May 2008 Archives

Because I found MY ANTONIA by Willa Cather so wonderful, I've been wanting to read something else by her. At last I had the chance when DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP  was elected to be on our list of readings for the Central Market Book Club.  The writing style was quickly familiar to me but the book was tedious to read for me as well as for a few others as reported in our discussion led by Connie at the Central Market Book Club meeting Mary 12th.

There were 18 of us attending and about 3 or 4 reported that this book was tedious because of the lack of action.  There were several points where one felt the plot might take off such as when Kit Carson is introduced or when the problems of the Navajo tribe are introduced late in the book but doesn't really happen to any significant degree.  The majority of the group didn't find the lack of action to be a problem and found the beauty of the writing more than adequate. especially regarding the sentiment between the two French priests as well as regarding descriptions of the Southwest landscape. It was pointed out in the discussion and it seemed to be the general consensus that the landscape was a major character in the book.

An attendee at the discussion reported that the author herself has declared that the book is a "narrative" rather than a novel but it seemed to me better described as fiction in biographical format. Basically it is the story of two Catholic missionary priests originally from France,  their endearing lifelong relationship with each other and  their job to bring territories in the Southwest previously belonging to Mexico under the auspices of the Catholic church.  

In many cases, this meant bringing them back to the church as they had been prior to an uprising that had caused the death of Franciscan Catholic priests years before.  The interaction between the French priests and Mexican priests established in these territories prior to the arrival of the French priests make up a large part of the story.  Other parts include interactions between the French priests and the Indian culture and folklore as well as descriptions of the numerous long trips on horseback over thousands of miles, most of which were desert, that were required for the priests to do Church business or maintain "the flock" of their diocese which kept getting larger and larger.

One early scene shows the astuteness of one of the French priests, Father Joseph (second in command under Father Latour, the bishop) who bartered for two strong healthy mules from a rich Mexican rancher without negotiating for them directly.  Cather makes it clear how minimal the resources are of the two priests and this particular scene makes it clear early in the book how apt they are for the job, a job that takes not only religious devotion but also "street smarts" so that they may have the resources for their own survival, let alone survival of the Catholic church.  

IMO (and I seemed to be the only one thinking this), this astuteness seemed similar to the astuteness of the Indian trackers and I wonder if Cather doesn't want us to see a connection, rather like the French priests being "soul brothers" of the Indians and also part of the reason they found such satisfaction and fulfillment working in the Southwest though it was not anything like where they grew up.

Our discussion was quite active covering points such as the celibacy of the priests (and how realistic is that?), the correlation of the theatrics of the Mexican culture with theatrics of the Catholic rituals,  and stereotyping by the author (or not) of  (1) wise, discrete superstitious Indians, (2) poor uneducated Mexicans (3) callous, money hungry white men, and (4) vain 50 year old white women  

I must admit I was one of a few (if not the only one) who felt the stereotypes lessened the book (though I enjoyed the book especially NOW after the discussion, LOL).  Part of my argument concerning the stereotypes is that we were unable to find any substantive "sins" by the Indians or "sins" by the French priests.  Only Mexicans and white men seemed to have flaws and the more money they had, the more flawed they were.  This seemed too simplistic to me but didn't detract enough to cause me to dislike the book..  

As was pointed out in the discussion, the book is not about the priests and their personalities or character development, it is about their "purposeful faith". One of the participants in the discussion said that parts of the book made him almost want to go out and "take vows". (not sure if he was 100% serious, LOL).

What I was most surprised to learn is that Willa Cather was not Catholic. I would have sworn that she wrote sensing the Catholic Church watching over her shoulder.  But now as I write this, I'm thinking that her respectful treatment of the Indians and their superstitions perhaps do show her objectivity more than what appeared to me at first.

We also discussed the title and how it seemed to cause one to think that there would be violence in the story, especially regarding the Bishop but this was not the case. Almost as a subtle contradiction of the title, the bishop lives a long "purposeful" life leaving behind many, many devoted converts and followers.  

Though it was a very sentimental story that seemed a little too unrealistic at times for me, I enjoyed a break from our usual fare of literature about indecent, immoral, weak, thoughtless and/or basically extremely flawed main characters which seems to be present to a much greater degree in the rest of the literature we read.

