Joyce's review
Death Comes for the Archbishop (Vintage Classics)
by Willa Cather
My favorite by Cather...our family read it on the southern stretch of the 'Grand Circle' trip we took a few years back. I loved it even more -- reading it and seeing the places at the same time! ENJOY!
Joyce's review
Death Comes for the Archbishop (Vintage Classics) by Willa Cather
Joyce's review
Re-read on the occasion of my first trip to Santa Fe.
I often compare _Death Comes for the Archbishop_ to a very "Eastern" novel like _The Great Gatsby_, which occurs within a short span of time and among people whose major characteristic is their complete lack of adult values. It's amazingly rare to write concretely about a lifetime of patient striving towards some accretive goal -- where the greatest "incidents" might be moments of inner doubt, minor misunderstandings within long enduring relationships, or the final consolations of memory -- but Cather manages the difficult trick in fictionalizing the life of bishop Lamy (Latour in the novel). The older I get, the more moving I find the novel... I almost cried by the time (spoiler alert!) the archbishop dies at the end.
I often compare _Death Comes for the Archbishop_ to a very "Eastern" novel like _The Great Gatsby_, which occurs within a short span of time and among people whose major characteristic is their complete lack of adult values. It's amazingly rare to write concretely about a lifetime of patient striving towards some accretive goal -- where the greatest "incidents" might be moments of inner doubt, minor misunderstandings within long enduring relationships, or the final consolations of memory -- but Cather manages the difficult trick in fictionalizing the life of bishop Lamy (Latour in the novel). The older I get, the more moving I find the novel... I almost cried by the time (spoiler alert!) the archbishop dies at the end.
My favorite by Cather...our family read it on the southern stretch of the 'Grand Circle' trip we took a few years back. I loved it even more -- reading it and seeing the places at the same time! ENJOY!