just had this book recommended to me, highly, by an atheistic friend (raised as Catholic, from a Mexican family) who told me it was amazing, I read the preface where John Updike had three orgasms praising it, and then I read that it’s one of Barack Obama’s favorite novels ever–but I’m 100 pp. into it, and I totally don’t appreciate it. The whisky priest hero seems like a cowardly asshole to me, getting hostages shot who won’t betray him to the government, he’s your basic boozehound-loser-sponger, he’s running away from the police who want to destroy the Catholic Church but he doesnt believe in the religion he’s peddling anyway–I’m reading about him tricking a dog out of a filthy bone with some rancid meat clinging to it–and I’m just completely grossed out. Isthere some kind of wisdom or brilliance or beauty here that I’m just immune to?
Maybe I’m just a bad reader of great books, but I’d like someone to tell me what me what I’m missing. I will shut up while you explain to me why I’m so wrong about this book.
Regret to admit I have yet to read “The Power and the Glory” but it sounds like pretty standard Graham Greene fair to me.
I’ve only read “The Heart of the Matter”, “The Honorary Consul”, “The Quiet American” and “Our Man in Havana” (plus “Brighton Rock” but that was back when I was a school and is pretty hazy in the details) but alcoholic, disappointed losers feature pretty strongly as Greene (anti-)heroes.
I’m not a Catholic (not even a believer) but as the Catholic church is a strong theme or motivation to the action of many of them, I suspect the thing they have in common is something to do with ultimate redemption, that nobody is too low to beyond being saved so long as “betwixt the stirrup and the ground mercy they sought and mercy they found”. The more grossed out you are by the cess pits of the lives of many of his characters the more powerful their religion is/could be for them in contrast.
There, have not forgotten as much of “Brighton Rock” as I thought.
We read The Power and the Glory in our book club and I didn’t like it. I also thought the whiskey priest was just a garden-variety loser, but maybe I missed something.
Can’t remember any other Graham Greene books that I’ve read, but I do recommend the movie, The End of the Affair.
I think all or most of his stuff is very Catholic (not necessarily in a good way).
Its been a long time since I read The Power and the Glory and I recall being very impressed by it. One thing to keep in mind is that it was written in 1940, so a lot of what seems to be “standard fare” was actually quite thought-provoking.
As with notquitekarpov I’ve read a lot of Graham Greene but never The Power and the Glory. His books are often very bleak and he has a somewhat jaundiced view of human nature. Having said that he was in my opinion one of the best writers of the mid-twentieth century. I can’t think of any other writer who can explore the motivations of his characters quite so well. Greene writes about the travails and dreams of ordinary men (and they almost all are men) in a way that few others can match. His prose is excellent and his observations acute.
Personally I’d recommend you read either The Quiet American or *Our Man in Havana * before you give up on Greene entirely. Failing that go watch the sadly neglected Michael Caine/Brendon Fraser film of The Quiet American.