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'Quite simply a masterpiece ... I am completely bowled over by it ... This will be a book which I go on rereading' A. N. Wilson, TELEGRAPH *A powerful piece of writing, rich with the essence of a poor, yet beautiful country and a simple yet dignified 'A powerful piece of writing, rich with the essence of a poor but beautiful country and a simple yet dignified people' Sunday Times 'Quite simply a masterpiece ... I am completely bowled over by it; by the power of its writing, by the vividness of its secne painting and by the stories it tells ... This will be a book which I go on rereading' A. N. Wilson, Telegraph 'A tremendous, ranging story, economical and distilled as poetry ... A lovely book' Jane Gardam
Book Description
Willa Cather's best known novel; a narrative that recounts a life lived simply in the silence of the southwestern desert.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Willa Cather admitted that it was misleading to describe this as a novel; she preferred to call it a 'narrative', unfolding at a leisurely pace, gently, one thing after another, much as the years pass in real life. I didn't know this when I started reading - having skipped the introduction, they never make much sense until you've read the book - and at first it puzzled me and I was waiting for something to 'happen.' Now I realise what a masterly writer she is, how powerfully she has conveyed the sense of time passing and two long and fruitful lives lived out against a background of profound cultural changes in New Mexico.
In 1851 two young French missionaries are dispatched to this New World to reawaken a Catholicism that had been neglected/corrupted in the three centuries since it was first introduced by Spanish conquistadores. In fact, they are only loosely fictionalised; the Archbishop and his friend Father Vaillant were based on two real pioneering churchmen. Cather makes us feel we know them intimately: Vaillant, the man of the people, the Archbishop, cultivated and more reserved ...their friendship, their loneliness, their religious passion.
And what a landscape Cather paints for us in New Mexico. The carnelian-coloured hills, the mesa towns, the adobe houses: 'Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky. The landscape one longed for when one was far away, the thing all about one, the world one actually lived in, was the sky, the sky!' And all this being encroached upon by America.
The more I think about this book, the more I realise what a masterpiece it is ... I can't recommend it highly enough, but it is a book to be savoured in one's middle years; I do hope it's not foisted prematurely onto school students.
In 1851 two young French missionaries are dispatched to this New World to reawaken a Catholicism that had been neglected/corrupted in the three centuries since it was first introduced by Spanish conquistadores. In fact, they are only loosely fictionalised; the Archbishop and his friend Father Vaillant were based on two real pioneering churchmen. Cather makes us feel we know them intimately: Vaillant, the man of the people, the Archbishop, cultivated and more reserved ...their friendship, their loneliness, their religious passion.
And what a landscape Cather paints for us in New Mexico. The carnelian-coloured hills, the mesa towns, the adobe houses: 'Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky. The landscape one longed for when one was far away, the thing all about one, the world one actually lived in, was the sky, the sky!' And all this being encroached upon by America.
The more I think about this book, the more I realise what a masterpiece it is ... I can't recommend it highly enough, but it is a book to be savoured in one's middle years; I do hope it's not foisted prematurely onto school students.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Last year I read and very much enjoyed 'My Antonia' and 'O, Pioneers' by Willa Cather, two novels about frontier farming communities in early America. Death Comes For The Archbishop is again historically placed within America's early years as a nation, this time from the perspective of two Catholic priests who are sent out to minister to the community of New Mexico an eclectic mix of White Americans, Native Americans and Mexican immigrants.
The tale of Bishop De La Tour and his curate Father Vaillant is told episodically. One chapter will deal with a wealthy couple supportive of the church, another with an abused wife, another with dealings with the Native American community.
Overarching this is friendship of the two priests themselves, who in many ways only have each other.
The pace of the book is more meditative than slow, with good portraits of situations and people. I think that it gives a good idea of what it might be like to be a priest. Which as Willa Cather was not one, is an achievement.
The book is fairly short, so there's not a lot to say about it, except I found it poetic and enjoyed the experience of that era and of reading it. 7/10
The tale of Bishop De La Tour and his curate Father Vaillant is told episodically. One chapter will deal with a wealthy couple supportive of the church, another with an abused wife, another with dealings with the Native American community.
Overarching this is friendship of the two priests themselves, who in many ways only have each other.
The pace of the book is more meditative than slow, with good portraits of situations and people. I think that it gives a good idea of what it might be like to be a priest. Which as Willa Cather was not one, is an achievement.
