Death Comes for the Archbishop
In 1851 French Bishop Latour and his friend Father Valliant are dispatched to New Mexico to reawaken its slumbering Catholicism. Moving along the endless prairies, Latour spreads his faith the only way he knows-- gently, although he must contend with the unforgiving landscape, derelict and sometimes openly rebellious priests, and his own loneliness. Over nearly 40 years, they leave converts and enemies, crosses, and occasionally ecstasy in their wake. But it takes a death for them to make their mark on the landscape forever.
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- Someone else mentioned Thomas Hardy's "The Mayor of Casterbirdge". It's the one of his 5 major novels I haven't read. "Far From the Madding Crowd" and "Return of the Native" are okay, but the two that really are magnificent are:
"Jude the Obscure" - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/153
"Tess of the D'Urbervilles" - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/110
You can sense his fury at the society he was depicting. You might not want to read either of these, particularly "Tess", if you're prone to depression.
Frederick Jackson Turner, "The Frontier in American History" (1921) - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22994
This collection leads off with Turner's essay "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" (1893). It's considered by some the most influential historical essay about America ever written. Historians went back and forth on his claims for decades, and people pointed out many issues with them. It seems like the critics predominate now. But it's still worth reading, particularly since (right or wrong) his ideas influenced the way we think of ourselves. Turner was a very good writer - he was a noted orator, and his essays have an oratorical quality - and the other essays in the collection are pretty good, too.
Owen Wister, "The Virginian" - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1298
Zane Grey, "Riders of the Purple Sage" - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1300
And the sequel: "The Rainbow Trail" - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5067
"The Virginian" (1902) and "Riders" (1912) established many of the themes and tropes for the "standard" western, and they're still fun to read. But the genre comprises many other kinds of writing - e.g. A. B. Guthrie, Elmer Kelton, and the next writer.
Willa Cather's novels:
The "plains trilogy" (the stories are set in Nebraska and Colorado, but otherwise unrelated):
"O Pioneers!" (1913) - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24
"The Song of the Lark" (1915) - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44
"My Ántonia" (1918) - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19810
And not quite a hundred years ago, but a wonderful novel:
"Death Comes for the Archbishop" (1927) - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69730
A few brief mentions: James Joyce's "Ulysses", though I had a tough time getting through it; some of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short stories (e.g. "The Minister's Black Veil"); "Njal's Saga" (I liked the Penguin edition with the translation by Magnusson and Pallson); the great works of classic fantasy (Lord Dunsany, E. R. Eddison, William Morris, Arthur Machen); the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.
- I am currently reading "Death comes for the Archbishop". A great writer of the American West.
- I’m a big proponent of physical books: I have several thousand in my home. But last week, I finally got my first e-reader, the Xteink X4, which I got because it was small and cheap.
In ten days, I’ve read J.-K. Huysmans’s Durtal tetralogy, Nancy Maguire’s An Infinity of Little Hours, Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop, and I’ll finish Bernanos’s Diary of a Country Priest this evening. I don’t think I’ve ever read at this pace with physical books. There’s something about being able to pull out the X4 rather than my phone wherever I am that has really made a difference for me, and the tiny screen allows me to find my place immediately and dive back in. Even when I carry around physical books, I don’t always carry them in places with me, forget them in the car, etc.
This only works for a certain kind of reading—mainly novels. But it has been a remarkable development for me. I don’t think I’m a convert away from physical books, but my wife appreciates that I can now put novels on there rather than trying to find more space in our house for books!
- We launched ten new ebooks that have just come into the US public domain on Standard Ebooks this morning:
Ashenden - W. Somerset Maugham - https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/w-somerset-maugham/ashende...
Death Comes for the Archbishop - Willa Cather - https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/willa-cather/death-comes-f...
Tombstone - Walter Noble Burns - https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/walter-noble-burns/tombsto...
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf - https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/virginia-woolf/to-the-ligh...
The Bridge of San Luis Rey - Thornton Wilder - https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/thornton-wilder/the-bridge...
Elmer Gantry - Sinclair Lewis - https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/sinclair-lewis/elmer-gantr...
The Story of Ivy - Marie Belloc Lowndes - https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/marie-belloc-lowndes/the-s...
Unnatural Death - Dorothy L. Sayers - https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/dorothy-l-sayers/unnatural...
Sir Percy Hits Back - Baroness Orczy - https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/baroness-orczy/sir-percy-h...
The Big Four - Agatha Christie - https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/agatha-christie/the-big-fo...
Ernest Hemingway’s Men Without Women collection of shorts also hit PD, so the additional stories were rolled into our existing Short Fiction compilation: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/ernest-hemingway/short-fic...
