Death Comes for the Archbishop: Amazon.ca: Willa Cather: Books

Product Description

From Library Journal

Nebraska pulls out all the stops for this superb scholarly edition of Cathers 1927 novel. This edition includes a newly restored text along with several historical essays and explanatory notes by several scholars. Academic libraries supporting hardcore American literature curricula will want this volume.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Review

“A truly remarkable book . . . Soaked through and through with atmosphere . . . From the riches of her imagination and sympathy Miss Cather has distilled a very rare piece of literature. It stands out, from the very resistance it opposes to classification.”
—NEW YORK TIMES

“The most sensuous of writers, Willa Cather builds her imagined world as solidly as our five senses build the universe around us.”
—Rebecca West

“[Cather’s] descriptions of the Indian mesa towns on the rock are as beautiful, as unjudging, as lucid, as her descriptions of the Bishop’s cathedral. It is an art of ‘making,’ of clear depiction—of separate objects, whose whole effect works slowly and mysteriously in the reader, and cannot be summed up . . . Cather’s composed acceptance of mystery is a major, and rare, artistic achievement.”
—from the Introduction by A. S. Byatt

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First Sentence
One afternoon in the autumn of 1851 a solitary horseman, followed by a pack-mule, was pushing through an arid stretch of country somewhere in central New Mexico. Read the first page

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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt

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Customer Reviews

64 Reviews

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

Average Customer Review

4.0 out of 5 stars (64 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Death Comes for the Archbishop, July 10 2004

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-_Tim_- (The Western Hemisphere) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death Comes for the Archbishop (Paperback)

Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop is a deceptively simple but profound novel about two French missionaries in the Southwestern United States. These men are not terribly otherworldly and they are capable of enjoying good books, good wine, and good food. They are tough guys too, up to the task of traveling thousands of miles on horseback or facing down some bad guys. The religion they promote provides support and comfort to Mexicans, Indians, and some Anglo miners who need spiritual succor.

The book presents us with several vignettes in the lives of these urbane priests, as well as some fables and Southwestern folklore. By living in harmony with God's law and the world he created, the men prosper. Eventually, they must part, and they must grow old and die. But death holds no horror for men like these who have spent their lives in service to others.

Cather's writing is beautiful and direct. In the following passage, one of the priests and his friend spend several days traveling together:

As Father Latour and Eusabio approached Albuquerque, they occasionally fell in with company; Indians going to and fro on the long winding trails across the plain, or up into the Sandia mountains. They had all of them the same quiet way of moving, whether their pace was swift or slow, and the same unobtrusive demeanor: an Indian wrapped in his bright blanket, seated upon his mule or walking beside it, moving through the pale new-budding sage-brush, winding among the sand waves, as if it were his business to pass unseen and unheard through a country awakening with spring.

North of Laguna two Zuni runners sped by them, going somewhere east on "Indian business." They saluted Eusabio by gestures with the open palm, but did not stop. They coursed over the sand with the fleetness of young antelope, their bodies disappearing and reappearing among the sand dunes, like the shadows that eagles cast in their strong, unhurried flight.

Her book also contains some beautiful ideas. In this passage, the two priests discuss Our Lady of Guadalupe:

"Where there is great love there are always miracles," [Father Latour] said at length. "One might almost say that an apparition is human vision corrected by divine love. I do not see you as you really are, Joseph; I see you through my affection for you. The Miracles of the Church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always."

This book has it all: fine writing, adventure, and some lessons for living. Most highly recommended.

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5.0 out of 5 stars A Fine Portrait of Frontier Life, Mar 1 2004

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Oy!-dysseus - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death Comes for the Archbishop (Paperback)

Death Comes for the Archbishop is an anomaly among Cather's works, and, for that matter, all twentieth-century works. In this book, you will not find chronology, action, or drama. You will, however, find a story that will grip you and will not let you go until Death finally does come for the Archbishop. If you are interested in precise, simple prose, a heart-warming story, and have a few hours to spare (the novel is rather short; the font is large), pick up a copy and enjoy yourself.

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1.0 out of 5 stars this book sux, Feb 3 2004

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acedecalacky (hell) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death Comes for the Archbishop (Paperback)

erhem...to all you acedeca "decathaleats" i ask one question.

Y

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