From the Bookshelf of MidCoast Libraries Better Reading Bookclub…

The Power and the Glory

Graham Greene

Start date: October 21, 2016

Finish date: November 1, 2016

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Nov 12, 2016 Louise rated it liked it

Shelves: great-lakes-better-reading-bookclub, so-called-masterpieces

Even though I have not rated The Power and the Glory as highly as a great many others I none the less appreciated the ideas which are at the heart of the Greene’s 1940 novel - good and evil, belief and non-belief, conscience and duty - weighty issues indeed! Although the characters are well drawn I found the structure used by Greene to have them engage with the priest throughout his journey somewhat dull and the story as a whole unrewarding.

In Greene’s novel, the “power” of the state, personifi Even though I have not rated The Power and the Glory as highly as a great many others I none the less appreciated the ideas which are at the heart of the Greene’s 1940 novel - good and evil, belief and non-belief, conscience and duty - weighty issues indeed! Although the characters are well drawn I found the structure used by Greene to have them engage with the priest throughout his journey somewhat dull and the story as a whole unrewarding.

In Greene’s novel, the “power” of the state, personified by the lieutenant, is pitted against the “glory” of the Church represented by its gravely flawed 'whisky priest’. Both men are found wanting in their service of the institutions which they are supposed to champion. The priest gives way to despair ‘the unforgivable sin’ yet returns to the scene of his despair “with a curious lightening of the heart.” p 57.
The lieutenant believed that a man who robs and murders, “does no real harm….We all have to die. The money - somebody has to spend it.” p 17. It is clear that neither man is a positive advertisement for his profession but it is the priest, and by extension the Church itself, who Greene truly holds up to scrutiny. In so doing he gives the reader the opportunity to decide if the priest's non-adherence to Church doctrine should damn him for eternity or if his commitment to God and the people he ministers to should determine how he is ultimately judged. It is unsurprising that the Church took exception to Greene’s novel and requested in 1953 that he make a revision to the novel - Greene did not fulfil the request. By the late 1960s Greene's novel was a prescribed reading text in Australian Catholic schools.

The most puzzling aspect of the novel’s presentation for me is also to do with religion. I do not understand how a non-Christian (and even more so a non-Catholic) reader could have a complete understanding of what is taking place in the story, especially in the mind of the priest. To my mind references to concepts such as mortal sin, confession, days of abstinence and altar stones as well as Biblical passages such a cock crowing three times thereby indicating betrayal, are so specific that they may limit the accessibility of the text to a wider audience. Obviously there are many readers who have had no trouble negotiating the religious dimensions of the novel and have been so impressed by it that they consider it a masterpiece. ...more

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