Customer Reviews

Death Comes for the Archbishop (Virago Modern Classics)

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To be honest, the title was not one that I would have picked up on my own, and the book was recommended to me several times before I decided to read it. (You can't tell a book by it's Title) Worthy of all of it's critical acclaim, I have read this novel over several times, not only for it's splendid story line, but for the sheer brilliance of it, each time marveling at it's beauty and style. Though it deals with religion, it does it tastefully, openly, and allows the reader to see the underside of the human element that powers it.

Though all men may be "created equal", their characters are not, and this story is powerful in that regard as it exposes men of the cloth that are there simply as users of others, as opposed to the devoted, the sincere who's life work has been striven to the good.

The novel is timeless. The story unfolds in France and Italy, is about two boyhood friends who study for the priesthood together and subsequently end up doing their life's work together in the wild, open country of the New Mexico and Arizona frontiers. This work spans their entire lives, and the adventures, trials and hardships are many. The artistry that Willa Cather employs as she takes her reader through the magnificent, lonely expanses of sage and cactus, to the Mexican people in remote areas; the lawless exiles who hope to disappear into it's wilderness, is all accomplished as though a painter is at work beside her, shaping her words into visuals, makes this work one of her best, in my view.

This book is on the short list of great novels published in this country, and is arguably Cather's masterpiece. Based on the historic Bishop Lamy of 19th century Santa Fe, Cather's Bishop Latour is called to civilize a land with a complex and tangled history. Cather presents him as a hero cowboy on horseback, facing off against various challenges natural and human from the day he is dispatched from Rome until his death years later.

The prose is stately, but rich and colored -- modern English clear, direct, and chiseled. Each chapter is a self-contained episode, directly modeled on Giotto's Life of Saint Francis panel circa 1300, wherein roughly a dozen separate pictures depict famous episodes of the saint's life. Cather rigorously studied classical art, music, and architecture, and was as artistically conscious as other pioneer artists of her generation -- Frank Lloyd Wright in architecture, Stieglitz in photography. Coming dead center between Stephen Crane and Ernest Hemingway, and sharing a preoccupation with both of them for the American West, this book richly resonates as an ever-fresh, peculiarly American piece of classic writing.

Cather, who is famous for the lyrical quality of her sensitive writing, does not disappoint in this spectacular novel. She creates a rich and sensitive tapestry of human experience, spinning a yarn of struggle, revelation, love, cruelty, adaptation, and ultimate triumph. She never yields to the temptations of fatuous romanticism or trite platitudes. This book is an experience that transports the reader into another time in another place, but then provides the most insightful among us with the material needed to extrapolate from this experience, and apply it to other places in other times. This is a uniquely American masterpiece that will resonate with those who may have grown out of spy thrillers and whodunits.

Though not her best novel in the strict sense because it is really a series of interrelated stories, Death Comes for the Archbishop is another excellent Willa Cather work. Her most famous works focus on America's prairie frontier days, and this zeroes in on New Mexico in the same era with all the imported strengths. Cather again shows her profound sense of place, making a distinct area and bygone time seem truly alive. She gives a good idea of what it was like - especially how difficult it was - to adapt the enormous and challenging landscape to human use.

Western civilization's use rather, as the book is quick to remind us that Native Americans were already there with a very old culture. One of the central conflicts is between Western culture - as exemplified in Catholicism - and Native culture. This has become a historical lightning rod, with many loudly decrying the arrogant obsession with converting Natives, and the book is a fascinating peek into the process. As ever, Cather is even-keeled; her two main bishops have real faith and are generally sincere in thinking conversion best. It is hard not to sympathize with their struggles regardless of how we view Catholicism. However, other Catholic characters are variously despicable, viewing their job cynically and in it only for gain. This reminds us that humanity has good and bad specimens, warning us against sweeping generalizations and judgments. Through all this we get a fine sense of the Church's inner workings.

