The Power and the Glory!
It’s been a couple of days since I finished the novel and it is with some trepidation that I attempt to write a review of this famous novel about a Mexican priest. Set during the 1920’s and based partially on true events the story details the cat and mouse chase between the Priest and the authorities during a time when the authorities were trying to suppress the church by killing the clergy and destroying churches.
In real life in 1926, then President Calles began a persecution of the Roman Catholic Church by burning churches and killing priests and, in general, creating what he imagined to be a God free country. The persecution and slaughter was blamed on “the Church's greed and debauchery” and it is against this backdrop that Green imagines his depressed priest on the run.
The priest is essentially the last survivor, all other priests having faced firing squads. Something that I found quite amazing was that not once is this priest named, which leads me to believe that he is much more than a character, to me he is a symbol, an idea made man.
Amazingly for a book by a Roman Catholic which I am sure he would have felt was sympathetic to Rome we are not given the usual story of Sainthood or indeed the priesthood, in fact these stories of famous Catholics are even parodied as simple children’s stories. No Greene’s hero of the piece may be a priest but he is certainly no Saint. Once a young go getter, he is now called a “whiskey priest” (though he prefers brandy) seemingly with a drinking problem, he has also fathered a child in the past. Prayers, fasts and observance of Holy days have all been consigned to the past for him. Plagued with a growing despair, religious doubts and a never ending struggle against acohol and pride he is as far away from the traditional priest one can imagine.
The thing is though the book is primarily about a chase, it is not a fast paced or action packed novel. Instead it is Greene’s brilliant use of description of the priest’s surroundings and indeed his compelling treatment of the priest’s faith that make this such a wonderful read.
Simply put, the priest wants to believe but the world around him doesn’t make it easy. Poverty pervades the slum like settlements, the people have been abandonded and no longer trust the church and the priest doesn’t even trust his own authority. He wonders how such a man as him, a drunken, prideful and sinful man as he can represent the true beauty of the Church to the people
His chase and his inevitable capture should be the stuff from which martyrs are made, but the priest knows that he doesn't measure up to the martyrs of the past. His soul is sullied by his own repeated sins, and he is afraid that in his final moments he will think not of God but of fear, and death. And in the priest's repeated avocations against becoming too proud, Greene powerfully showcases the conflicting pulls of a good religion on a bad man.
It's not easy to see, and I assure you it is even harder to describe, but there is a definite shape and flow to Greene's exploration of the priest's faith, one that is perfectly attuned both to the physical events of the story and to the development of Greene's ideas about religious faith and doubt. And Greene writes about these ideas with a practiced hand, never descending into clichés or mere exposition, but instead maintaining a fresh and interesting dialogue with the reader despite pages with nothing more than the priest's own monologues which consist of nothing more than internal ramblings.
But the book has more virtues than just its abstract ideas: Greene also fills the book with plenty of remarkable and memorable scenes, such as the sick comedy that takes place when the priest attempts to illegally purchase a bottle of wine, only to see it casually drained away by the men who are trying to capture him. The characters besides the priest are also wonderful: the faithless young lieutenant who pursues the priest, the near toothless mestizo who accompanies him, even the exiled foreign dentist Mr. Tench who waits desperately for the opportunity to go home.
The Power and the Glory is a wonderful read, from its dusty and bug-ridden introduction to its ultimately moving conclusion and though slow at the start by the end the book became a deep and surprisingly moving account of one man's struggle to maintain his faith. Really go out and read it!
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