Rating: 
Summary: A beautifully written book
Review: A new Bishop, Father Jean Marie Latour, is sent by Rome to spread Chrisitanity through new territory purchased in the Americas as part of the Gadsden Purchase. Father Latour takes with him his close friend, Father Jospeh Vaillant, to help with this cause. Latour is handsome, non-judgemental, amiable, keeps himself in check; Vaillant is his opposite, being not so pleasant of face but very very sociable and incredibly strong in faith.There isn't much of a plot for this novel. It's more of a photo album or a series of episodes about the unexplored Western United States. The reader sees what the territory of New Mexico, Arizona and Mexico were like before trains, when the desert was both a beautiful and a harsh place. And, the reader learns about the people living there, from the French Fahters sent to Chrisitanize the Indians to the Mexican and Spanish settlers to the native Indians who are untrusting of white men and still hold to their gods. And the reader sees it all through the eyes of Father Latour so we get his wonder and awe at this strange, new world into which he's been sent to spread the word of God.
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Summary: Don't worry. It gets better.
Review: After reading this book, I would not name my Great Dane Willa Cather, but I did very much enjoy her portrait of the Bishop Lamy of Santa Fe. I am sympathetic with those who say that the Bishop is a harbinger of capitalism and out-of-touch with the Indians and Mexicans, and at first I was bothered by Cather's acceptance and relative lack of bias towards all groups. Although she seemed to occasionally stereotype, for the most part she didn't seem to take sides at all. I wanted her to be more critical and judgmental! It is a rather slowly told tale, but not difficult for any level of reader. And finally near the end she begins to achieve beauty. My favorite landscape line: "Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky". My favorite explanation of alone time: "It was not a solitude of atrophy, of negation, but of perpetual flowering." And finally she hints at environmental destruction and the difference in how different people treat the planet, discusses the plight of the Navajo, and calls Kit Carson, who until nearly the last page has been a gentleman and a scholar, "misguided". I was relieved. Go get 'em Willa. It may be slow going at first, but it's rewards are many especially if you are interested in history. In Stuart Udall's The Founding Fathers, you will also find some discussion of Bishop Lamy.
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Summary: Death comes for the archbishop
Review: As close to history as Cather can make this story
Written as a novel, Death Comes for the Archbishop is historical fiction based on the lives of Bishop Jean Baptiste L'Amy and his associates within the church. As such, it is representative of Cather's strong spiritual side. Set mostly in and around Santa Fe, New Mexico, it chronicles the bishop's efforts to organize the Catholic diocese of NM. A character study in the old sense of the word, this book explores the paths and pitfalls of men determined to build a mission, a cathedral in the wilderness.
After you've read this book, should you travel to New Mexico, be sure to visit the chapel of the archbishop on the grounds of Bishop Ranch, just outside Santa Fe.
Rating:
Summary: a great accomplishment to read
Review: Death Comes for the Archbishop is an anomaly among Cather's works, and, for that matter, all twentieth-century works. In this book, you will not find chronology, action, or drama. You will, however, find a story that will grip you and will not let you go until Death finally does come for the Archbishop. If you are interested in precise, simple prose, a heart-warming story, and have a few hours to spare (the novel is rather short; the font is large), pick up a copy and enjoy yourself.
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Summary: this book sux
Review: erhem...to all you acedeca "decathaleats" i ask one question. Y
Rating:
Summary: The horror...the horror...
Review: I had to read this for academic decathlon and I must say it's one of the most boring, blandly-written things I've ever read, and I adore reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful writing and beautiful imagery.
Review: I recently read My Antonia. This was my second novel by Willa Cather and was equally enjoyable and thought provoking. This novel beautifully illustrates how the Southwest was shaped by the Catholic Church and heroic missionaries such as the emotional and intuitive Father Valliant and the gentle and cerebral Father Latour . My youth was spent in Colorado, but nothing has taught me more about the forces (natural and human) which shaped this region than Death Comes for the Archbishop. Just as Father Latour builds his simple yellow cathedral one stone at a time, missionaries like Latour and Valliant built the Catholic Church in the Southwest one soul at a time over their lifetimes. Through this lifetime of work they became inextricably attached to the people and the landscape. This is a profoundly beautiful book and well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Command of the Written Language
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Vivid, Surprising, Beautiful
Review: In the early 21st century, Willa Cather is perhaps best remembered for her chronicles of prairie lives, but one of her best works is DEATH COMES TO THE ARCHBISHOP, which depicts the southwest some 300 years after the Spaniards arrived, but barely into its American infancy. In the 1850s, there are no maps yet, and to the European eye, the landscape is a vast, primitive "geometric nightmare." It is peopled by Mexicans and Native American Indians, and by a few rogue priests who so far from Rome and civilization have built fiefdoms and empires in the desert wilderness. It has been left so long untouched that Christian legends have grown up and become ancient alongside the lore of the Indians. By turns, the land and its people are hospitable and inspiring, misguided and harsh. In 1848, the church of Rome believes it is time to find a leader who will bring order to this region. Going against conventional wisdom, the leaders decide on a younger priest, Jean Marie Latour, a Frenchman currently stationed in Michigan, for the task. The first question that persists through this episodic story is, is he the right person? The book becomes a portrait of his steady cerebral yet compassionate leadership through the chaos he finds and the upheavals of an extraordinary period in history. The movement of the book zigzags among the people, both imagined and real (Kit Carson shows up), and the land. Especially, it looks at the land as it is shaped by belief-Christian, Indian and political. Cather does an extraordinary job of creating very vivid, complex characters. She also describes the land in a way that needs no photographs or maps to build it in our minds. Her prose is elegiac and yet nearly as clean as Hemingway's. There is power in it, and just when you think deep into the book that it is a series of sketches, it moves forward in the last part to the later 19th century and reveals how some characters' lives have taken some unexpected yet comprehensible curves and others were able to hold a course-the suspense was building all the time. In Latour there is the story of the human vs. the self, nature, other humans, and God. His personal story reflects the broader array of church and national history.
Rating:
Summary: A simple, straightforward gem
Review: This is an historical novel set in the Sante Fe area of New Mexico in the mid to late 1800s. It describes the experiences of two French priests (Father Latour - the bishop, and Father Vallaint - his vicar) sent there to establish a diocese. Most of their congregation are Mexicans who have previously been served by the Spanish catholic church, and Native American tribes - some of whom have embraced this new religion but many who have not. The plot line consists mainly of a series of vignettes describing the life of the two priests as they go about their work. Willa Cather writes in a simple, but graceful style much like the personalities of her two priests. It is worth reading this novel just for her descriptions of the austere beauty of the American southwest. Many great authors have an uncanny ability to write beautiful prose with what appears to be very straightforward language, and Willa Cather certainly fits that category. Some have complained that her characters lacked depth in this novel, and though at times they seem to take a back seat to the setting, I found both men to be rich, real, and well-fleshed out characters. A recommended read.
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