Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #132586 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

John Updike
Graham Greene's masterpiece

About the Author
Graham Greene was born in 1904. He was a member of the Order of Merit and a Companion of Honour. Graham Greene died in April 1991. Among the many people who paid tribute to him on his death was Kingsley Amis: 'He will be missed all over the world. Until today, he was our greatest living novelist.'

Customer Reviews

A gripping tale of persecution and flight
In The Power and the Glory, Greene fictionalises his distaste for anti-clerical 1930s Mexico through the efforts of a lapsed priest to escape execution by the police. This anonymous ‘whisky priest’ is far from saintly: he craves brandy, is a father, and candidly admits his hypocrisy and unworthiness. But as the last practising priest in the state, he is compelled to promote the Catholic faith – and through his travels he finds that the Christian devotion of communities is strong (frequently stronger than his own devotion), despite the dogma of the civil authorities.

Greene’s depiction of the Mexican pogrom of clerics and one man’s bid to stay alive is more sophisticated than a battle of good versus evil, as it is riddled with ambiguous personalities. The priest drinks excessively and doubts himself, but is at times compassionate and heroic. Likewise, the lieutenant who pursues him is cold and relentless, but his zeal is grounded in a desire to give Mexico’s children a world free of superstition, corruption and fear. Another priest has married to escape execution, while the chief of police regularly breaks the law by drinking spirits. There are no sinless characters in the novel. Instead, faith and violence give some sense of order to the lives of people worn down by poverty.

The cat-and-mouse plot allows the reader to sense the fear of the priest on each occasion that he is captured or placed in danger, especially through his preoccupation with pain rather than death. At times the priest is like a Christ figure wandering dishevelled and exhausted through the sweaty, claustrophobic tropics. He can be coolly fatalistic or implausibly generous, but his constant failings are a reminder of his mortality and the impossibility of his situation.

A poignant book, grounded in historical realism and religious doubt, that conveys one man’s plight to justify his faith in an unforgiving era.

Graham Greene's masterpiece
Since his death I would say Graham Greene's reputation and position as a novelist has declined. It may take twenty years and a new generation of readers to rediscover his true genius as a prose artist. I hope it won't take even that long.

The Power and the Glory is Greene's supreme achievement in my opinion. Set in Central America in an unnamed country (a thinly disguised portrait of Mexico however) where a Revolutionary Marxist government has come to power and outlawed the Church, Greene employs the narrative conventions of the thriller to explore spiritual, political and philosophical concerns (as he often did in his books).

The main plot concerns a renegade Catholic priest on the run from a Secret Policeman working for the Revolutionary government. This is no simplistic narrative. The Secular Humanist perspective of the policeman and the State is presented every bit as sympathetically and fairly as the Christian world view which Greene himself believed in. This classic "hunt" type plot allows Greene to explore his theme: what happens when the power of the Secular State comes into opposition with the Spiritual power of the Church of God?

Greene's answer to that question will provide food for thought and debate for all serious readers.

A revelation
Greene's talent for characterisation and plot is astounding. Rather than tell the story entirely through a central character Green actually begins this book with a dentist before going off on what appears to be a tangent with a person that he meets. It's a demonstration of his talent that there is no such thing as a peripheral character in this book - everyone is clearly thought-through with their own motivations and characteristics. Quite often you will witness scenes through a minor character's eyes, and this makes for a quite new experience.

The story - of the flight of a pursued alcoholic priest - is a compelling one. The inner conflict, especially when he is trying to decide what his duty actually is, is quite awesome reading. As he says many times, he is no saint, and what emerges is a picture of weakness and mortality, painted without pity or fear by a master of his art.