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3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Martin Scorsese, do I have an adaptation for you….
Some pickin-nit qualms w POV + pacing. Latter third has some swings and misses. Greene lands the plane, though — this is a great book — the first 60 pages are magisterial and as a novella alone would be one of the best things I’ve ever read. So much to reccomend here. Marked for a future re-read for sure.
“They were taken up there to the cemetery and shot against the wall: in two minutes life was extinct. And they called that martyrdom.”
“It was like the religious sense in man, crackling suddenly upwards, a black pillar of fumes and impurity, running to waste.”
“Terror was always just behind her shoulder; she was wasted by the effort of not turning round.”
“The world was in her heart already, like the small spot of decay in a fruit.”
“He was aware of an immense load of responsibility: it was indistinguishable from love.”
“All night he had been realizing that time depends on clocks and the passage of light. There were no clocks and the light wouldn’t change. Nobody really knew how long a second of pain could be. It might last a whole purgatory — or for ever.”
“…at the center of his own faith there always stood the convincing mystery — that we were made in God’s image. God was the parent, but he was also the policeman, the criminal, the priest, the maniac, and the judge. Something resembling God dangled from the gibbet or went into odd attitudes before the bullets in a prison yard or contorted itself like a camel in the attitude of sex.”
“Words like ‘mystery’ and ‘soul’ and ‘the source of life’ came in over and over again, as they sat on the bed talking, with nothing to do and nothing to believe and nowhere better to go.”
“He repeated ‘Bastard?’ as he might have repeated her name — with tenderness disguised as indifference.”
“Why should anyone listen to his prayers? Sin was a constriction which prevented their escape; he could feel his prayers weigh him down like undigested food.”
‘But the ugliness…’
‘Don’t believe that. It’s dangerous. Because suddenly we discover that our sins have so much beauty.’
“They were taken up there to the cemetery and shot against the wall: in two minutes life was extinct. And they called that martyrdom.”
“It was like the religious sense in man, crackling suddenly upwards, a black pillar of fumes and impurity, running to waste.”
“Terror was always just behind her shoulder; she was wasted by the effort of not turning round.”
“The world was in her heart already, like the small spot of decay in a fruit.”
“He was aware of an immense load of responsibility: it was indistinguishable from love.”
“All night he had been realizing that time depends on clocks and the passage of light. There were no clocks and the light wouldn’t change. Nobody really knew how long a second of pain could be. It might last a whole purgatory — or for ever.”
“…at the center of his own faith there always stood the convincing mystery — that we were made in God’s image. God was the parent, but he was also the policeman, the criminal, the priest, the maniac, and the judge. Something resembling God dangled from the gibbet or went into odd attitudes before the bullets in a prison yard or contorted itself like a camel in the attitude of sex.”
“Words like ‘mystery’ and ‘soul’ and ‘the source of life’ came in over and over again, as they sat on the bed talking, with nothing to do and nothing to believe and nowhere better to go.”
“He repeated ‘Bastard?’ as he might have repeated her name — with tenderness disguised as indifference.”
“Why should anyone listen to his prayers? Sin was a constriction which prevented their escape; he could feel his prayers weigh him down like undigested food.”
‘But the ugliness…’
‘Don’t believe that. It’s dangerous. Because suddenly we discover that our sins have so much beauty.’
Very mystical and powerful. Definitely a masculine story with very few developed female characters, but all told an enjoyable read.
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I teared up in the last final pages. Even though Greene was a Protestant convert to Catholicism, he understood the holistic and mystical nature of the faith in a way a lot of converts don’t. “I had always, even when I was a schoolboy, listened with impatience to the scandalous stories of tourists concerned with the priests they had encountered in remote Latin villages (this priest had a mistress, another was constantly drunk), for I had been adequately taught in my Protestant history books what Catholics believed; I could distinguish even then between the man and the office.”
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes