Women's Classic Literature Enthusiasts discussion

May 2017 Group Read

Our May 2017 group read is Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather.

Wilella ("Willa") Cather was born December 7, 1873 in Back Creek Valley, Virginia. Her family moved to Nebraska when she was nine years old. Surrounded by the vast landscape, Cather at first reacted with fear and discomfort, but this move proved to be a defining experience in her life. After a year of homesteading, Cather's father moved the family to the small town of Red Cloud where Cather lived until she left home for college in 1890. Cather attended the University of Nebraska in Lincoln where she cultivated her love of journalism. She contributed columns and theater reviews to the local newspaper and was managing editor of the university's student newspaper. Cather graduated with a B.A. in English in 1894.

Willa Cather moved to Pittsburgh soon after graduation where she initially edited and wrote for a women's magazine while she taught school. Later she wrote short stories and poetry for various local publications. In 1906, she was offered a job on the editorial staff at McClure's magazine which took her to New York where she lived for the remainder of her life. While Cather wrote for McClure's, she honed her skills at writing fiction. She left the magazine in 1911 to write full-time as a novelist and short-story writer. McClure's serialized her first novel, Alexander's Bridge, in 1912 and it was well-received.

In 1913, Cather published the first book of her Prairie Trilogy, O Pioneers! which was followed by The Song of the Lark and My Ántonia. Cather won the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours in 1923. Death Comes for the Archbishop was published in 1927, and it highlights the beauty and fascination that Cather felt when she accompanied one of her brothers to the American Southwest in 1912 where she was captivated by the canyons, sweeping sky, folklore, and Native American ruins. Willa Cather continued to write novels and short stories until her death on April 24, 1947 at the age of 73.

The book is divided into a Prologue and 9 books and our reading schedule will be:
May 1-7: Prologue, Books 1 & 2
May 8-14: Books 3 & 4
May 15-21: Books 5 & 6
May 22-31: Books 7, 8, & 9

Each section will have its own thread where we may discuss and post spoilers. I hope you will join me in reading this great classic!

Here are a couple of interesting links pertaining to Willa Cather and to this group read.

https://www.willacather.org/
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/tra...

This is great information, Laurie. Thanks for sharing it.

Re-reading this book many years (even decades) later, I am savoring it in a couple of ways---because of the changes that have taken place in me, the reader. The use made of fragments of various languages gives me no pause at all in reading, because I now know un peu de francais et/y unas pocas palabras de espanol. (Latin still slows me down, though.) Another thing is, I truly appreciate the generosity of spirit, or open-mindedness of Bishop Latour, and of Father Vaillant, too, the way Cather reveals it to us in the comments the two make. For an example, the conversation the two had about the provenance of the bell, in Book One. And for another, Father Vaillant's response to the tale of the Virgin of Guadalupe, as told by el viejo, Padre Escolastico.

Mizzou wrote: "Re-reading this book many years (even decades) later, I am savoring it in a couple of ways---because of the changes that have taken place in me, the reader. The use made of fragments of various lan..."

I'm glad you can enjoy the story in a different way than you did originally. I don't reread very often, but when I do I view most books very differently than I did the first time around. This will be a reread for me as well, but I first read it last year so I don't expect the difference will be as great for me as it clearly is for you.

Thank you for these observations on the snippets of various languages. Strangely I don't even remember that from my first reading but possibly that's because it gave me no pause either.

I plan on starting this book next weekend before my in person book club pick. I am still slowly reading through another Goodreads' group pick but think I will definitely need another break from it.

I am glad you will join us, Charlene. I plan to start tomorrow.

From page 260 of A Short History of the Americas, by R.S. Cotterill: "President Polk believed it was the "manifest destiny" of the U.S. to extend to the Pacific, and he was determined to secure the Mexican provinces of California and New Mexico which blocked the way. Failing in his efforts to purchase them, he was preparing to start a war of conquest over the question of some defaulted Mexican debts when the Rio Grande episode furnished him a more plausible casus belli.
The war was brief and inglorious. One U.S. army, advancing from Missouri over the old Santa Fe trail, effected a bloodless conquest of Santa Fe and New Mexico while a combined blockade by sea and "revolution" on land secured California. In Mexico proper, Gen. Taylor marched from the Rio Grande into the interior and menaced the border states while the main army under Gen Scott landed at Vera Cruz and fought its way across the mountains to Mexico City. The only effective opposition was offered by Santa Anna, whose return from exile in Cuba had been connived at by the U.S. on the understanding that he would make peace with the U.S. by ceding the two provinces desired. Once at home, however, Santa Anna put himself at the head of the resistance. Scott captured Mexico City in September 1847, Santa Anna resigned as president, and his successor, in February 1848, signed the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, ending the war by yielding California and New Mexico to the United States."