The book is fairly short, so there's not a lot to say about it, except I found it poetic and enjoyed the experience of that era and of reading it. 7/10
Format:Paperback
...as in the Puy-de-Dome." And "In New Mexico he always awoke a young man..." Wishful thinking perhaps, but just those two sentence fragments, on page 272, seem to be sufficient reason for reading this excellent novel. For all those folks "back East," Cather's novel involves the "other history of America," not the Jamestown, Plymouth Rock, 13 colonies version, but one that actually predates those events, the Spanish settlement of the southwest from Mexico. The time period of the novel is the mid-1800's, the central character is Father Jean Marie Latour, who is modeled on Bishop Lamy. The Vatican had made a decision that the decadent life of all too many Spanish priests in the Southwest, openly cohabitating with their "housekeepers," needed some serious reformation, and so they recruited a priest from the most austere area of France, the Auvergne.
Willa Cather tells the story with clear, lucid prose, with occasional rhetorical flourishes. Each chapter is a largely self-contained story. I consider this novel better than her somewhat more famous novel on the settling of the plains, My Antonio Some of Cather's insights are extremely relevant today; consider the following from page 290: "For many years Father Latour used to wonder if there would ever be an end to the Indian wars while there was one Navajo or Apache left alive. Too many traders and manufacturers made a rich profit out of that warfare; a political machine and immense capital were employed to keep it going." Yes, the current apostles of endless war have numerous antecedents.
I felt there was an historical bias in the chapter entitled "The Mass at Acoma." Father Latour wonders about the impetus to the construction of the church there, and says: "Powerful men they must have been, those Spanish Fathers, to draft Indian labour for this great work without military support." Of course the year Cather wrote these words was 1927, so it is unlikely that the Indians were providing "tourist tours" of their stunning mesa then. I've been there several times over the last few years, being guided by the recently departed "Orlando," who tells a far harsher version of these events, including the military support provided by Onate, the amputation of the right foot of the men, and the forced labour of the women to carry the trees from far off Mt. Taylor.
But still, the central thrust of the book is Latour's life, his vision of reformation of the personnel of the Catholic Church, and his concepts of leadership of the parishioners. Cather's characterization of him, many decades later, rings true. A good companion volume which deals with some of the same themes is Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory (Vintage Classics) Anyone who stands in the northeast corner of the square in Sante Fe, looks north towards Lamy's not quite finished church, at least his vision of it, should be inspired to read the best version of events we are likely to have, Cather's book. It is highly recommended.
(Note: Review first published at Amazon, USA, on January 26, 2009)
Willa Cather tells the story with clear, lucid prose, with occasional rhetorical flourishes. Each chapter is a largely self-contained story. I consider this novel better than her somewhat more famous novel on the settling of the plains, My Antonio Some of Cather's insights are extremely relevant today; consider the following from page 290: "For many years Father Latour used to wonder if there would ever be an end to the Indian wars while there was one Navajo or Apache left alive. Too many traders and manufacturers made a rich profit out of that warfare; a political machine and immense capital were employed to keep it going." Yes, the current apostles of endless war have numerous antecedents.
I felt there was an historical bias in the chapter entitled "The Mass at Acoma." Father Latour wonders about the impetus to the construction of the church there, and says: "Powerful men they must have been, those Spanish Fathers, to draft Indian labour for this great work without military support." Of course the year Cather wrote these words was 1927, so it is unlikely that the Indians were providing "tourist tours" of their stunning mesa then. I've been there several times over the last few years, being guided by the recently departed "Orlando," who tells a far harsher version of these events, including the military support provided by Onate, the amputation of the right foot of the men, and the forced labour of the women to carry the trees from far off Mt. Taylor.
But still, the central thrust of the book is Latour's life, his vision of reformation of the personnel of the Catholic Church, and his concepts of leadership of the parishioners. Cather's characterization of him, many decades later, rings true. A good companion volume which deals with some of the same themes is Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory (Vintage Classics) Anyone who stands in the northeast corner of the square in Sante Fe, looks north towards Lamy's not quite finished church, at least his vision of it, should be inspired to read the best version of events we are likely to have, Cather's book. It is highly recommended.
(Note: Review first published at Amazon, USA, on January 26, 2009)
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Don't be put off by the Title
The only complaint I have about this novel is its title - it is likely to put off the people who would most enjoy reading it. Read more
Published 12 months ago by michelle ann
beautiful and evocative
The actual story of the Franciscan priests who worked as missionaries in nineteenth century New Mexico seems rather disconnected at first - perhaps more a series of short stories... Read more
Published 15 months ago by moby-dick
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