"Silence I regard as a masterpiece, a lucid and elegant drama". Irving Howe. -- The New York Review of Books
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Dec 19, 2010
Harun Harahap
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Saya telah menganut sebuah keyakinan, lalu mengapa kau mengusikku?
Pertanyaan inilah yang berada di benak saya ketika membaca novel ini. Saya adalah salah satu orang yang tidak menyutujui Kristenisasi, Islamisasi atau apapun itu teruatama kepada orang yang telah menganut keyakinan. Dengan iming-iming hadiah atau bahkan pemaksaan, semua hal tersebut saya anggap tidak benar.
Ada kejadian yang menimpa saya beberapa minggu yang lalu. Di tengah percakapan antara saya dan klien More...
Pertanyaan inilah yang berada di benak saya ketika membaca novel ini. Saya adalah salah satu orang yang tidak menyutujui Kristenisasi, Islamisasi atau apapun itu teruatama kepada orang yang telah menganut keyakinan. Dengan iming-iming hadiah atau bahkan pemaksaan, semua hal tersebut saya anggap tidak benar.
Ada kejadian yang menimpa saya beberapa minggu yang lalu. Di tengah percakapan antara saya dan klien More...
27 comments
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(27 people liked it)
Jun 12, 2011
Mariel
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This book ruined my life. Sorta true. It's the catchiest review intro I'm going to come up with. I'm afraid to review this book and remember why it set me off to feeling hopeless and stupid. Band aid scenario. Pull it off!
I don't have the religion or spiritual kinds of faith. I'm dyslexic when it comes to religion, maybe. My mind jumbles the meanings and I just don't speak that language of KNOWING what you can't see and this is good and this is always bad. I don't look at someone who More...
I don't have the religion or spiritual kinds of faith. I'm dyslexic when it comes to religion, maybe. My mind jumbles the meanings and I just don't speak that language of KNOWING what you can't see and this is good and this is always bad. I don't look at someone who More...
18 comments
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(28 people liked it)
Apr 11, 2011
John Ferry
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Review: Damai di Bumi, Gelisah di Hati
Buku ini mengembalikan niatan awal dan kenangan saya saat berstatus seorang seminaris, yang bercita-cita menjadi rahib katolik. Sebagai calon pastor yang baik, para seminaris diwajibkan mengikuti bacaan rohani tiga kali seminggu. Kepada siswa seminari baru dianjurkan membaca buku "Sahabat-Sahabat Yesus", ada puluhan seri; bercerita tentang kisah santo-santa (orang-orang kudus) dan beato-beata (yang berbahagia), juga kisah para martir ge More...
Buku ini mengembalikan niatan awal dan kenangan saya saat berstatus seorang seminaris, yang bercita-cita menjadi rahib katolik. Sebagai calon pastor yang baik, para seminaris diwajibkan mengikuti bacaan rohani tiga kali seminggu. Kepada siswa seminari baru dianjurkan membaca buku "Sahabat-Sahabat Yesus", ada puluhan seri; bercerita tentang kisah santo-santa (orang-orang kudus) dan beato-beata (yang berbahagia), juga kisah para martir ge More...
24 comments
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(13 people liked it)
Sep 14, 2011
booklady
rated it: 
Silence is a modern classic by Shusaku Endo. On the cover a crucified Jesus hangs from Japanese writing characters. My friend, Carol, recommended this book to me awhile back and I've had it sitting on my bookshelf. Then during Holy Week while I was finishing Fr. Neuhaus’ Death on a Friday Afternoon, he mentions the heroic struggles of the European missionaries who gave their all to travel around the world to share the Gospel message. Sometimes it just seems appropriate to leave off one book and
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3 comments
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(6 people liked it)
Dec 16, 2009
David
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Quite possibly among the most profound and stirring books I have read that address the issues of faith. While this is based on the true events in japan, jesuit/christian missionaries going over to convert the japanese people and the subsequent fallout and harsh persecution of the people who practiced christianity. Part of my interest lies in my background with Jesuits and my Catholic/Christian faith. But I think that this book goes well beyond this scope and quite honestly my offend or disturb m
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2 comments
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(4 people liked it)
Jan 19, 2012
José-contemplates-Saturn's Aurora
rated it:
Preamble
Jesuit priest Francisco Xavier called Japan “the light of my heart…the country in the Orient most suited for Christianity”.
