With her signature descriptive powers and the ability to generate ambience and evoke vibrant visuals, Willa Cather delivers a story of early Québec (as named and spelled by the French explorer, Samuel de Champlain), from the Algonquin word kébec which meant “where the river narrows”. Although the province is now three times the size of France or the State of Texas, back then it was a small settlement perched along a set of cliffs and bluffs above the Saint Lawrence River in Canada.This story is

What might be called a 'stop and smell the roses' sort of book. Like an aninated Disney film, somewhere between The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Beauty and the Beast--I kept expecting someone to suddenly burst into song. In literary terms it is a mix of The Bridge of San Luis Rey, The Cadfael Chronicles and Cranford. It is something read for the characters and descriptions of Canadian winters and life in Quebec 300 years ago rather than for the plot, which is episodic, without an antagonist--the

Being the third of the books I've read by Cather, I've come to expect a certain ecstatic experience from her work, and Shadows is no exception. In fact, compared to the other two, the utter simplicity and straightforwardness of the characters and emotions depicted has made this by far the most enjoyable of what I've read (the other two being My Antonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop). There is a rhythm to her composition, in which characters are introduced, back story is discovered, an inten...

Three and a half starsThis is the first work I have read by Willa Cather and it is a historical novel set in Quebec in 1687-8. It is told from the point of view of 12 year old Cecile Auclair and her father Euclid, an apothecary. It covers one year in the life of the city with an epilogue set 15 years later to tie up loose ends. Cecile’s mother has died two years previously and she now looks assists her father and keeps house. Euclid serves the aging Count and has followed him to Canada. The Cath...

This is a wonderful, peaceful evocation of a distant time and place. Reminded me of Sarah Orne Jewett's THE COUNTRY OF POINTED FIRS. If you're a Willa Cather fan, like me, don't overlook this novel.

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 away. The novel takes place over the course of 1697 and 1698 in Quebec city - the old city st...

Very different to her other novels.I found it hard to get into but once I did I enjoyed this tale of long ago.Not the best to start with, I would recommend My Antonia and Lucy Gayheart.

Cather writes, "When an adventurer carries his gods with him into a remote and savage country, the colony he founds will, from the beginning, have graces, traditions, richs of the mind and spirit. Its history will shine with bright incidents, slight, perhaps, but precious, as in life itself, where the great matters are often as worthless as astronomical distances, and the trifles dear as the heart’s blood.”This is how she makes such a quiet novel, one with minimal plotting, so compelling, even r...

Willa Cather is known for her classic novels set in the 18th century American prairie, but in this one she moves to 17th century, French Colonial Quebec. But what remains the same is Cather's beautiful writing and her exceptional ability to create memorable characters, and craft stories that is historical fiction at it's finest. Reading this, one gets the sense of life the French settlers experienced in this lonely Canadian outpost, and the influence of the French culture that still lives in Que...

Shadows on the Rock is a book of historical fiction drawing the French colonization of Canada and life in Quebec City at the end of the 1600s. We follow one year in the life of an apothecary and his daughter, starting in October 1697. Euclide Auclair is the father and a widower. The young daughter has taken on the running of their house after the death of her beloved mother, two years previously. She is twelve. Euclide and his family, wife and daughter, had come to Quebec eight years earlier und...

I was specifically looking for a historical novel set in Quebec City . . . very surprised to find that Willa Cather (who I associate with the Midwest prairie or possibly New Mexico) had written this 1931 bestseller, covering a year in the life of the city of Kebec. It begins in October, 1697, with immigrant apothecary, Euclide Auclair, and his 12 year old daughter, Cecile, watching the ships sail down the St. Lawrence River, back to France, isolating the little colony until their return the next...

As always, Willa Cather satisfied! I had not read anything by her for a long time. I knew I had loved what I read by her before in college, but kind of forgot why -- and now I remember! Her writing style and descriptions are somehow soothing. I just enjoy her so much.This one was set in about 1700 in Canada. It involved the French coming to "conquer" parts of Canada and North America. The main characters were the apothecary and his daughter who came to Canada with the Count who went to Canada to...

Willa Cather is easily one of my favorite authors. Here she takes us to Quebec in about the year 1700. These brave souls left civilization behind - all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. Ships would arrive only during the summer months. And that assumes they made it safely across the ocean. She tells the tale of lives lived in the settlement. Typical Cather - not much happens. But she digs deep into the characters. Really great book.

This is such a lovely, modest book, like so much of Cather. I found it in the library and decided to give it a try -- it's a portrait of the town of Kebec, currently known as Quebec City to anglophones, in the late 17th century. Lots of it is based on the truth, but the characters are so fully drawn, and the descriptions of the St. Lawrence River and the Rock, aka Kebec, are so beautiful, it's a poetically inspired historical novel. I have never known much about the settlement of New France in t...

3.5/5This sweet story takes place around the years 1697 and 1698 in the city of Quebec, Canada, and happens around a French family, the Auclairs, in the service of Count de Frontenac, being Euclid Auclair his physician and apothecary, having his small pharmacy/home in Mountain Hill (Côte de la Montagne). Madame Auclair had died a couple of years before, having their young daughter Cécile taken the household chores to her own. She is 12 when the story begins.From this point on, the story develops...

Yet another amazing work from Willa Cather. After completing Death Comes for the Archbishop, Cather wrote this novel about the town of Quebec in the late 1600s, and similarly included actual historical figures as characters, and referred to actual historical events. With Cather's unmatched descriptive ability, it's easy for the reader to get a sense of what colonial life must have been like in a place that was cut off from the mother country between October and June of every year. And again it i...

Fellas, this here is my favorite novel of all time. I mean that. It's beautiful. It's phenomenal. It's a masterpiece . . . and it's something everybody should read at least once in their lives. (In my humble opinion, at any rate.) What makes it so good? EVERYTHING. Okay, I'll try to get a little more specific. First-off, the characters are amazingly well-drawn. They truly are real, live, flesh-and-blood people . . . and they walk straight off the page and into your heart. It's not that they're f...

What a great book! Willa Cather never disappoints a reader. This was one of her lesser known novels but it is still excellent. Shadows on the Rock is a tale of Quebec City during the final days of the royal governor Louis Frontenac and colonial New France. It is not a long book but the characters are many and varied and thoughtfully drawn. Of course, Cather's brilliance, at least to me, remains in the way she creates a sense of time and place with her rich and poetic depictions of landscape, wea...

This book tells the story of Old Quebec, under the Governorship of Count Frontenac. While I can't speak to its historical accuracy, it did give me a sense for what life was like in that time period for those living on the edge of the Canadian wilderness. It led me to a greater understanding of the French Canadian desire to preserve their heritage. It also made me want to visit Quebec and Montreal, especially during the Fall. It was just a pleasure to read Cather's writing while also learning som...

I guess it’s no secret by now that I adore Willa Cather. Shadows on the Rock (1931) is one of her late novels, and I loved every minute of it. It’s an account of people living in colonial Quebec. There’s not much of a plot; this is all about character and place. In it, Cather fully shows her power of description and her awesome talent in presenting the spirit of a land. This genius is no surprise; Cather captured life on the Nebraska plain in My Àntonia, O Pioneers, and My Mortal Enemy. She expl...