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3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
reflective
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
adventurous
reflective
sad
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
This was somewhat a different book than what I usually read, but I picked it up after a loved one picked a random number and told me to find it on my booklist. A book about a Catholic priest, on the run from anti-religious authorities, set in Mexico in the 1930s.
Although I felt the book was slow to start (and at first thought the book was going to be about a boring English dentist who's stuck in Mexico), my opinion changed as I figured out what Greene was doing: setting various scenes with characters who start out seemingly with not much to do with each other, yet the priest is the thread that weaves in between all of them and brings them together.
One aspect of this book that surprised me was Greene's characterization of the children in this book: all of them rough, with wisdom well beyond their ages, and very grown-up in an unnatural way. There's the English family, the Fellowes, with their precocious daughter Coral, who dies under mysterious circumstances (that still has me so confused - was there meaning in it, or did Greene do this as a way of illustrating how life can end suddenly and for no real reason?). Then, there's the priest's own daughter, Brigitta, who can't be more than five or six, and yet she seems to the priest to be ancient in the maturity of her gaze, and her awareness of the world around her. It goes on and on: the Indian woman's child, who we only meet as he is dying from gunshot wounds; the children who mock the priest José, just as the government and the police lieutenant make a mockery of him also; and Luis, son of the nameless but pious woman who learns his own lessons about religion in this book.
The "chase," as it happens in this book, makes it so compelling for me. We have the degraded priest as our unsteady protagonist, someone flawed and tortured, and we're not sure whether to root for him or not as he tries to evade capture. Certainly, we can admire how clever he is - he's evaded capture for nearly ten years. And his Javert, I felt, was also set up well - as a man who experienced much anguish at the hands of the church during his childhood, he is passionate in his mission to eradicate any traces of the poison of religion from his sphere of influence, under the ideal that it will save his people and make them better, make the world better. At the end, you can tell that the lieutenant feels shaken and lost after the elusive goal has finally been achieved - he tells himself that he will feel passion for his cause again, as it comes and goes, but we aren't completely sure of that. Certainly, we know that he will remember his conversations with the priest for a long time to come.
One last aspect I found interesting about this book was its treatment of foreigners. I quickly skimmed the Wiki article for this book before reviewing, to make sure I had understood things right, and in it, there was some mention of the author, Graham Greene, really quite coming to dislike Mexico after he traveled there in the late 1930s. Apparently he had written a nonfiction account of his visit in something called "The Lawless Roads," and according to Wiki, it was quite negative; "though, as another critic has noted, 'nowhere in The Power and the Glory is there any indication of the testiness and revulsion' in Greene's nonfiction report." Yet, I argue that there are definitely undertones of negativity about Mexico all throughout this book.
No one has a happy ending in this book, especially foreigners, and I feel that is a keen illustration, or reflection, of the author's own personal views about the country. The first foreigner we meet, the English dentist Mr. Tench, is ostensibly stuck in Mexico because their currency keeps dwindling due to revolutions and other internal conflicts, and the village he mostly practices in feels like a prison - he has barred doors and windows, and refuses entry to pretty much everyone, and trusts no one. He almost gets shot (on the regular, he mentions coolly) by villagers, who hate him as they need him for dental work. He has an unhappy life in the country, and the one he would ostensibly be returning to in England seems just as unhappy when we learn that he has basically abandoned his wife and children, and that at least one of his children have died (and many years ago, at that). The best he can do is resolve to get out of Mexico as soon as possible when he finally sees the priest die, right before his eyes - but we already know that the dentist is weak-willed and foggy-minded, and we doubt how much he can actually accomplish.
Similarly, the Fellowes. Treated with disdain by the lieutenant of the police, who literally spits on the ground after being offered hospitality by the banana plantation owner Captain Fellowes, nonetheless, the Captain is happy for a while living the more pastoral life in Mexico. However, reality crashes down to Earth when his daughter dies and his neurotic, hypochondriac wife demands they never speak of it again, as well as return to England. Most hope that he had for a fulfilling life has gone away, and though he fights and says that he will stay behind in Mexico, trying to hold on to that simple way of life, he eventually capitulates because he feels they must stay together, two foolish people who have lost so much that they only seem to have each other now to cling to.
Even the German-American family seem sad and lonely somehow, stuck in a time capsule in a remote area of Mexico where the priest finds temporary asylum. They are kind to the priest and allow him to stay with them, but they are stuck in their habits and seem rigid, somehow more "unreal" than the mestizo man beckons to the priest to come on an important errand with him that eventually leads to his ultimate fate.
The outlaw gringo, of course, dies, and loses in two ways: first, he is caught by the police in Mexico, so he does not escape punishment for robbing a bank and killing people in America, and second, he does not even look as if the bounty gained from robbing the bank and escaping to the South did him any better, for he looks haggard and tired like an old beggar, rather than the proud and arrogant figure he appeared to be on his "Wanted" poster.
In conclusion: I almost put the book away, thinking it would just be some sort of macho western tale, but I was wrong. This book is relatively short and gives the reader much to think about, whether they are religious or not. The interaction of so many different characters with the priest makes for a compelling study of humanity, and I'd recommend this to those wanting to try something different, who aren't usually into this kind of setting.
Although I felt the book was slow to start (and at first thought the book was going to be about a boring English dentist who's stuck in Mexico), my opinion changed as I figured out what Greene was doing: setting various scenes with characters who start out seemingly with not much to do with each other, yet the priest is the thread that weaves in between all of them and brings them together.