Fact: Kakure or Japanese crypto-Christians, meeting in secret for 240 years…reciting a Japanese version of the “Hail Mary” and yet nobody knew what it meant for many years. Estimate: 30,000 Kakure live today in Japan.
Chronology
1587- Hydeyoshi started persecution of Christians.
1614-26 priests punished in Nagas More...
Jesuit priest Francisco Xavier called Japan “the light of my heart…the country in the Orient most suited for Christianity”.
Fact: Kakure or Japanese crypto-Christians, meeting in secret for 240 years…reciting a Japanese version of the “Hail Mary” and yet nobody knew what it meant for many years. Estimate: 30,000 Kakure live today in Japan.
Chronology
1587- Hydeyoshi started persecution of Christians.
1614-26 priests punished in Nagas More...
4 comments
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(1 person liked it)
Nov 13, 2011
The Holy Terror
rated it: 
I read this for a pre-modern Japanese history course and as far as assigned reading goes, it wasn't bad. It's a pretty easy and fast read but a lot of the themes either went over my head or were unrelatable because I'm not Catholic. I had a hard time connecting with the characters; I just couldn't understand what they were going through.
This novel tells the story of a fictional Portuguese priest named Sebastian Rodrigues who is modeled after a real priest, Giuseppe Chiara, who went t More...
This novel tells the story of a fictional Portuguese priest named Sebastian Rodrigues who is modeled after a real priest, Giuseppe Chiara, who went t More...
3 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Jun 27, 2007
Andrew
rated it:
this review first appeared on [http://intraspace.blogspot.com]
this was a novel i was inspired to read by reading about it in philip yancey's book 'soul survivor'. i got this copy from mum for christmas.
endo has been called 'japan's foremost novelist' and 'silence' (first published in 1969) has been called 'one of the finest novels of our time' by graham greene. endo is a catholic christian, and much of his work deals with the tension between his catholicism/christianity a More...
this was a novel i was inspired to read by reading about it in philip yancey's book 'soul survivor'. i got this copy from mum for christmas.
endo has been called 'japan's foremost novelist' and 'silence' (first published in 1969) has been called 'one of the finest novels of our time' by graham greene. endo is a catholic christian, and much of his work deals with the tension between his catholicism/christianity a More...
0 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Oct 21, 2008
Craig
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"Silence" is an example of one of the books I occasionally purchase to feed my curiosity about religion and culture. This book struck me as intriguing because it deals with two very different cultures and helps explain the impact felt by the Japanese after they let the Portugese missionaries into their world.
This is translated from Japanese and tells the story of the Japanese persecution of the Christians as the Japanese grew weary of them in the late 1500's. It is told fr More...
This is translated from Japanese and tells the story of the Japanese persecution of the Christians as the Japanese grew weary of them in the late 1500's. It is told fr More...
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(1 person liked it)
Mar 08, 2009
Corinne
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Silence takes us to the Japan of the 17th century. Christianity has been outlawed and extreme and horrible measures are taken to convince Christians to apostatize. It is into these conditions that Father Rodrigues leaves his Portuguese home, with his companion Father Garrpe, and travels to Japan to try and do some good as a missionary, as well as to hopefully confirm or deny rumors that his former mentor had apostatized under duress.
It's not a pretty story. The torture and trea More...
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(1 person liked it)
Jan 10, 2009
Brandon
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Fascinating story of utter brokenness. Takes place in Japan, during the greatest and most successful Christian persecution in history. Christianity was wiped out. Literally pushed off the islands of Japan. The novel covers the story of one missionary priest who is slowly absorbed into the "swamp of Japan".
Before I read it, I had simply no idea there ever even was a persecution in Japan. It turns out the story is rather sad. In an effort to acquire better trading rights, th More...
Before I read it, I had simply no idea there ever even was a persecution in Japan. It turns out the story is rather sad. In an effort to acquire better trading rights, th More...
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(1 person liked it)
Sep 24, 2011
Patrick
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I've heard good things about Skusaku Endo's writing and have wanted to read one of his books for some time. The opportunity came when I was invited to attend a book group that was reading David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob DeZoet and Endo's novel Silence, under the general theme of life during the Edo period. It is the story of seventeenth century Portuguese priests who are smuggled into Japan to promote christianity despite the official ban and persecution of christians that had bee
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Sep 08, 2011
Alex
rated it:
Silence was my choice for airplane reading the last time I was on an airplane. As such, it was a horrible choice. It's an incredible downer, and arguably vacation reading should be lighter, fluffier, and an escape. This did no such thing. In some ways, finishing it was the escape.
