Death Comes for the Archbishop in Around the World in 80 Books

Mar 01, 2025 Erica rated it it was amazing

Shelves: book-club, 2025, gan, great-american-novel

DCFTAB is a slow-paced, southwest canter through the evolution of the catholic diocese in the newly acquired, newly American, New Mexico. It is a tale of the brotherhood of two French bishops/vicars/priests/friends, far from their families' land but developing a new homeland amongst the Mexican faithful, and setting a tone for the new American style of Catholic faith in the Southwest. The plot is absent, but the scenery is divine. The way Cather breathes life into the mundane and vague comings a ...more

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Mar 17, 2021 Lara rated it it was amazing

A luminous book. The descriptions of New Mexico, the spiritual life of the Bishop and his dear Priest Joseph, their friendship, and the appreciation for the lives and cultures of Native Americans make this book remarkable, especially considering when it was written. There is no real plot but I loved how beautiful and kind it was.

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Apr 01, 2020 Te-ge Bramhall rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, classics, 2020-favs, all-time-favorites

I’m not sure how this book made it’s way to my reader. I know that when I read My Ántonia by Willa Cather, back when I was in school, I thought so little of it that I honestly have no memory of what the story is about, just that it was on our reading list.

But, it was growing late in the evening and I needed something to read. I had finished The Beekeeper of Aleppo, which is so good but gut-wrenching, and As a Man Thinketh, which is incredible, and I’ll probably reread it sooner rather than later I’m not sure how this book made it’s way to my reader. I know that when I read My Ántonia by Willa Cather, back when I was in school, I thought so little of it that I honestly have no memory of what the story is about, just that it was on our reading list.

But, it was growing late in the evening and I needed something to read. I had finished The Beekeeper of Aleppo, which is so good but gut-wrenching, and As a Man Thinketh, which is incredible, and I’ll probably reread it sooner rather than later. Now I wanted something enjoyable. I tried a couple other books first and gave up on them.

One of the gifts I gave myself when I turned 50 was deciding that I’m too old to force myself to read bad writing…or really, any book that I don’t enjoy. So, I got 9% of the way through Babbitt (according to the stats on my reader) before realizing that I was miserable. The writing isn’t bad, I just don’t like the characters. They’re too drama-y.

I discovered a couple years ago, when I first started tracking the books I read over a year, that I read fiction and non-fiction very differently. I jump inside a good fiction story, devouring it until I turn the last page, sometimes only a couple hours later. And there are a few nonfiction “stories” that fall into this category as well.

But I read most nonfiction much slower. Instead of gobbling it down like I’m starving, I sit and chew and savor each paragraph. The pages, when I’m finished, look like the used college text books I’d search for when taking a new class, heavily underlined, with notes added.

Death Comes for the Archbishop reads more like a good non-fiction book than a work of fiction. And it is the most peaceful book I’ve read in years. In this period of uncertainty, having a peaceful book to turn to on breaks is a blessing.

They relapsed into the silence which was their usual form of intercourse. The Bishop sat drinking his coffee slowly out of the tin cup, keeping the pot near the embers. The sun had set now, the yellow rocks were turning grey, down in the pueblo the light of the cook fires made red patches of the glassless windows, and the smell of piñon smoke came softly through the still air. The whole western sky was the colour of golden ashes, with here and there a flush of red on the lip of a little cloud. High above the horizon the evening-star flickered like a lamp just lit, and close beside it was another star of constant light, much smaller.

The descriptions of the landscapes are vivid. It did help that I’ve traveled through the area. On our honeymoon, we drove I-40 from start to finish, traveling from my old home in NC to our new one in San Diego. Traveling through the west was one of my favorite parts of the drive. I’d read about it, seen it on TV, watched and read westerns with my Dad, but I’d never actually seen it. He laughed when I saw my first adobe house and wanted to stop and see more than just the quick drive-by would let me view.

While the arhcbishop is the main protagonist, most of the time, he’s just the vessel for bringing us to a new part of the tale, not central figure of the stories…because in reality, it is a bunch of stories wrapped in the almost unbelievable landscape of the American west and only carried by the archbishop.

A word of warning: It’s definitely not a 20th century book, she refers to skin color on occasion. Not in a mean or racist way, you can tell she loves the people at the heart of the book, the Mexicans and Indians who inhabited the land long before it became America. On the other hand, she doesn’t seem to think overmuch of Americans, white Americans in particular, as a people.

When they left the rock or tree or sand dune that had sheltered them for the night, the Navajo was careful to obliterate every trace of their temporary occupation. He buried the embers of the fire and the remnants of food, unpiled any stones he had piled together, filled up the holes he had scooped in the sand. Since this was exactly Jacinto’s procedure, Father Latour judged that, just as it was the white man’s way to assert himself in any landscape, to change it, make it over a little (at least to leave some mark of memorial of his sojourn), it was the Indian’s way to pass through a country without disturbing anything; to pass and leave no trace, like fish through the water, or birds through the air.

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Nov 18, 2013 Wanda rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classics

Death Comes for the Archbishop has widely been regarded as Willa Cather's masterpiece. Based on the actual lives of two Catholic priests, the Bishop and his Vicar, this is the story of the development of the newly founded Vicarate of New Mexico in the mid-nineteenth century. Woven throughout the actions of Bishop Latour and Vical Vaillant is a story of dedication and compassion of men to their faith and to their compassion and love for all God's children. As in all her other books,the beautifull ...more

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