Death comes for the Archbishop

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Willa Cather: Death comes for the Archbishop (1927, Alfred A. Knopf)

303 pages

English language

Published 1927 by Alfred A. Knopf.

OCLC Number:
8743739

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3 stars (1 review)

Set in the mid-nineteenth century, this is the story of a priest who sets out to win the Southwest for Catholicism.

86 editions

Mixed bag

3 stars

This book has a lot of lovely descriptions of the landscape of New Mexico, some very interesting characterizations, and a lot of nice turns of phrase. But as @gwenprime@bookwyrm.social noted, it's very much a book of its time. In particular, the fact that Kit Carson is featured as a (mostly) sympathetic character feels very inappropriate from a modern perspective. I believe that in the 1920s, its sympathetic portrayal of Native Americans and the Long Walk of the Navajo was pretty progressive, but a lot of it now seems rather paternalistic. Worth reading as long as you can keep all that in mind.

Subjects

  • Clergy
  • Fiction
  • History

Places

  • New Mexico