One aspect of this book that surprised me was Greene's characterization of the children in this book: all of them rough, with wisdom well beyond their ages, and very grown-up in an unnatural way. There's the English family, the Fellowes, with their precocious daughter Coral, who dies under mysterious circumstances (that still has me so confused - was there meaning in it, or did Greene do this as a way of illustrating how life can end suddenly and for no real reason?). Then, there's the priest's own daughter, Brigitta, who can't be more than five or six, and yet she seems to the priest to be ancient in the maturity of her gaze, and her awareness of the world around her. It goes on and on: the Indian woman's child, who we only meet as he is dying from gunshot wounds; the children who mock the priest José, just as the government and the police lieutenant make a mockery of him also; and Luis, son of the nameless but pious woman who learns his own lessons about religion in this book.
The "chase," as it happens in this book, makes it so compelling for me. We have the degraded priest as our unsteady protagonist, someone flawed and tortured, and we're not sure whether to root for him or not as he tries to evade capture. Certainly, we can admire how clever he is - he's evaded capture for nearly ten years. And his Javert, I felt, was also set up well - as a man who experienced much anguish at the hands of the church during his childhood, he is passionate in his mission to eradicate any traces of the poison of religion from his sphere of influence, under the ideal that it will save his people and make them better, make the world better. At the end, you can tell that the lieutenant feels shaken and lost after the elusive goal has finally been achieved - he tells himself that he will feel passion for his cause again, as it comes and goes, but we aren't completely sure of that. Certainly, we know that he will remember his conversations with the priest for a long time to come.
One last aspect I found interesting about this book was its treatment of foreigners. I quickly skimmed the Wiki article for this book before reviewing, to make sure I had understood things right, and in it, there was some mention of the author, Graham Greene, really quite coming to dislike Mexico after he traveled there in the late 1930s. Apparently he had written a nonfiction account of his visit in something called "The Lawless Roads," and according to Wiki, it was quite negative; "though, as another critic has noted, 'nowhere in The Power and the Glory is there any indication of the testiness and revulsion' in Greene's nonfiction report." Yet, I argue that there are definitely undertones of negativity about Mexico all throughout this book.
No one has a happy ending in this book, especially foreigners, and I feel that is a keen illustration, or reflection, of the author's own personal views about the country. The first foreigner we meet, the English dentist Mr. Tench, is ostensibly stuck in Mexico because their currency keeps dwindling due to revolutions and other internal conflicts, and the village he mostly practices in feels like a prison - he has barred doors and windows, and refuses entry to pretty much everyone, and trusts no one. He almost gets shot (on the regular, he mentions coolly) by villagers, who hate him as they need him for dental work. He has an unhappy life in the country, and the one he would ostensibly be returning to in England seems just as unhappy when we learn that he has basically abandoned his wife and children, and that at least one of his children have died (and many years ago, at that). The best he can do is resolve to get out of Mexico as soon as possible when he finally sees the priest die, right before his eyes - but we already know that the dentist is weak-willed and foggy-minded, and we doubt how much he can actually accomplish.
Similarly, the Fellowes. Treated with disdain by the lieutenant of the police, who literally spits on the ground after being offered hospitality by the banana plantation owner Captain Fellowes, nonetheless, the Captain is happy for a while living the more pastoral life in Mexico. However, reality crashes down to Earth when his daughter dies and his neurotic, hypochondriac wife demands they never speak of it again, as well as return to England. Most hope that he had for a fulfilling life has gone away, and though he fights and says that he will stay behind in Mexico, trying to hold on to that simple way of life, he eventually capitulates because he feels they must stay together, two foolish people who have lost so much that they only seem to have each other now to cling to.
Even the German-American family seem sad and lonely somehow, stuck in a time capsule in a remote area of Mexico where the priest finds temporary asylum. They are kind to the priest and allow him to stay with them, but they are stuck in their habits and seem rigid, somehow more "unreal" than the mestizo man beckons to the priest to come on an important errand with him that eventually leads to his ultimate fate.
The outlaw gringo, of course, dies, and loses in two ways: first, he is caught by the police in Mexico, so he does not escape punishment for robbing a bank and killing people in America, and second, he does not even look as if the bounty gained from robbing the bank and escaping to the South did him any better, for he looks haggard and tired like an old beggar, rather than the proud and arrogant figure he appeared to be on his "Wanted" poster.
In conclusion: I almost put the book away, thinking it would just be some sort of macho western tale, but I was wrong. This book is relatively short and gives the reader much to think about, whether they are religious or not. The interaction of so many different characters with the priest makes for a compelling study of humanity, and I'd recommend this to those wanting to try something different, who aren't usually into this kind of setting.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
In a southern province of Mexico, religion and alcohol have been outlawed. The last priest is a drunk and he's on the run with nothing but a guilty conscience and a sense of duty to God.
This book was very thought-provoking. The characters are complex and realistic. The main character struggles with cognitive dissonance throughout the story. The book deals with many aspects of the human condition in an insightful and meaningful way.
This book was very thought-provoking. The characters are complex and realistic. The main character struggles with cognitive dissonance throughout the story. The book deals with many aspects of the human condition in an insightful and meaningful way.
Pretty slow going at first, but his ability to keep you guessing and his mastery of the craft keep you coming back. It's a good read.
It's also a more complete, comprehensive, and subtle prelude to All The Pretty Horses. Its solutions at the end are far less intriguing, but he tells a better story.
It's also a more complete, comprehensive, and subtle prelude to All The Pretty Horses. Its solutions at the end are far less intriguing, but he tells a better story.
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes