Posted
by Leslie vonHolten
February 21, 2005 at 9:31 a.m.
Discussion: <i>Death Comes for the Archbishop</i>
Like My Antonia, the only other Willa Cather novel I've read, Death Comes for the Archbishop struck me as a collection of stories grown from a fierce landscape and anchored around a character sensitive enough to recognize them for their deep worth. I think we should begin with a discussion of the major themes. To me, these were (1) friendship, (2) landscape, and (3) legends and stories of the Southwest. (Curiously, I found religion to be a minor theme, but please argue your point if you disagree with me.)To start, I found Father Latour to be a lovely character, true and kind, and I was touched by his friendship with Father Vaillant, a character in my eyes who was complex and often unlikeable. I'll admit to getting misty at this: "He knelt, and Father Vaillant, having blessed him, knelt and was blessed in turn. They embraced each other for the past-for the future" ( p. 260).[[Being nerdy and sensitive to these things, I also want to declare that the most poignant use of an em dash I've ever seen. It's absolutely beautiful.]]Now it's your turn.
Comments
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Joel (Joel Mathis) says…
Actually, Leslie, I was struck by something else entirely - the theme of the deliberateness of a life lived slowly.
The book was published in 1927, a decade when cars and airplanes were coming into widespread use, though trains had been around for a few decades. A wholesale readjustment was being made by people who had forever used horses and wagons as their means of transport.
The two pastors in this book, however, need months to communicate with their relatives in Europe, years to travel back, and weeks to get to and from the churches of New Mexico that they oversee. It's from horseback that they are able to observe and consider, in fine detail, the countryside around them, the difficulty and ingenuity of eking out an existence in such a harsh landscape.
In the 1920s, when the book was written, many of Cather's readers would have been able to drive right by or fly over the landscape - not quickly enough to render it a blur, perhaps, but certainly quickly enough to make the landscape perhaps a bit less vivid. But her readers probably still had memories of slower times just a few decades before.
I've said previously that "Archbishop" is the most sensuous novel I've ever read. When meals must be prepared slowly (instead of microwaved) and the countryside takes time to escape, well, then, it's easier to find those details.
liz (Liz Weslander) says…
The whole slow and deliberate thing, while I know is something to be appreciated, made it hard for me to keep going with the book at times. It's defintely symptomatic of how far removed we are from the lifestyle of the book's characters.
I like that this book captures the climate of a time in history that defines New Mexico's culture to this day. All these players were coming together - Indians (both American and Mexican), the Spanish, the Anglo settlers, missionaries - all with different cultures and I think that Cather portrays the intricacies of this confluence pretty well. This unique melding of influences is still very present today - and not nearly as present in nearby Arizona.
I liked that Cather included the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe - that story has always helped reconcile the whole "why did the Indians buy this whole Catholicism stuff from the missionaries/ conquerers?" question. I agree that religion was a minor theme, but the whole tension between ritual and faith was interesting.
Joel (Joel Mathis) says…
So...
Anybody want to talk about Willa Cather writing a novel through the eyes of two (male) priests? About how some of the more significant female characters in the book were either vain or utterly powerless?
I'm not trying to be sexist here, btw. But,
¢ We gots to gets this conversation a bit more stirred up. And:
¢ I thought the above issues were interesting.
Discuss.
leslie (Leslie vonHolten) says…
Yeah, that's a another strange technique of Cather's, it seems--it My Antonia, she (Cather) takes on the voice of a boy who moves to Nebraska and then tells Antonia's story. I wonder if it says more about the state of commercial publishing during Cather's time than about gender identity. I have a Cather biography here; I'll try to look into it.
As for the priests, I am assuming that Cather was Catholic. The two times that Protestants are mentioned, they're evil ogres--the family who kept the slave from mass, and the "Protestant government" in the context of their treatment of the Navajo. Catholocism, however, is presented for the most part as a gentle gift given to Mexicans and Indians who were eager to take it.
This is not to say that there weren't men like Bishop Latour; indeed, there were, and I really like the way Cather portrayed him and his struggles with his spirituality at times (ie, worries that he was lonely for Vaillant's company, rather than needing him for the Church's sake).
MyName (anonymous) says…
Having not read either My Antonia or Death Comes for the Archbishop, I can't say much about sexism or strong catholicism in either of those books, but I did read O Pioneers, which features a strong female main character who is also a Lutherin. I also read the Song of the Lark, and it features a strong female Lutherin main character as well. I think what's great about Cather's writing is the way she captured all of that small town life so well. Not just the good aspects of that life either, but the petty, ugly side as well.
liz (Liz Weslander) says…
Although it may just be my own world view filtering in, I'm not sure that Cather presented Catholocism in a completely spotless or benevolent light. First there was the scene where one of the priests railroaded a Mexican into giving away his mules. Then there was this whole tension between ritual and faith that I mentioned earlier - all these examples of Indian communities being of "good faith" but having no interest in the fathers' baptisms and masses, and then there were the handful of Mexican priests (and maybe a few Spanish ones? i can't remember) who were too licentious for the priests' tastes. Although it seems that the Father Latour and Valliant always won out in the end, I think that Cather gave us these glimpses of tension for reasons other than trying to show that the French/American version of Catholcism is indeed superior.
liz (Liz Weslander) says…
I'm not sure why I put "indeed" up there - damn caffiene. All I was trying to say is that I think Cather saw the warts of the Catholic mission. Anyhow, I read that Cather was Protestant and eventually converted to the Episcopal church. This particular source said people have speculated that she didn't choose Catholicism because she was a lesbian. (I might as well admit I read this at the Cliff notes online site which I used to refresh my memory about something.) Anyway, where's Mike Shields? He had plenty to say about the book on his own blog.
umehana (anonymous) says…
I thought the comfort and refinement of the Catholic top hierarchy contrasting with the grittiness of life in the American Southwest was very interesting. To me it was a subtle jab at the catholic church's "concern" for people. It took awhile for anyone to comment on Cather's lady preference. I thought her mentioning of the mutual blessing was rather sensual just like her descriptions of the landscape. A good example of culture behavior and reservedly expressing same sex love was when the silent Fructosa noticed the strained reaction of Father Latour's to Vailliant's departure. Latour loves Vailliant, but he can't act on it. The line was silly. It would have made more sense if she had dynamic lady characters, but it is a story about the relationship between two priests and their madcap adventures in the West. On the subject of Valliant... I liked him. He was rough and outdoorsy, not bookish, but his faith and compassion were his strengths. Wouldn't a gruffer more "Western" persona be more apt to deal with the rigors of horseback on rough terrain for the spiritual guidance of the Illiterate and Uneducated? Think of all the authentic Western jibbersh he would have had to translate in his French mind!