that Springeth Green in the '80s. He died, age 81, at Collegeville, Minnesota, in 1999. One of the stories in Prince of Darkness is called "The Valiant Woman," winner of the O. Henry Award for 1947. When I first read it, I remember noticing the fleeting allusion to the Minnesota setting. Two priests are talking. One says to the other, by way of accounting for how a priest of their mutual acquaintance had managed to retain an efficient Filipino housekeeper, "Fish is pretty close to Minneapolis." Rereading it now, I am reminded that the story takes place on the evening of the 59th birthday of Father John Firman, the priest who'd like to acquire a good housekeeper himself. But probably it's not possible in the backwater parish he serves, which, one surmises, might be up or past Collegeville way. I remembered that it was his birthday but, being 59 myself, was on this reading struck by Fr. Firman's age.
So: a priest, 59, in need of a housekeeper. The first part of the story shows pretty clearly why he needs one. The one he has, Mrs. Stoner, is a terrible shrew who is domineering and repulsive in a ratty sort of way. Her stupidity, which is on display at the birthday dinner which opens the story, has not prevented her from manipulating Fr. Firman to her own advantage. By alluding to rats, I mean to suggest that the reader may feel a certain grudging admiration for the guile with which a low specimen of humanity has successfully pursued her self-interest; if so, we're at the end of positive things that might be said about her (and rats). The whole situation is comic, a henpecked priest. One might have guessed that at least the celibacy requirement would spare a man from this fate.
The humor of the exposition relies heavily on Mrs. Stoner, a kind of stock character, unless she transcends that category and attains the status of a cartoon. Here's a flavor of her conversation. She's passionate on the subject of famous converts to Catholicism. Fr. Nulty is Fr. Firman's birthday dinner guest.
Mrs. Stoner served up another: "Did you read about this communist convert, Father?"
"He's been in the Church before," Father Nulty said, "and so it's not a conversion, Mrs. Stoner."
"No? Well, I already got him down on my list of Monsignor's converts."
"It's better than a conversion, Mrs Stoner, for there is more rejoicing in heaven over the return of . . . uh, he that was lost, Mrs. Stoner, is found."
"And that congresswoman, Father?"
"Yes, a convert--she."
"And Henry Ford's grandson, Father. I got him down."
"Yes, to be sure."
Father Firman yawned, this time audibly, and held his jaw.
"But he's only one by marriage, Father," Mrs. Stoner said. "I always say you got to watch those kind."
"Indeed you do, but a convert nonetheless, Mrs. Stoner. Remember, Cardinal Newman himself was one."
Mrs. Stoner was unimpressed. "I see where Henry Ford's making steering wheels out of soybeans, Father."
"I didn't see that."
"I read it in the Reader's Digest or some place."
A lot of ground covered, from Henry Ford to Cardinal Newman to the Reader's Digest, but perhaps Mrs. Stoner is sufficiently absurd to make one overlook Fr. Nulty's failed attempt to quote Scripture. Powers's priests often suffer from either a surplus of worldliness or a surplus of mediocrity, and Nulty and Firman fall less ambiguously into the second category. The satire aimed their way, more gentle than what Mrs. Stoner gets clubbed with, is suffused with something like pathos. Fr. Firman, 59 years old, presumably toward the end of his career as an active priest, and he can't solve his housekeeper problem? The adjective for that is ineffectual. I think perhaps the reader is supposed to speculate that a lack of ability may account for him being stuck in a backwater parish at the back end of his career. Fr. Fish, who's "pretty close to Minneapolis," solved his problem.
The effect of the story owes something, I believe, to a certain undercutting action. When I was curious about the lives of priests, I didn't imagine them being consumed by housekeeper troubles. It's worth noting what isn't on Fr. Firman's mind, so far as we can tell--or Fr. Nulty's, either: their preaching, their teaching, the troubles of their parishioners, a recent pastoral call, any theological question or dispute. I'm not one whose measurements can be trusted on this subject, but I think that, notwithstanding many scandals, laypeople may still cling to an exalted, heroic conception of priests. Instead, at the conclusion of "The Valiant Woman" Fr. Firman is stumbling around his room, lunging ineffectually at a mosquito, knocking over statuary, inviting some more inane commentary from Mrs. Stoner. The rectory's transactions.