I mean not to indicate the book was bad, however. On the contrary, it was quite intriguing on many levels. The sheer brutality of the book, and the examination of faith, makes it worth reading today by those w More...
I mean not to indicate the book was bad, however. On the contrary, it was quite intriguing on many levels. The sheer brutality of the book, and the examination of faith, makes it worth reading today by those w More...
Aug 30, 2011
Merie
rated it:
Buku ini punya makna tersendiri untuk saya, karena buku ini saya jadikan sebagai bahan skripsi :D
Novel sejarah ini diangkat berdasarkan sejarah yang memang pernah terjadi di Jepang, masa dimana agama Kristen sangat ditentang dan umatnya pun mengalami tekanan-tekanan dari pemerintah Jepang. Beberapa tokoh pun memang nyata.
Berlatar belakang Jepang abad ke-17, periode Edo, dikisahkan perjalanan seorang pastor Portugis, Sebastian Rodrigues yang dikirim ke Jepang untuk membant More...
Novel sejarah ini diangkat berdasarkan sejarah yang memang pernah terjadi di Jepang, masa dimana agama Kristen sangat ditentang dan umatnya pun mengalami tekanan-tekanan dari pemerintah Jepang. Beberapa tokoh pun memang nyata.
Berlatar belakang Jepang abad ke-17, periode Edo, dikisahkan perjalanan seorang pastor Portugis, Sebastian Rodrigues yang dikirim ke Jepang untuk membant More...
Jul 31, 2011
St Ambrose is attributed with the saying, "If you are in Rome, live in the Roman way, if you are elsewhere; live as they do there". The Apostle Paul when writing to the Corinthian church reinstates this point by saying, “and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law” (1 Corinthians 9:20). He gives Christians a model to emulate for effective transmission of the Gospel of Jesus to o
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May 01, 2011
Jessica
rated it:
There are certain books that deal with faith and doubt in a way that hits so close to home that I really need them to end a certain way for the sake of my own belief system. Silence is one of those books, and the fact that it didn't end the way I wanted it to means that I'm still somewhat reeling from having read it and am not yet sure how to talk about it, let alone say whether I liked it or not.
Endo seems to be tackling the very idea of relying on others for our own strength and fai More...
Endo seems to be tackling the very idea of relying on others for our own strength and fai More...
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(1 person liked it)
Mar 27, 2011
Homer
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Beginilah Shusaku Endo memandang kekristenannya. Ia seperti baju setengah pakai. Artinya, kekristenan yang diperolehnya secara temurun adalah pergumulan yang belum selesai. Sempat menjadi penganut nihilisme di masa mudanya, sampai kemudian dia memutuskan katolik adalah agama terakhirnya.
Berbeda dengan agama suku yang bersifat lokal, agama seperti islam dan kristen sejak mula tidak dimaksudkan atau berhenti pada daerah agama itu diturunkan. Istilah dakwah ataupun penginjilan adalah bu More...
Berbeda dengan agama suku yang bersifat lokal, agama seperti islam dan kristen sejak mula tidak dimaksudkan atau berhenti pada daerah agama itu diturunkan. Istilah dakwah ataupun penginjilan adalah bu More...
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(1 person liked it)
Mar 15, 2011
Valeria
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I found this book by accident while looking for novels by Maria Amparo Escandon. Since I was teaching Tokugawa Japan to ninth graders at the time, this seemed like a worthy and pertinent read. What I discovered is that this novel would have made an excellent companion in English class to what the students studied in history. They would have learned much about the landscape and lifestyles in Japan and just how "closed" to Westerners the islands became under Tokugawa Ieyasu.
T More...
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Nov 28, 2010
Cristina
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Aug 19, 2010
Kaeli
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A provocative book that guts the life of a man as he wrestles with the dualistic nature of his personal and professional callings, Silence delves into both the internal world of struggle and its external manifestations. Ultimately, his convictions lead him on a journey that redefines the rest of his life. His personal calling – to pursue Christ-like responses and exemplification in the face of opposition as well as his professional calling, which he accepted for his life with the vow of priest
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Jun 25, 2010
Membaca review teman-teman terhadap buku ini, saya jadi benar-benar tertarik untuk membacanya. Di beberapa review, saya melihat ada ketidaksetujuan kepada usaha pemaksaan keyakinan kepada orang lain. Ya. Tentu mempunyai keyakinan adalah hak asasi setiap manusia, termasuk tidak mempunyai keyakinan juga merupakan hak asasi manusia. Tetapi saya berpikiran, bahwa ketidaksetujuan teman-teman tentang usaha pemaksaan itu, seperti sedang bercermin terhadap keyakinan yang dianut sekarang.
