The Power and The Glory by Graham Greene

The Power and The Glory by Graham Greene

English fiction

Source – Personal copy

I love when Simon’s and Karen’s six monthly year club as it gives me a chance to read the books that came out that year I hadn’t read and ion this case go back to a book I had read many years ago. I was always a fan of Greene I think I was 11 or 12 when I first came across him, and I think it may have been through a radio version of Our Man in Havana a different book to this one, but that was my intro to his works, and through my early twenties I read a lot of his books. I am not a huge fan of rereading books for me the process of reading the time, and the memories of that reading are like a fly caught in amber that one moment remembered, and one always worries if a book will be as entertaining or grabbing as I remembered this book was.

The lieutenant walked in front of his men with an air of bitter distaste. He might have been chained to them unwill. ingly – perhaps the scar on his jaw was the relic of an escape.

His gaiters were polished, and his pistol-holster: his buttons were all sewn on. He had a sharp crooked nose jutting out of a lean dancer’s face; his neatness gave an effect of inordinate ambition in the shabby city. A sour smell came up to the plaza from the river and the vultures were bedded on the roofs, under the tent of their rough black wings. Sometimes, a little moron head peered out and down and a claw shifted. At nine-thirty exactly all the lights in the plaza went out.

The lieutent a man of polish and belief in his quest

The book came about after Greene had visited Mexico and saw the persecution of the Catholic church at the time was for a non-fiction piece, but he later wrote this novel about a priest on the run. Always unnamed, we follow his journey and see a man with many faults, not the perfect priest. There is a joke about the type of men that go into the priesthood in Ireland, and one of the men that are said to join the priesthood is the drinker. Well, this is a perfect example of a whiskey priest a man that has had a child, and Brigitta his daughter is a strange child that he is drawn to help and loves her. Even thou as she has a look around her. But he is on the run as he is being chased by the Lieutenant a man who has vowed to rid Mexico of the Catholic church. It is the story of two men with beliefs, two sides of the same coin in a way driven to uphold what they believe in but also at polar ends of the spectrum. But who will win will the priest be drawn back because of God?

She said savagely, ‘I know about things. I went to school.

I’m not like these others – ignorant. I know you’re a bad priest. That time we were together – that wasn’t all you’ve done.

I’ve heard things, I can tell you. Do you think God wants you to stay and die – a whisky priest like you?’ He stood patiently in front of her, as he had stood in front of the lieutenant, listening.

He hadn’t known she was capable of all this thought. She said,

“Suppose you die. You’ll be a martyr, won’t you? What kind of a martyr do you think you’ll be? It’s enough to make people mock.?

Then the other side the priest here is him described

Greene is, of course, known for being a catholic novelist, but for me, this has both that and also a sprinkling of what he used to call his entertainment to it. The title is a nod towards the lord’s prayer. This is also where he admitted later in life he found his faith through those pheasants he had seen and the priest that worked underground and was the bases for the priest in this book. It has a pace to it, and I always feel Greene is the master of tension in his writing. He knows how to pitch it just right and he does that so well here as we get drawn to the end and discover what happens to the two main characters in the book. Two men that, as much as they are different, are the same and driven, by belief. As Lucretius said, Such are the heights of wickedness to which men are driven by religion, and in both men, you can see this. Have you read this by Greene, or do you have a favourite book by Greene?

Winston’s score A – The book has stood the test of time and I loved it the more the second time around.

do you like rereading ?