As all this suggests, the book is of great historical interest; anyone curious about New Mexico, the frontier, or the Catholic Church in early America will find much to engross and enlighten. Cather has a keen eye for what is worth recording about everything from landscapes to speech, and her balanced dramatizations of several real people - bishops aside, she perhaps most prominently features Kit Carson - are very interesting historically and artistically. Carson brings up another notable aspect - the book was highly unusual for a nuanced, sympathetic depiction of Natives. Cather clearly had great respect for their culture and was unwilling to dismiss it as nearly all mainstream Americans did. Indeed, they are the most generally and genuinely good of any group here, lacking others' villains and charlatans. There are some truly evil characters giving more than a hint of the Wild West's infamous dark side but also truly courageous and admirable ones who show how the great frontier experiment was even possible. All told, the varied and balanced depiction gives a lifelike picture of just what a cosmopolitan crossroads the West really was.

The book would be of little more than historical interest if it had nothing else, but thankfully there is more. The two main bishops are probably what allure most; finely and believably drawn, they have the essential humanity that makes sympathetic characters. We feel their ups and downs as we admire their strength and perseverance. Though not linear, the story itself is also intriguing and often quite moving; the intrusion of non-Natives and Catholicism had an immense effect on a culture that had been self-contained for centuries. It is a drama well worth watching from both sides, and Cather's depiction is notably nuanced. Her story runs us through a gamut of emotions, conveying everything from pathos to nature's sublime beauty to bittersweet poetic death. The setting may be very specific, but elements like these give universal significance.

Death Comes is not least notable for Cather's usual mesmerizingly beautiful prose. It is admirably concise and precise, stunningly conveying a variety of thoughts, emotions, and features - not least the landscape's natural beauty and grand scale - in remarkably few words. She paints pictures as breathtakingly epic as many novelists with far thicker books; her prose is indeed so awe-inspiring that she would be worth reading for it alone. Though she almost never gets credit, Cather is one of American literature's premier stylists, and this book is a preeminent example.

All told, Death is that rare thing in literature - a book that has great appeal for a specific set with potential for wide applicability. Though a classic, it is one of American literature's most underrated works and deserves significantly more popularity and acclaim.

...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." 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.

What a fascinating novel!

Based on the life of Jean-Baptiste Lamy, the story follows two French missionary priests who bring Catholicism to New Mexico, which had recently become part of the United States. Over the course of 40 years they reach out to the parishes in the area and discover what it means to drape Catholicism over a long history of Mexican and Native American tradition. The description of their work is sympathetic, showing a high level of respect and cultural awareness.

The descriptions of the New Mexican territory were breathtaking. I have never been a big fan of descriptions of nature in novels as they don't usually do much for my reading experience. But in this case, I was won over because nature is as much a character in the story as the priests, providing seemingly insurmountable difficulties that provide the circumstances necessary for the priests' experiences. The descriptive prose was so crisp and colourful that it enabled me to see the landscape in my mind's eye, something that rarely if ever happens when I read.

My favorite part of the book was the relationship between the two priests. The account of how their friendship developed over the course of their lives and the love and respect they felt for each other was incredibly moving and emotional.

I highly recommend this classic piece of U.S. literature.

Willa Cather's 1927 novel is a hymn of praise. Sung in language of radiant simplicity, it is a paean to the pioneer spirit, to the power of faith, to compassion and pure humanity, and above all to the American Southwest. And it is about life, not death. Archbishop Jean Latour goes to his rest in 1888 able to look back on almost forty years of transcendent service, since being appointed the first Bishop of Santa Fe in the newly acquired territory of New Mexico in 1850. The dates are precise because Cather based her character closely upon the life of Jean-Baptiste Lamy, the French missionary who held the office in fact, and built the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis in Santa Fe, where he is buried.

The building of the cathedral occupies a relatively small portion of Cather's book. Most of Latour's building is in human terms, visiting parishes that had not seen a priest in generations, giving hope to the poor and oppressed, and reaching out to the Indian tribes. He finds priests getting rich on the backs of their parishioners, or making free with their women; he deals with these situations with quiet tact if possible, but with firm authority if not. He is aided in his work by his boyhood friend from the Auvergne, Father Joseph Vaillant, a man of boundless energy who rides far into Arizona, and later north to the gold rush communities of Colorado, to explore the extent of a diocese so vast that neither man can truly comprehend it. Until the railroad arrives towards the end of the book, all these journeys are made on horseback, through country now trackless and terrible, now abloom with flowers in fertile arroyos, now glowing with vast mountain vistas. And above it all, the sky. "The plain was there, under one's feet, but what one saw when one looked about was that brilliant blue world of stinging air and moving cloud. Even the mountains were mere ant-hills under it. Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky."