Kit More...
Kit More...
12 comments
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(11 people liked it)
Sep 24, 2009
Sarah
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This books offers a fair historical background of Japanese treatment of early Christians...the hunting, humiliation, and torture. Specifically it follows Father Rodriguez who travels to Japan in the name of the church, but really with the intention to find his mentor who was rumored to have apostatized (or at least answers to his questions of his mentor). Once there, Rodriguez finds that his own understanding and faith are being tried in the same way as his mentor's had been. Thematically, th
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Sep 05, 2011
Mike
rated it:
I had attempted to read this book on two previous occasions, once in 1997 and again in 2002, and had rapidly lost interest both times. This time I vowed to plow straight through, and after a hesitant start, I finished the novel in 2 solid days of reading. And although at times the reading was spirited, and Endo's prose can be genuinely beautiful and evocative, the endlessly circular theological debate between the Portuguese missionary and his Japanese captors was miserably boring.
Pe More...
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Feb 07, 2011
Jake
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Having heard about the book through Martin Scorsese's long-gestating plans to adapt it, I finally gave the book a shot and feel two things. 1) It's obvious why Scorsese would want to film it, what with its themes of religious doubt and suffering lining up neatly with his own preoccupations and 2) As good as the book is, there is room for improvement. Endo's writing segues awkwardly from an epistolary collection of writings from his protagonist, Rodrigues, to limited third-person, a shift that wo
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(1 person liked it)
Jun 25, 2010
Dahlia
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Sama seperti Harun direpiu sebelah, aku tidak setuju dengan yang namanya kristenisasi, islamisasi, buddhanisasi atau apalah sebutannya. Rasanya dunia akan damai kalau hal-hal tersebut tidak ada dan setiap orang bisa menghormati kepercayaan orang lain. Kepercayaan adalah hak paling asasi manusia, itu yang kutahu.
Tema yang sudah sejak awal tidak kusukai membuat buku ini terasa biasa saja. Penderitaan Bapa Sabastian tidak benar-benar menarik simpatiku. Malah terpikir "salahmu send More...
Tema yang sudah sejak awal tidak kusukai membuat buku ini terasa biasa saja. Penderitaan Bapa Sabastian tidak benar-benar menarik simpatiku. Malah terpikir "salahmu send More...
12 comments
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(5 people liked it)
Jun 01, 2009
Melissa
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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0 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Jan 25, 2011
Dan
rated it:
Disappointed. It's most likely that I'm missing something important or that there is some cross-cultural barrier stymieing me. If not that, though, then the following explanation probably reflects even worse upon me:
I cannot help but admit that it fell for me, especially after seeing it's publication date, into that category of things I can no longer sympathetically, imaginatively, and humanely enter: "Of The Revolution." Its tone of loss and distance seem, alas, not inte More...
I cannot help but admit that it fell for me, especially after seeing it's publication date, into that category of things I can no longer sympathetically, imaginatively, and humanely enter: "Of The Revolution." Its tone of loss and distance seem, alas, not inte More...
Jan 21, 2011
Diane
rated it:
Thought provoking. Talks about faith and follows a Portuguese priest's struggles and temptations in Feudal Japan where Christianity was outlawed and Christians were persecuted.
This is my first book that I have read by Endo, and I liked his narrative style. Even though the subject matter was difficult, I was hooked into the book pretty quickly and wanted to know what was going to happen. I liked how he kept talking about people's faces and was constantly creating analogies between what More...
This is my first book that I have read by Endo, and I liked his narrative style. Even though the subject matter was difficult, I was hooked into the book pretty quickly and wanted to know what was going to happen. I liked how he kept talking about people's faces and was constantly creating analogies between what More...
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(1 person liked it)
Sep 30, 2010
Bianca
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Sep 27, 2010
Becky
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"From the deepest core of my being yet another voice made itself heard in a whisper. Supposing God does not exist ... " (68).
"Why is God continually silent while those groaning voices go on?" (168)
How can we believe in God's goodness in view of the existence of evil, especially in light of man's inhumanity to man? God is silent. So, does God really exist - especially the Christian conception of a loving and merciful God - or is this Jesus we w More...
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