Memoirous

I was thinking the other day while out on a run about the novel by Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop. I know, I know—how abstract. But, not really. It had to do with friendship, between unlikely characters, and their steadfastness—even that word seems antiquated—and how our lives are impacted by the love and support of one or two faithful companions. I reread Death Comes for the Archbishop every couple of years. I miss it, the story, like an old friend. We have been together since high school when I went out to New Mexico to visit my sister who was working at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu. Many scenes from the book are inspired by the landscape of this area. In fact, one of the driving themes of the novel is the Archbishop’s desire to build a cathedral in Santa Fe. The plot is sort of a string of scenes out of Father Letour’s long life. Some don’t even involve him and are merely retold stories of parishioners or myths that support the theology, local folklore. It is not a nov...

"Every mesa was duplicated by a cloud mesa, like a reflection, which lay motionless above it or moved slowly up from behind it. Those cloud formations seemed to be always there, however hot and blue the sky. sometimes they were flat terraces, ledges of vapour. . . .The great tables of granite set down in an empty plain were inconceivable without attendant clouds, which were part of them, as the smoke is part of the censer, or the foam of the wave. --Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop The above is a quote from one of my favorite books--ever. I probably reread it every year and for someone as busy reading new books such as myself, you have a sense of how important this book is to me. It is considered a novel, but is based on a real person, Father Jean Lamy who, after New Mexico was annexed to the United States, became the first archbishop of the territory. I'm sure he had his faults, history never serves its heroes very well. Fiction on the otherhand truly elevates ...