About this title: This story of bravery, cowardice, and moral decay is set in Mexico during the Calles regime of the 1930s, when the practice of Christianity was violently suppressed. It portrays the heroic and doomed efforts of a priest to minister secretly to the Catholics of the region. The "whiskey priest" is one of Greene's most memorable characters: a ...
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Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Date Published: 1958
ISBN-13:9780670000401ISBN:067000040X
Description: Acceptable. MAY HAVE COVER WEAR, SPINE CREASES, HIGHLIGHTING, UNDERLINING & PAGES YELLOWED FROM AGE. FASTER SERVICE FROM US! ! ! read more
Description: Acceptable. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Date Published: 1977
ISBN-13:9780140017915ISBN:0140017917
Description: Acceptable. Well used. Still readable but not for the collector. All orders processed within 2 business days. Ships from Foxboro MA. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Date Published: 1977
ISBN-13:9780140017915ISBN:0140017917
Description: Good. Standard used condition. May have light reading or storage wear. All orders processed within 2 business days. Ships from Foxboro MA. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Bantam
Date Published: 1968
Description: Good. Paperback. Modest wear to spine. Name of previous owner on endpaper. Pages lightly tanned, clean and unmarked. Binding tight. read more
"A recently published autobiography of Graham Greene's close friend, cinema pioneer Alberto Cavalcanti, has raised questions about the trip to Mexico in 1937 that was to inspire Greene's folkloric masterpiece, The Power and the Glory. Green later claimed he was in Mexico doing research when he was charged with libel by Twentieth Century Fox.
In 1937 Greene, a film reviewer for Night and Day magazine, wrote of the Shirley Temple vehicle Wee Willie Winkie: "Her admirers - middle-aged men and clergymen - respond to her dubious coquetry, to the sight of her well-shaped and desirable little body, packed with enormous vitality, only because the safety curtain of story and dialogue drops between their intelligence and their desire."
Twentieth Century Fox sued on behalf of Temple, then aged eight, on the grounds that Greene had implied she played deliberately to "a public of licentious old men, ready to enjoy the fine flavour of such an unripe, charming little creature", Cavalcanti wrote. He added: "Thanks to vigilant, quick-witted friends, Graham was warned that the Americans producing the film had introduced a writ of libel against him, meaning that not only would the backers of Night and Day pay a large fine, but he, Graham himself, faced a prison sentence. The only solution was to find a country without extradition. They chose Mexico.
This lawsuit ended the publication of Night and Day. Graham's days reviewing film were effectively over. So he turned his eye on the story of a "whiskey priest" and the police man sent to hunt him down in Tabasco, Mexico. Under President Plutarco Elias Calle enforcement of previous anti-Catholic legislation led to the Cristero War circa 1926; the state of Tabasco suffered severely under the ruthless atheist Governor Tomas Garrido Canabal who closed churches and proscribed the killing or forced marriage of priests.
In the midst of this absurd brutality Greene's novel is parts tragedy and comedy. It is also a realist portrait of a nation in upheaval. The plot is compelling though the story meanders, following the disposed preacher down the darkened corridors of his lost faith. Greene maintains a note of dulcet sentimentality and cynical exactness. The characters are fancinating monsters. A fun book--even a summer read--that will surprise anyone not accustomed to Greene's patented sense of narrative detail and fascinations with artifice and reality."
"Great fiction offers readers windows into the shortcomings of humanity and in this venture, Graham Greene stands as one of the 20th century's great exemplars. Yet of this profile author's work, The Power and the Glory stands out for its excellence.
A convert to Catholicism, Greene wrote a number of novels in which his faith played a central role. However, it is a testament to his insight that he saw religion not as a path to human perfection, but rather a way to understand and accept human frailty. The Power and the Glory follows an unnamed "Whiskey Priest," in a southern Mexican state following the revolution. Catholic practice is outlawed. Priests must either marry or face a firing squad. The protagonist, a drunkard and wallower in self pity, flees from the authorities, all the while musing about the absurdity that if they catch him he will likely be canonized a martyr.
The nemesis to this flawed priest, a patriotic zealous lieutenant who sees faith as an instrument of persecution, also stands out as a character both complex and compelling. To his great credit, Greene never offers pat resolutions or easy answers. Rather readers must face grim reality and understand that man's state remains one of perpetual imperfection."
"This one started off - I wouldn't say slow, but a bit confusing and I was thinking I'd have to chalk it up as a good reading experience. There is no question about it that Graham Greene was a great writer and even as I was thinking I might not enjoy the plot, I was still digging what the man had to say. The underlying message. This was just written so much differently than the other two books I had read by him. Then when the focus turns to the Whiskey Priest and his flight things began to come together for me. And each subsequent part of the book kept building into something quite precious of a read.
