On Reading "Death Comes to the Archbishop"

I woke up way too early today and was lamenting to myself the loss of earlier times in my life, when I had more time to spend with friends talking about things in our lives or what we read. Then I realized that that is what blogs and insomnia were invented for.

This morning I am dwelling on the themes of place and time from a book Arthur Powers told me to read, "Death Comes to the Archbishop", by Willa Cather. Now Willa Cather should be near the top of just about everybody's favorite authors, just for having written "My Antonia". Anyway, I had never heard of this book before, so I gave it a try.

Cather said it was an experimental novel for her, written about 1927. It was like some early Italian movies, more about place than story. She paints (really paints in print) images of the American Southwest in the middle to late 19th century. She notes without preaching, the different relations that Indians, Mexicans and the newcomer Americans all had to the place or to the land. The Indians sought mostly to blend into the environment, not using windows because they felt the reflection scarred the earth, while the Americans came to plant, grow and change it. One can almost hear echoes of these relationships in today's debates on climate change.

A second theme was the sense of time. Haydee has been telling me about her speculations that time could be more circular than linear. The Archbishop, in his old age, goes back and visits the southwest of his youth, just the way I increasingly spend my time enjoying, really enjoying, my experiences of much younger years. People start to think he is going senile, but that misses the point.

I remember visiting my mother in the hospital in her later years. She greeted me with "what a shame, you just missed all of my old friends from Marquette (her college), they were here and we had a wonderful time." To this day I regret being so pigheaded skeptical instead of just asking her "tell me all about it". Maybe you have to be past 60 to understand that dimension.

In addition to the more obvious reasons to like the book, it also held my attention for a more personal one. I had always understood that Regis College, my alma mater, was started in Las Vegas, NM in the latter part of the 19th century and that Bishop Machbeuf invited the College to move to Colorado when he moved New Mexico to become Bishop in Denver. Bishop Machbeuf it turns out was actually the principal supporting character, Fr. Vaillant, in the book. Machbeuf Hall was the dorm with tons of cute girls at Loretto Heights College down the road from Regis.

At the very beginning of the book, Fr. Latour, the bishop, and Fr. Vaillant are commissioned to set up a diocese in the newly won territory of the southwest United States in Santa Fe, NM. Only, it is so new, no one can tell them how to find Santa Fe. It takes them two years to get there and the Mexican priests in the region said no one told them they were getting a new bishop and won't listen to these strangers. So, Latour has to spend another year to cross the desert to the west coast of Mexico to get his credentials from the Mexican archbishop as well.

Along the way, he acquires a mule, named Contento. Contento remains as much a part of the story as anyone else. As for me, I feel like a just took a trip across the southwest, riding a mule named Contento, and I did it all in the latter part of the 19th century.

Now, with all that accomplished, I can go back to sleep.