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Death Comes for the Archbishop
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Death Comes for the Archbishop Paperback - 1990

by Willa Cather

Death Comes for the Archbishop is Willa Cather's best-known novel, a narrative whose spare beauty achieves epic--and even mythic--qualities as it recounts a life lived simply in the silence of the southwestern desert.


Summary

Bishop Jean Latour and Father Joseph Vaillant are French priests who are sent to the American Southwest region to restructure New Mexico's Catholic diocese. They have been friends since their childhood in France and their mission includes the correction of backsliding priests and the restoration of the Catholic culture. Themes of Indian relations, slavery, heresy, insubordinate clerical conduct, and reclusiveness are presented for Latour's and Vaillant's examination. Latour is dignified and reflective while Vaillant is forthright and optimistic; together they're able to appreciate a simple life in the southwestern desert which has become an oasis of civilization. Latour's commitment to erect a cathedral in the wilderness is realized after nearly forty years of good works in these reverential surroundings. His devotion to his assignment and the wisdom he secures from his inner conflicts are the qualities that sustain him even while his youth drains away. Cather beautifully and powerfully portrays the harmony that results from steadfast purpose. Please Note: This book has been reformatted to be easy to read in true text, not scanned images that can sometimes be difficult to decipher. The Microsoft eBook has a contents page linked to the chapter headings for easy navigation. The Adobe eBook has bookmarks at chapter headings and is printable up to two full copies per year. Both versions are text searchable.

From the publisher

From one of the most highly acclaimed novelists of the twentieth century--"a truly remarkable book" (The New York Times), an epic--almost mythic--story of a single human life lived simply in the silence of the southwestern desert. In 1851 Father Jean Marie Latour comes to serve as the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. What he finds is a vast territory of red hills and tortuous arroyos, American by law but Mexican and Indian in custom and belief. In the almost forty years that follow, Latour spreads his faith in the only way he knows--gently, all the while contending with an unforgiving landscape, derelict and sometimes openly rebellious priests, and his own loneliness. Out of these events, Cather gives us an indelible vision of life unfolding in a place where time itself seems suspended.

From the jacket flap

Willa Cather's best known novel; a narrative that recounts a life lived simply in the silence of the southwestern desert.

Details

  • Title Death Comes for the Archbishop
  • Author Willa Cather
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition [ Edition: Repri
  • Pages 304
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Vintage, New York
  • Date 1990-06-16
  • ISBN 9780679728894 / 0679728899
  • Weight 0.63 lbs (0.29 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.03 x 5.24 x 0.62 in (20.40 x 13.31 x 1.57 cm)
  • Reading level 1150
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 1851-1899
    • Cultural Region: Southwest U.S.
    • Cultural Region: Western U.S.
    • Ethnic Orientation: African American
    • Geographic Orientation: New Mexico
    • Religious Orientation: Christian
    • Topical: Country/Cowboy
  • Library of Congress subjects Historical fiction, New Mexico
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 89040540
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

Media reviews

“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


From the Hardcover edition.

Citations

  • Booklist, 04/01/2000, Page 1442

About the author

WILLA CATHER, author of twelve novels, including O Pioneers!, My ntonia, and Death Comes for the Archbishop, was born in Virginia in 1873 but grew up in Nebraska, where many of her novels are set. She died in 1947 in New York City.

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Death Comes for the Archbishop (Vintage Classics)

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Death Comes for the Archbishop (Vintage Classics)
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Death Comes for the Archbishop (Vintage Classics)

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Death Comes for the Archbishop (Vintage Classics)

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Death Comes for the Archbishop (Vintage Classics)

Death Comes for the Archbishop (Vintage Classics)

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Death Comes for the Archbishop (Vintage Classics)

Death Comes for the Archbishop (Vintage Classics)

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Death Comes for the Archbishop (Vintage Classics)
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Death Comes for the Archbishop
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Death Comes for the Archbishop

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Death Comes for the Archbishop
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Death Comes for the Archbishop

by Cather, Willa

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ISBN 13
9780679728894
ISBN 10
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Death Comes for the Archbishop
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Death Comes for the Archbishop

by Cather, Willa

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ISBN 13
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ISBN 10
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