The Avant-Garde and American Postmodernity: Small Incisive Shocks (review)
The profound extent to which the war inflected American culture is made especially apparent in Cather's 1925 novel, The Professor's House, which "examines the terrifying 'vacuum' left behind for intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic by an incomprehensible world war." In particular, Cather confronts the crisis of historiography that followed the war, when memories of "American historians [who] put away their objectivity for the duration, like recruits changing into uniform" contributed to an "atmosphere of contentiousness and self-doubt that surrounded American history departments in the 1920s." Cather's history professor is drawn into "the shattering impact of the First World War" and "the conflict's disturbing implications for scientific and technological 'progress.'" Placing the memorialization of the war casualty Tom Outland in the context of "hundreds, if not thousands of memorial halls, memorial auditoriums, and memorial stadiums," and demonstrating how the war brought Professor St. Peter's career "to a creative impasse," Trout identifies the "presence of the thing not named" in The Professor's House as the Great War and its aftermath. Not a war novel by any definition, The Professor's House is nonetheless, like the cultural moment of its origin, deeply and indelibly shaped by the memory, memorialization, and nightmare of the First World War. Trout's book will take its place among the very best books in Cather studies. It ought not be missed by those outside the singleauthor field, especially those interested in cultural studies generally and in American studies particularly. For the amount of learning it displays, for its graceful prose and its succinct presentation, and for its insight into the quiet and persistent forces that shape American life—not to mention the fact that after reading this book, no one will read One of Ours or The Professor's House the same again—for all these reasons, Trout's book is to be applauded, welcomed, and read.