Greene puts us into a corner where we have no choice but to judge the priest and the choices he is making. My first reaction was to think of how selfish he was and how ironic that he should be a religious leader. With each passing scene, I started to realize that the priest was flawed, but no more so than myself or any other human. He was placed into flight by unfair laws and forced to make choices that nobody should have to make. It made me wonder about our laws and which ones I have broken and how I have justified doing so. And what it would be like to live in a country where one is condemned for practicing religion. And how desolate life would be if my choice in reading was limited to what a zealout leader chose for me. Are there people that live in the same boundaries as myself that feel that their own choices are being constricted by the governing laws and how fair those laws are depending upon which angle you are viewing them from? Clearly this story made me think about a lot of things. This is what Graham Greene can do for you. He was able to make me savor the writing, become entrapped into the narrative, question humanity and learn about a piece of history that I wasn't truly aware of.
Beyond all of those things I find that the three books I have read by Greene are all strikingly different in tone and point of view. Perhaps it is because they were written at different points in his career and life experience but I found it quite refreshing. At the beginning of this particular work he used a few seemingly random characters and stories to build the main storyline and theme. I was baffled when he appeared to have abondoned those characters and side stories but was very pleased how he brought everything back together in the end."
"This little gem turned out to be quite a surprise. It is indeed powerful and it is glorious. Greene's writing seems really simple and is easy to read, and yet is so full of meaning. I am still soaking it all in.
As the lead character, the 'whiskey-priest', moves from one place to another, Greene takes us along on a journey taut with suspense and tension. However, it is really his moral journey which is the most captivating. We not only witness the priest's struggle to escape, we also get to look into his tormented soul and his ambivalence. He is constantly torn between following what his religious faith has taught him while his worldly sense seems to make more practical sense. He feels guilty for his sins, but he loves the fruit of his sin. He almost wishes that he be caught so that he could be rid of the fear and the misery. But doesn't his faith teach him that it is his duty to save his soul? He has sinned and is immoral, but he is also full of compassion and love for fellow human beings. A question that haunts the priest and the reader throughout is whether he will find redemption and if his soul will achieve salvation? Or do immoralities and sins always overshadow a man's goodness? Greene makes it so easy for one to understand his characters. The priest, with his virtues and his flaws, feels like a very real person. It is not at all difficult to imagine such a person walking some part of this earth in flesh.
While we read the thoughts and the convictions of the priest, the lieutenant serves as the opposing voice. Both have some ideals which I do not completely agree with, but I also don't consider either of them to be totally wrong. I also liked that the priest and the lieutenant, though rivals, are able to see the good in each other and have mutual respect. Through these two characters, Greene brings forth the impermanence of beliefs through which one defines what is "right". Life can always take such turns that one's firmly believed ideals cease to make sense anymore.
As the journey proceeds and we encounter various places and characters, Greene also reveals the misery, poverty, disease and utter desolation that has engulfed these wastelands. He captures the feeling of the place and the moment with just the right words. Through his words, you can almost feel the oppressive heat or the thundering rainstorm or the tranquility and freshness of an early morning. Different characters that we meet give a sense of how bleak and despairing their life is. There is a person who cannot shirk off the idea of death, there is another with a desperate cheerfulness who has to constantly remind himself that he is happy. There are several instances where we see the difference between the world-view of adults and children. Adults who have known better times and have only those memories to draw any happiness from. While the only world their children have seen is this world of misery. These children haven't known what happiness, hope or faith means. They have matured before they have aged. All the playfulness and innocence of childhood has been drained away.
Another frequently encountered theme is that of abandonment. The words 'abandoned', 'abandonment' crop up very often..be it a man who has abandoned his family, a child abandoned by her father, a man deserted in the forest. However, what Greene is really hinting at is the abandonment of this land and its people. They are cut-off from the rest of the world to rot in suffering, while the world and civilization outside progress. The future holds no promises, all hope and faith has vanished. Life has ceased to have any meaning, God himself has ceased to exist. Death is an everyday affair for them and life is just a duty to be performed from day-to-day without ever knowing its joy and charm.
She said: "I would rather die." "Oh," he said, "of course. That goes without saying. But we have to go on living."
"She was one of those garrulous women who show to strangers the photographs of their children: but all she had to show was coffin."
For the most part the novel is bleak and grim. But there is love and beauty as well.
"It is one of the strange discoveries a man makes that life, however you lead it, contains moments of exhilaration: there are always comparisons which can be made with worse times:even in danger and misery the pendulum swings."
Greene also reminds us of how peace and beauty can exist in the smallest of moments, which people often fail to notice until it has been left far behind.
"It was nearly like peace, but not quite. For peace you needed human company-his alone-ness was like a threat of things to come. Suddenly he remembered-for no apparent reason-a day of rain at the American seminary, the glass windows of the library steamed over with central heating, the tall shelves of sedate books, and a young man-a stranger from Tucson-drawing his initials on the pane with his finger-that was peace. He looked at it from outside: he couldn't believe he would ever again get in."
There is so much more I have to say about this novel, I could never cover it all in a review. Let me just say it is so very human."
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