Phew. This book is finally over. Like pulling teeth. Straight up. I have to say that as offensive as I found this book to be (within context of course), if a kid actually wants to attempt to tackle this 300 page nap, I say vaya con Dios. Because as an adult with an above average attention span and high aptitude for reading, it was a cornea scorcher. Any kid willing to endeavor on this thankless journey must welcome narcolepsy or really prefer the joyless aspects of Catholicism. This was like twelve years of Catholic school in a single book. So the Catholic school experience that I was thankfully spared from in my formative years, was mentally forced upon me when I read DCFA.
The end of the book has Bishop Latour reflecting on his time spent ministering to the Catholic people and 'heathens' during his lifetime and accepting that death would inevitably drive a wedge between him and those he cared about and who he worked with in the ministry. It would have tugged at my ol' heart strings, since the death of several family members recently has had me reexamining my own mortality, if it hadn't been for all of the repetitive racism and stereotypes. Sadly, Willa Cather spent nearly 300 pages trying to endear Father Latour to the readers and I'm sure I'm not the only reader who viewed his extremely drawn out natural demise at the conclusion without emotion. He meddled in people's personal financial affairs, only because it would benefit the Catholic Church not out of any real concern for the parishioners well being or quality of life. He played on people's religious superstitions and guilt to not only further the Church's agenda but more importantly and at the forefront, his own personal agenda. In my opinion, he was the least sympathetic character in the entire book. He possessed and exhibited all of the unattractive qualities of your average Joe and none of the redeeming humanistic qualities. There was little written in the book that made him human, likable, relateable.
Because in the end, he didn't see himself as a lowly mortal deigned by God to minister to the unwashed masses but equal to the unwashed masses in God's eyes. He saw himself as part of the French elite, almost aristocratically,sent on a mission from God (and tragically not as noble a mission as the Blues Brothers' either) to guide the swarthy miscreants of the New World. Once I understood that this priest was not willing to meet anyone half way, my mind was made up that this book wasn't a Mother Teresa-esqe tome. It was in essence the Catholic Church's Groundhog Day (as in Bill Murray). Their attitude remains the same and so identical events play out in identical fashion and it's 100+ years later and the same argument could be presented with today's Catholic Church.
And so ends my purgatory marathon through every aspect that makes Catholicism and period literature frustrating. My next dalliance in the literary realm will be The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.
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