Looking forward to our next discussion of THE INHERITANCE OF LOSS by Kiran Desai on Monday, June 9th, 7pm at the Central Market Community room (intersection of Westheimer and Weslayan) .  More info about our group at http://www.houstonbookclubs.org/CentralMarket/

Anne led our discussion by 19 attendees at Freed-Montrose Library on May 1st starting with THE JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY by Mark Twain which was fairly short, 8 or 9 pages depending upon which version you downloaded from the web.   It was concluded that the story was a good example of a "yarn" where the storyteller enjoys drawing out the story to the extent that the listener or in our case the reader ends up enjoying the "telling" more than enjoying the understanding of any conclusion that one might draw from the story.  

There were numerous smiles around the discussion table conjuring up the image of a super athletic and tricky frog named Dan'l Webster who was owned by a gambling addict who "if there were two birds sitting on a fence, he would bet you which bird would fly first".  There was no consensus by our group on why Twain chose to have an introduction explain why the narrator was inquiring about the whereabouts of a Reverend Smiley who might or might not be the gambling addict (probably not, most agreed) who owned the exceptional frog.  But as far as I could tell, most enjoyed the storytelling whether or not they agreed on an explanation of the story or its characters.

Next, a discussion of THE WAR PRAYER by Mark Twain was amazingly more substantive than I predicted.  For such a short reading which was only about four pages,  there were many comments about what might have been Mark Twain's position. It was reported as factual that he was a pacifist but how embittered was he actually?  Some of us thought he was motivated more by proving irrationality rather than venting his bitterness.  And of course, as is woven thoughout Twain's writings,  the theme of religious hypocrisy was front and center as this was the story of a religious congregation gathered on a Sunday morning to pray for victory.

But Twain very aptly points out that there are two prayers,  "Many of the prayers of men ask for more than he who utters it is aware of"  "To tear their soldiers {of the enemy] to bloody shreds"   and for "little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst"  were just a couple of the clauses in the "unspoken prayer" that those who claimed to be righteous did not voice in the first spoken prayer but most certainly implied.  

Of course an analogy to Iraq was mentioned but also it was mentioned that this lesson could be applied to any war.  Some thought the denial illustrated by the fact that many are totally unaware of an "unspoken prayer" was more offensive when applied to imperialistic wars such as was fought in the Phillipines, which was invaded by Americans and defended for four years by the Phillipines until they finally lost rather than World War II which some thought was more defensible.  The Phillipines was the war that it is believed according to book notes that Mark Twain was objecting to at the time he wrote THE WAR PRAYER.

Lots more was shared including a contribution by a participant whose brother had fought in Iraq and who was sent there by those who had no intention of sending their own children.  Someone wondered out loud about why Jenna Bush had not joined the troops in combat in Iraq.

We easily transitioned into a discussion of NO. 44, THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER because there were at least two similar themes, one being religious hypocrisy and the other being the case of hidden meanings or unexamined assumptions.  Wish I could describe this last theme better because it was the more fascinating of the two.  I think Mark Twain used this effectively in THE WAR PRAYER but in THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER, it wasn't as obvious until after I completed the story.  

The discussion of Twain's use of "duplicates" indicated that many of us had confusion about their meaning.  Most thought they were somehow analogous to the ego and the id or to Jungian psychological concepts corresponding to the dualities of the self. It was also mentioned that the "dream self"  was an interesting or clever theory attempting to explain how we dream and why our dreams seem disconnected to our consciousness and that there might be another "hidden side" that we aren't aware of that could correspond to the time travels of our dream selves.

One of the humorous stories that gave the narrator, August and the reader as well a surprise "hidden side" was the servant girl who was turned into a cat and as a result, when queried by No. 44, exclaimed how much happier she was as the cat.  

In the end, it seemed that August as a result of his exposure to No. 44 (who doesn't seem to be Satan but perhaps a relative of Satan - we never really seem to know) was a more fully realized person, one who had developed from a narrow cultural environment to one who was less naive about how harmful human nature could be.  Yes, he also learned along the way how No. 44 was very callous toward human life but he also learned that Christians were not always good as exemplified in characters such as Father Adolph and his co-workers in the print shop.

We also discussed intermittently, the differences between the authentic version titled NO.44, THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER and the short story titled THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER that one could download from the web and apparently was edited VERY heavily by Paine, an executor for Mark Twain after his death.  The authentic version was much more tedious to read by all those who voiced an opinion and the shorter version apparently was more in keeping with the traditional Mark Twain style of telling a good "yarn" and as a result was more enjoyable.  Mentioning differences between the two contributed significantly to the discussion especially resulting in a sense of a better understanding of Samuel Clemmons, the author.   

Looking forward to next months discussion of THE STRANGER by Camus.  See
http://www.houstonbookclubs.org/Montrose for more info.