No wonder this book is displayed in shop windows all over New Mexico. Cather describes a land that is still recognizable, even in its local detail, but she distills its essence in a purer form -- no small achievement for a plains-dweller from Nebraska! No small achievement either that a Protestant author could reach so deeply into the soul of Catholicism. But her window was simply her humanity; the stories in this book (and for the most part they are stories) move, intrigue, or amuse the reader because they are not merely tales of a place, but of people in that place. Cather's canvas was the page, and her palette words -- simple words, but used exquisitely. Coincidentally, I have just been reading another masterpiece from the same time, Thornton Wilder's THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY. Cather and Wilder share the same elegance, the same simplicity, the same humanity. 1927 was a remarkable year!

Willa Cather's famous novel "Death Comes for the Archbishop" (1927) is set against the backdrop of the United States's acquisition of the New Mexico territory as a result of the Mexican War. Another less than happy historical incident also forms a boundary of the story: the forced removal of the Navajo Tribe from its ancestral home in the 1860s, with a great toll of death and suffering, followed by the return some years later of the Navajos to their current Reservation. Cather develops her timeless and asture story against the background of these events.

Cather's book tells the story of Father Jean Pierre LaTour, a French priest who has come to the Ohio Valley to do missionary work. With the United States' acquisition of New Mexico, the Church sends him on an arduous journey to Santa Fe to become the Bishop and to revitalize the Catholic Church. He is soon joined in Santa Fe by his long-time friend from his seminary days in France, Father Joseph Valliant. LaTour is scholarly and aloof, while Valliant is emotional and impulsive, a man of the people. A great deal of Cather's book centers on the friendship between the two priests. Cather changed the names of her characters, but the depiction of the two priests is historically based. Cather adopted and idealized their portrayals for her purposes in the novel. Other historical figures in the novel include the scout Kit Carson, who receives a sympathetic portrayal, and the native priest Padre Martinez, who attempts to break away from the orthodox Catholicism of Father LaTour and to found his own order. Martinez receives a less than sympathetic portrait from Cather.

Over the years of the story, LaTour and Valliant wander the deserts and small settlements of New Mexico and Arizona in an attempt to bring Catholicism to the people. During the timeframe of the book, the territory was inhabited largely by Indians and by Mexicans with only a few settlers from the States. As the book progresses, the pace of settlement quickens, as LaTour lives to regret the changed, urban character of Santa Fe where he builds a glorious cathedral. Cather is at her best in her descriptions of the landscape of the American Southwest, its distances, bleakness, deserts, heat, frost, wind, and cold. Cather offers a portrait of the Indian people, and the high mesas on which some of them lived. She shows a sensitivity to native Indian religions, which persisted through the Indians' nominal conversion to Catholicism.

With her attraction to the Southwest and its people, Cather also was greatly devoted to French culture and to the life of the mind. There are many descriptions in the book of LaTour and Valliant's love for French art, literature, wine, and cuisine and music. I had the feeling that Cather wanted to bring the best of European civilization to the New World. Yet, both LaTour and Valliant fall in love with their new homeland and LaTour declines the opportunity to spend his final years in a university position in France.

Cather wrote this book to emphasize the importance of religion in American life and in the settlement of the Southwest in particular. She had become dismayed by the increased emphasis on materialism, individuality, and sensuality that she saw in her contemporary America of the 1920s. She thus wrote a book that modified the usual picture of American expansionism to focus on religion. Today, as in Cather's day, many people overlook the role religion has played in shaping the American experience.

As a young woman, Cather had converted from the Baptist to the Episcopalian form of Protestantism. She never became a Catholic, but she studied and learned a great deal from Catholicism that is reflected in this book. She emphasizes a life of simple piety, devotion, and order, finding God in the everyday. There are many beautiful passages in the book on the Virgin Mary and her role in Catholicism, and discussions of piety, celibacy, miracles, and living a quiet contented life.


