From the Bookshelf of Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge…

The Power and the Glory

Graham Greene

Discussion: 2017 Read Harder Challenge

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 44 topics — 5,607 comments total

2017 Read Harder Challenge

This topic has been closed to new comments.

* Complete 2017 RHC Task List
By Book Riot · 1 post · 6015 views

last updated Dec 15, 2016 05:50AM

* 2017 Read Harder Challenge
By Book Riot · 1 post · 3503 views

last updated Dec 15, 2016 05:44AM

What Members Thought

Feb 15, 2017 Melissa rated it liked it · review of another edition

Somewhere between a 3 and a 4 star book for me. The writing is amazing, as should be expected in a Graham Greene novel, and I didn't know anything about this period in Mexican history in the area of Chiapas, etc. But this is very much an outsider's view of events and local customs/ideals. The unnamed priest, although a native Mexican, presents very much as a white man which I thought was odd. (And does anyone know what is meant to have happened to the Fellows girl? Greene was pretty coy in the e ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jun 08, 2011 Jeff Scott rated it it was amazing

Shelves: overdrive-library, audiobooks, 1001books, fiction, to-own

A powerful story about faith and perseverance.

An unnamed priest, a whiskey-priest, is on the run from the Mexican government. Catholicism has been outlawed, the practice punishable by a fine in some states, punishable by death in others. Yet this whiskey-priest, a bad priest in mortal sin having fathered a child, refuses to leave the state. Aware of his own failures, guilt-ridden by them, he still honors his duty and gives mass, confession, and baptism. When it becomes dangerous he leaves the c A powerful story about faith and perseverance.

An unnamed priest, a whiskey-priest, is on the run from the Mexican government. Catholicism has been outlawed, the practice punishable by a fine in some states, punishable by death in others. Yet this whiskey-priest, a bad priest in mortal sin having fathered a child, refuses to leave the state. Aware of his own failures, guilt-ridden by them, he still honors his duty and gives mass, confession, and baptism. When it becomes dangerous he leaves the community. The hunt for him becomes so severe that they begin executing hostages from villages he has visited, further burdening the priest with guilt. He could leave and have an easier life in another state and does leave, but he returns to danger for one last service.

The writing here is excellent. The heavy pressing of guilt on the priest and the symbolism used is very emotional and powerful. The young girl talking with the priest in the rubbish dump that could represent her future. Even the priest, a self described coward, still has the preserverance to perform his duties. There is also a great deal of catholic symbolism with a gunshot representing a spear, a convert, and a rising that implies the triumph and the return of the faith.

"but I'm not a saint," the priest said. "I'm not even a brave man... But it doesn't matter so much my being a coward--and all the rest. I can put God in a man's mouth just the same--and I can give him God's pardon. It wouldn't make any difference to that if every priest in the church was lime me. P162

"this was the love he should have felt for every soul in the world: all the fear and wish to save concentrated unjustly on the one child. He began to weep: it was as if he had to watch her drown slowly from the shore because he had forgotten to swim." p 173

"what an impossible fellow I am, he thought, and how useless. I have done nothing for anybody. I might just as well have never lived. His parents were dead--soon he wouldn't even be a memory--perhaps after all he wasn't really Hell-worthy. Tears poured down his face: he was not at the moment afraid of damnation--even the fear of pain was in the background. He felt only an immense disappointment because he had to go to God empty-handed, with nothing done at all. It seemed to him at that moment that it would have been quite easy to be a saint. It only would have needed a little self-restraint and a little courage. He felt like someone who has missed happiness by seconds at an appointed place. He knew now that at the end there was only one thing that counted--to be a saint." p 176

"There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in." p. 8

"The good things of life had come too early--the respect of his contemporaries, a safe livelihood. The trite religious word upon the tongue, the joke to ease the way, the ready acceptance of other people's homage, a happy man. A natural hatred as between dog and dog stirred in the lieutenant's bowels." p. 16

"But it was from him too they took to God in their mouths. 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?" p. 55

"...but every failure dropped out of sight and out of mind: somewhere they accumulated in secret--the rubble of his failures. One day they would choke up, he supposed, altogether the source of grace." p. 52

...more

Like · see review

Nov 12, 2007 Donna rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction

I was surprised to find that I had read this book back in 1983 because I remembered absolutely nothing about it. That is strange because I found this reading powerful and spiritual. The book hasn't changed--so I must have.

This story raises all kinds of questions about morality including how a priest responds in love and duty when if the soldiers find him, he will be killed. ...more

Like · see review