This Paperback Book item from Penguin Classics was reviewed on 5-Aug-2008.
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1) Paperback Book The Power and the Glory (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics. Like Mr. Attenborough, Graham Green has roamed the world. His interests were not primarily plants and animals, but representatives of the human species, often those profoundly flawed. His novels are set in Vietnam, Sierra Leone, Haiti, Cuba, Mexico, and more. His characters play out their drama against these exotic backgrounds, the expatriates and the natives, and almost certainly it is an interaction between these groups that is a dynamo which drives the novel forward. I used to think that "The Quiet American," set in Vietnam, was his finest, but after re-reading "The Power and the Glory," I would rank them equally.
It is pre-World War II Mexico, anti-clerical forces are reigning, and therefore the agents of the Catholic Church are outside the law, often literally hunted, and if caught, executed. The two principal characters are reflected in each noun of the title, a police lieutenant who vows to bring in the last functioning priest in the province. This is the principal thread of dynamic tension that unifies the novel. There is a similar thread within the hunted priest himself. He is considered a "whiskey priest," with a fondness for brandy, and he has a daughter. Does he really want to escape his pursers, or does he believe his capture would be just punishment for his sins? It is a many-faceted issue that is used to explore his character.
Graham also populates his novel with numerous minor characters, mainly part of the human detritus that has washed up in this developmental backwater. There is an American dentist, barely surviving with his antique tools; a steamship captain, his wife and their precocious daughter; and a German-American couple who have opted for Mexico instead of submitting to conscription during WW I. There are also the natives, a "half-cast" who haunts the priest, and a touchingly stubborn Indian woman with her dead infant.
In reading Greene, and particularly such a novel on the Catholic Church, it is important to reflect that according to his biographers, Greene himself was both Catholic, and profoundly flawed. Along with the works of Carlos Fuentes, this is a quintessential book on Mexico, and therefore a vital read for all Americans in particular.
¤ 2) Paperback Book The Power and the Glory (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics. The story is set in southern Mexico in the early 20th century. The protagonist is a beaten-down catholic priest who drinks too much and fathered an illegimate daughter. He is torn by the reality of his sin and the product of that sin, a beautiful little girl. He is a wanted man and tries to fulfill his calling as he hides from the law. At that time in parts of Mexico the church was being persecuted by the government and religion was outlawed. Churches were razed and priests were forced to renounce their faith and take wives or face the firing squad. The book is not about theology and doesn´t glorify the church.
It is a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a very human being caught up in circumstances he can´t control and trying to do the right thing in impossible situations. He struggles daily with doubts about his effectiveness and his very reason for continuing to resist. The author shows the humanity of the fugitive priest as well as his persecutors. The priest, although protesting that he is a coward, follows the hard path of righteousness as he comes to see it and triumphs in the end.
I found it fascinating.¤ 3) Paperback Book The Power and the Glory (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics. Graham Greene probably is one of the most intriguing writers to me. I can´t say I like the story itself, but his ability to write such complex matters as sin, martyrdom, frailty, politics, and many more and weave them so coherently with interesting characters is just amazing. Just think of the name whiskey priest! The poetry in his prose and insightful reflections is beautiful as well.¤ 4) Paperback Book The Power and the Glory (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics. (4.5 stars) Graham Greene´s most elaborate and personal examination of the good life--and the role of the Catholic church in teaching what the good life is--revolves around an unnamed "whiskey priest" in Mexico in the 1930s. Religious persecution is rife as secular rulers, wanting to bring about social change, blame the church for the country´s ills. When the novel opens, the church, its priests, and all its symbols have been banned for the past eight years from a state near Veracruz. Priests have been expelled, murdered, or forced to renounce their callings. The whiskey priest, however, has stayed, bringing whatever solace he can to the poor who need him, while at the same time finding solace himself in the bottle.
Constantly on the move, the priest suffers agonizing conflicts. His sense of guilt for the past includes a brief romantic interlude which has produced a child, and though he recognizes that he is often weak, selfish, and fearful, he still tries to bring comfort to the faithful. Pursued by a police lieutenant who believes that justice for all can only occur if the church is destroyed, and by a mestizo, who is seeking the substantial reward for turning him in, the desperate priest finally decides to escape to a nearby state in which religion is not banned so that the police will stop killing hostages taken in the villages he has visited.
The police pursuit of the priest is paralleled by their pursuit of a "gringo" murderer, a man so base that he thinks nothing of murdering children, yet the priest even sees value in this man´s life, and when the gringo, the mestizo, the lieutenant, and the priest finally come together, Greene´s philosophical and religious analysis reaches its climax. For all their faults, the priest is often heroic, the murdering gringo still has a soul worth saving, the mestizo (a Judas figure) offers the priest a better chance to see God, and the lieutenant eventually sees the priest as a human, not simply as a symbol.