"Death Comes for the Archbishop" has always been a difficult book to classify. The work has a surprisingly modernist structure for a novel, with its lack of a plot line. The book has a historical setting, but it should not be read as history. It is concerned with a religion in which Cather did not herself believe and it shows her hero, LaTour, as enduring many moments of doubt. The picture that emerges is ultimately one of serenity and faith, but it is a harder and more complex vision than may appear on the surface.

I was pleased to have the opportunity to reread and rethink "Death Comes for the Archbishop" when I read it with a book group. Many critics prefer some of Cather's lesser-known works, such as "A Lost Lady" or "The Professor's House" to this famous novel. But "Death Comes for the Archbishop" is unquestionably a moving work richly deserving of its place as an American classic.

Robin Friedman

Willa Cather's outstanding novel "Death Comes for the Archbishop" tells the story of Bishop Jean Latour and his friend, Father Joseph Vaillant, as they travel to New Mexico in the mid 19th century to bring the Catholic Faith to the natives. The novel is based on the true stories of Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy and Father Joseph Machebeuf. Even the author's choice of names is appropriate: Father Latour (the tower) and Fr. Vaillant (valiant) and describes, in part, these characters.

Cather's graphic, yet artistic descriptions of the unforgiving landscape of the Southwest are part of the brilliance of this novel: "The sun was sinking, a red ball which threw a copper glow over the pine-covered ridge of mountains, and edged that inky, ominous cloud with molten silver. The great red earth walls of the mission, red as brick dust, yawned gloomily before him - part of the roof had fallen in, and the rest would soon go." Cather was a gifted artist who painted the canvas of her book with rich, sensory descriptions.

The character studies are also brilliant, from the scholarly, gentle and academic Latour to his equally gentle and faith-driven friend, Vaillant. Both Latour and Vaillant have particularly non-judgmental ways of bringing the Catholic faith to others. Secondary characters like Magdalena and Jacinto are described in such a fashion that the reader feels as if he/she knows them intimately. Kit Carson, a true life friend of Bishop Lamy, makes several appearances in the book.

This novel is not without its humorous moments. When Father Latour arrives at a large ranch to perform weddings and baptisms, Father Latour asks the owner, Manuel, "Where are those to be married?" Manuel tells him that the men are in the field, but that there is no hurry, and that he ought to baptize the children first. Father Latour's response is firm but gentle: "No, I tell you, the marriages first, the baptisms afterward; that order is but Christian. I will baptize the children tomorrow morning and their parents will at least have been married overnight."

Bishop Latour and Father Vaillant must contend with licentious priests, abusive husbands and others throughout their long stay in the Southwest. Eventually, it becomes Bishop Latour's deepest wish to see a Cathedral built in the new land. He and Fr. Vaillant come to respect the natural beauty of the land and the Cathedral becomes the first Romanesque church in the New World built in and part of the landscape.

I thoroughly enjoyed this 83-year-old novel and I understand why it is thought to be one of the author's greatest works.

In the end, this story is so thoroughly Catholic, from its characters to its setting to the very illustration of the Faith that it is difficult for me to believe that Cather was not Catholic.

Ellen Gable Hrkach
award-winning author
In Name Only

If I could only have four volumes to read for the rest of my life they would be: Death Comes for the Archbishop, Joyce's Ulysses, a Shakespeare folio, and the Bible.

Death Comes for the Archbishop is a novel of striking beauty, profound debth, and deceiving simplicity. The language employed is the most clear and beautiful I have ever read in prose--it's closer to poetry. The philosophy Ms. Cather espouses is simple enough for the peasant to understand, and too complex for the wisest scholar.

This book just baffles me: it's not a novel, per se, nor is it a biography--it's more like an etching of time and place; of ideas and people who travel through the arid, beautiful dreamscape of New Mexico.

Ms. Cather wrote part of this novel in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She got the idea of the novel from seeing a statue of Archbishop Lamy in front of St. Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe, and meditating upon what his life must have been like from her balcony at La Fonda hotel that overlooked the Cathedral.
Ms. Cather spent months in New Mexico and the Southwest, and truly loved this land, which is reflected in her book; she was a woman of faith, which is also reflected in this book, and although not a book about religion, religion nevertheless permeates it. More, this is a book about the beauty of a life lived well, with hard work and faith, and the land which touches all who touch it.