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3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
Graham Greene is incredible. If you read just one of his books, pick this one.
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The Power and the Glory was added to my list as I try to conquer Esquire's List of 75 Books Every Man Should Read. I grasp the significance of hefty conflicts between a priest and his conscience and a police lieutenant who is a good man that wants to kill the priest as part of a state sponsored war of religion in Mexico. The weighty themes are probably responsible for earning a gaudy reader rating over 4. Unfortunately, it was not generally compelling as written such that it became a chore to read and a book that I wanted to finish to move on to something better.
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
It was good to get back to Graham Greene after so many years. “The Power and the Glory” is a story of a ‘whisky priest’ who is a fugitive in a province of Mexico in the 1930s when the Catholic Church was banned and priests were shot. The linear story is of the priest on the run, celebrating mass, hearing confessions under the cover of night, and staying just one step in front of the government forces that are out to execute him. But, as always with Greene, it is never just the linear story, and within the pages, we are presented with an exploration of faith and belief that raises so many thought-provoking issues. It’s a raw novel about, among other things, suffering, deceit, mortality, duty, fear, and poverty. My second reading after all these years was just as powerful as the first all those years ago.
An escape story heavy with the remains of two ideologies in crisis: atheistic communism and Latin Catholicism. The unnamed whiskey priest is on the run from Marxist forces in rural Mexico, and while eluding several near-captures he struggles with his conscience, knowing full well the futility of his rebellion and carrying the weight of his sins. "The Power and the Glory" is a meditation on the role of religion in a society where most of the people are living on the edge of survival, exploited by those in power and waiting for the comforts of the afterlife.
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
adventurous
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
tense
fast-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
A beautiful book; a moving (and quickly moving) tale of a very flawed, but dutiful man's personal Calvary. A psychological and spiritual portrait of weakness, faith, and duty. An evocative story of the excesses of revolution and of religiousity. This is my first Greene book, but it certainly won't be my last, his prose is brisk, carrying the reader along, without losing sight of the personal details which really transport a reader into the minds of a novel's subjects. A truly remarkable work.