Greene´s novel is beautifully constructed--intricate, filled with symbols and parallels, yet often sensitive and moving. Though the action moves through an almost unremittingly bleak landscape and the sense of dread is positively palpable throughout, the novel eventually reveals the "power" and the "glory" of faith. In this sense, the novel is as much a philosophical and religious tract--specifically an examination of the Catholic faith--as it is a human story. While some may find the novel dogmatic and the priest´s agonized self-examination sometimes tedious, others will find the novel uplifting and inspiring. n Mary Whipple
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The Human Factor (Everyman´s Library Classics)¤ 5) Paperback Book The Power and the Glory (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics. Received by curmudgeonly disfavor, Catholicism is descending from heralded heights because of the representative army of priests who sully their authority by being uncommonly common. The lead character of this book could be considered no different.
Although the unnamed priest - whiskey priest (a term used for a "bad priest" as observed by all and acknowledged by the protagonist to be true ) - may not defile innocent boys whose parents entrust him for most everything, he does drink and debauch like a sailor and leaves his DNA behind in a village, maybe more than once.
As we learn the uncommonly common priest is really a commonly nice guy, we also learn that he is deemed an enemy of the state who must be killed after trial in absentia. Although the church may have trodden on many civilizations over hundreds of years, what was being perpetrated against the Catholic Church in the 1930´s Mexico was perhaps worse. The church was being victimized by barbaric leaders who sought to call a frenzy among the illiterate masses by proclaiming a war against religious terror - and if the simple little people failed to cooperate the state begins to execute innocents to impose marshal law and fear of the same among the people. Keep those in fear in deeper fear, and they shall not arise.
As the story progresses, the unnamed priest follows his call to duty instead of seeking safety from the military which mercilessly hunts him. The cat and mouse game will have to end - the military is too large and savvy to succumb to a drunkard-priest. Like the man from whom his religion´s book expounds upon in great admiration, he delivers himself onto his persecutors in exchange for his "duty." His Judas is a sickly career criminal (whose crimes include what today´s priests are being prosecuted for) who is rewarded by the state. This Judas´s life peaks upon his receipt of the reward money for "turning in" the harmless priest who imposes no physical harm upon his fellow man and is truly remorseful for his youthful sins.
This book touches upon Catholicism in a light reminiscent to that found in Willa Cather´s "Death Comes for the Archbishop" and has horrific criminals south of the border which rival Cormac McCarthy´s "Blood Meridian." All show how good, bad and ugly times were in Mexico at or just after the turn of the century. This book is worthy of classic reference and worthy of those books´ company.¤ 6) Paperback Book The Power and the Glory (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics. In a poor, remote section of southern Mexico, the Red Shirts have taken control. God has been outlawed, and the priests have been systematically hunted down and killed. Now, the last priest strives to overcome physical and moral cowardice in order to find redemption.
Introduction by John Updike¤ 7) Paperback Book The Power and the Glory (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics. How does good spoil, and how can bad be redeemed? In his penetrating novel The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene explores corruption and atonement through a priest and the people he encounters. In the 1930s one Mexican state has outlawed the Church, naming it a source of greed and debauchery. The priests have been rounded up and shot by firing squad--save one, the whisky priest. On the run, and in a blur of alcohol and fear, this outlaw meets a dentist, a banana farmer, and a village woman he knew six years earlier. For a while, he is accompanied by a toothless man--whom he refers to as his Judas and does his best to ditch. Always, an adamant lieutenant is only a few hours behind, determined to liberate his country from the evils of the church. On the verge of reaching a safer region, the whisky priest is repeatedly held back by his vocation, even though he no longer feels fit to perform his rites: "When he was gone it would be as if God in all this space between the sea and the mountains ceased to exist. Wasn´t it his duty to stay, even if they despised him, even if they were murdered for his sake? even if they were corrupted by his example?" As his sins and dangers increase, the broken priest comes to confront the nature of piety and love. Still, when he is granted a reprieve, he feels himself sliding into the old arrogance, slipping it on like the black gloves he used to wear. Greene has drawn this man--and all he encounters--vividly and viscerally. He may have said The Power and the Glory was "written to a thesis," but this brilliant theological thriller has far more mysteries--and troubling ideals--than certainties. --Joannie Kervran Stangeland¤ Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 2-Sep-2008, 01424373019780142437308, 010-720-800-990-060-240-8 
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