I read Wheat That Springeth Green by J F Powers several years ago and the characters stuck in my mind like a song that you hear every now and then and each time stop to listen.
The novel follows Joe Hackett through his youthful sympathy for older priest Father Day, to his teenaged sexual encounters with the girl and maid next door (complete with syphilis) through the seminary with his pig-headed pursuit of his image of God, to his work as the Catholic pastor in Ingenook.
Along the way Joe struggles to live a life of virtue, to help others reach sanctity, to be a good man and a good priest. He tries a hair shirt and hours on his knees in the seminary but is never able to achieve the immediate and obvious union with God that he seeks. He fights disillusionment and an ever-growing beer belly, parishioners’ stinginess and the constant battle between holiness and worldliness.
Writing Style
J. F. Powers combined stream-of-conscious with modest narrative, all from Joe’s point of view, and abrupt changes of scenery and time. The book would be a little easier to follow with a bit more narrative. For example, Joe finally gets assigned as a pastor to his own parish, but we have to surmise that by the change in tone and topic in a new chapter.
The stream-of-conscious thoughts are Joe wrestling with a problem, neatly listing the pros and cons, and sometimes the dialogue he wants to have but cannot. The archbishop increases the assessment against his parish, but Joe feels bound to not make money requests to his parish. He implemented a flat fee concept with the promise that he wouldn’t ask for extra funds.
Joe imagines discussing this with the Arch, all with a happy ending. Instead he and his assistant divide up the DPs (deliquent parishioners who don’t give) and visit some each evening to ask the families to live up to their stewardship responsibilities. (We can imagine how well that works. On average in any parish a third give regularly, a third give once in a while and a third never give.)
Characters
Joe is inherently kind and thoughtful, not what one would expect reading his famous question posed in seminary “How do we make virtue as attractive as sex?” As a boy Joe sees his pastor, “Dollar Bill” treat his assistant Father Day rudely and be greedy with his parish. As an adult Joe seeks out Father Day, makes him his confessor, treats him kindly and with great respect.
The most striking example was with Catfish Tooney, sorry, Monsignor Tooney, Joe’s former classmate and general pain in the neck in the diocesan chancery. Joe built a nice rectory in his parish and wants the archbishop to bless it, but must go through Tooney who of course says no. Later the archbishop asks Joe in person why he hasn’t had him out to bless the rectory and Joe bites his tongue and struggles for days to find a way to answer without calling out Tooney. Most of us wouldn’t bother protecting a guy who’s been a jerk for years.
Humor with Seriousness
Wheat that Springeth Green is funny even while treating serious topics like God, faith, virtue, money, sex and dreams. Joe has a good sense of humor and Powers does a good job showing us the funny moments, both inside and outside of Joe’s head. We see Joe evolve from a precocious youngster to an obnoxiously self-important seminarian to an earnest priest dedicated to his own holiness and hopefully that of the people he serves, to a priest who compromises with the world to one who re-ignites his own faith. Along the way we smile and maybe even laugh a bit at life.
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