Shadows on the Rock

Shadows on the Rock 

by Willa Cather
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a beautiful, quiet book about an apothecary and his daughter living in Quebec at the end of the 1600s. Cather's writing paints pictures of the place and captures the feelings of the people in simple but perfectly crafted language. These are people living in a harsh and unforgiving place, but whose lives are filled with love for their families and their God. 

"Quebec is never lovelier than on an afternoon of late October; ledges of brown and lavender clouds lay above the river and the Ile d'Orleans, and the red-gold autumn sunlight poured over the rock like heavy southern wine." (p. 27) 

"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." (p. 160) 

"Good wine was put into the grapes by our Lord, for friends to enjoy together." (p. 217)

This book is from my Classics Club list and it counts toward the Back to the Classics challenge as a new-to-me classic by a favorite author. Because it is set in Quebec it also counts toward the Canadian Reading Challenge.