An excellent book club read—there are so many themes intertwined with powerful, tight, dark writing. It is the kind of writing where if you miss a paragraph you've missed a plot point. I enjoyed this one.

I migliori romanzi sono quelli che mi lasciano come sono adesso: perplessa, moralmente scossa, vagamente isterica. Sono i migliori non tanto per il piacere che suscita la loro lettura o l’affetto che si prova per un personaggio o magari una scrittura fascinosa. Sono i migliori perché agiscono come un pungolo sulla mia coscienza, perché svitano e riavvitano i miei circuiti come un cavatappi. Controversi, grotteschi, disturbanti, si insinuano a un livello che è al di sotto della coscienza psicologica e che, dostoevskianamente parlando, chiamano in causa la mia identità morale.
Vorrei trovare delle parole semplici per spiegarvelo, ma non sono semplici gli argomenti di cui parliamo. Peccato, santità, dannazione, redenzione: paroloni cristiani decisamente demodé, non più buoni neanche per le messe di Pasqua e di Natale. Idee, pure, che non mancano di esercitare un grande fascino su di me, nella loro astratta grandezza e sentenziosità.

“Il potere e la gloria” nasce da un viaggio in Messico compiuto da Greene nel 1938, per investigare sulla feroce persecuzione cristiana a opera di un regime comunista di recente istallazione. Quello che Greene trova in Messico sono chiese distrutte, campisanti mutilati, preti costretti a sposarsi o fucilati se dissidenti. Il tutto non in uno spirito di cieca distruzione del passato, ma di ragionevole ricostruzione dalle fondamenta, con l’idea che « la Chiesa è ricca ed è corrotta e la gente non ha bisogno di miracoli, ma di pane ». Ma, se per estirpare la Chiesa-Istituzione bastano poche leggi, più difficile è estirparla dal cuore della povera gente, affamata e afflitta, per cui la fede cristiana in un Paradiso senza fame e senza dolore è più forte di qualsiasi promessa politica.

In questo mondo arido e impervio si muove ‘the whisky priest’, il prete ubriacone, ultimo sacerdote rimasto nel raggio di centinaia di chilometri, in fuga dalla caccia serrata del ‘luogotenente’. Avversari senza nome, inquadrati nel loro ruolo: il primo un indegno rappresentante della sua classe, il secondo un uomo di saldo amore ideologico e di retti principi.
Dopo una prima parte un po’ farraginosa, la narrazione segue le peregrinazioni fisiche e morali del protagonista, dilaniato dalla dolorosa consapevolezza della propria fallibilità. Orgoglioso, amante del lusso e infine talmente molle da darsi al bere, fino a infrangere l’obbligo del celibato e a concepire una figlia, ‘the whisky priest’ certamente non merita di essere l’unico officiante rimasto in una terra così avida di fede. Impossibilitato a confessarsi lui stesso, pure confessa gli altri. Impuro per ricevere l’ostia, la consacra e celebra messa. Offre parole di salvezza che è costretto a negare a se stesso. Degli altri ha pietà, non di sé.
Sono questa estrema mortificazione, questa assoluta disistima, questo vedere senza falle la propria perdizione che lo rendono un personaggio caro al lettore. Così meschino, così privo di pietas e di gesti eroici, e proprio per questo così umano e vicino a noi.
Se da un lato la sua redenzione appare impossibile, dall’altro la sua presa di coscienza lo indirizza verso una specie di santità, in una scissione tra poli morali che davvero ricorda un personaggio di Dostoevskij e che non saprei spiegare altrimenti a chi non conosca Ivan o Dmitrij Karamazov. In questo senso, il romanzo appare ben poco inglese, invischiato com’è nelle morbose contraddizioni del cristianesimo.
Man mano che la narrazione si dipana, il lettore non può fare a meno di sentire una consonanza col suo eroe (o, più propriamente, anti-eroe) e inizia a sperare in un suo riscatto. Se un riscatto ci sia, non è mia intenzione stabilirlo o svelarlo in questa recensione.

Quello che mi preme, piuttosto, è riportare un passaggio di rara bellezza, uno di quei passaggi che fa venir “fame di fede” (come capita spesso a me, pecorella sperduta, ma che pure non ha smesso di sentire il richiamo consolatorio e affascinante di quelle credenze, fosse anche a un mero livello di folclore).
Un minimo di necessaria contestualizzazione: ci troviamo nella cella di una prigione, è notte, cattivo odore e corpi ammassati. Una pia donna si avvicina al sacerdote e cerca in lui un riparo contro il peccato in cui si sente invischiata, tutto quello sporco e un uomo e una donna che fanno l’amore in un angolo della cella, come animali. Un riparo che il sacerdote, animale lui stesso, non è in grado di offrire, ma che sa offrire al lettore parole bellissime, di grande umiltà.

« Ma la bruttezza… »
« Non ci credere. È pericoloso. Perché all’improvviso scopriamo nei nostri peccati così tanta bellezza. »
« Bellezza, » disse lei con disgusto. « Qui. In questa cella. Circondati da gentaglia. »
« Così tanta bellezza. I santi parlano della bellezza della sofferenza. Beh, non siamo santi, io e te. Per noi soffrire è soltanto brutto. Puzza e calca e dolore. Ma c’è bellezza in quell’angolo – per loro. C’è molto da imparare per guardare le cose con l’occhio di un santo: un santo ha un palato fine per la bellezza e può giudicare dall’alto in basso appetiti rozzi come quelli. Ma noi non possiamo permettercelo. »
« Ma è peccato mortale. »
« Non lo sappiamo. Forse lo è. Ma io sono un cattivo prete, lo vedi da te. So – so per esperienza – quanta bellezza Satana portò con sé quando cadde. Nessuno ha mai detto che furono gli angeli più brutti a cadere. Oh no, erano veloci e luminosi allo stesso modo che… »

« Imparare a guardare le cose con l’occhio di un santo » significa anche e soprattutto mettersi sulla strada dell’amore. L’amore per Dio, certo, ma anche e soprattutto per le sue creature, fallibili, meschine, ineducate, sporche. Un amore che il sacerdote sente nella sua degradazione come non lo aveva mai sentito nei suoi giorni di rettitudine. A partire dall’amore per la figlia illegittima, un sentimento così all’improvviso nel suo cuore, incontrollabile, forte, egoista: l’amore di salvare e proteggere una sola creatura, una sola fra tante, dalla corruzione di cui il mondo le ha già macchiato il cuore.
Un amore come questo è solo il primo passo verso l’amore di Dio. Un amore come questo, per diventare amore di Dio, deve essere esteso a ogni uomo, nell’istinto di proteggerlo e consolarlo dal mondo. Ma, anche quando si imparerà ad amare ciascun uomo singolarmente e l’umanità nella sua interezza, pure l’amore di Dio sarà ancora impraticabile per l’uomo.

« Oh, » disse il prete, « questa è tutta un’altra cosa – Dio è amore. Non dico che il cuore non ne senta un assaggio, ma che assaggio. Il più piccolo calice di amore misto a mezza pentola di acqua sporca. Non riconosceremmo quell’amore. Potrebbe persino sembrare simile all’odio. Sarebbe abbastanza da spaventarci – l’amore di Dio. Appicca il fuoco a un cespuglio nel deserto, non è così, scoperchia sepolcri e fa camminare i morti nelle tenebre. Oh, un uomo come me correrebbe lontano un miglio se sentisse quell’amore nei paraggi. »

Ho amato molto quest’uomo vile, a tratti spregevole, ma pure così schietto. Ho amato le sue belle parole e i suoi gesti di carogna, le sue contraddizioni, espresse in un tono mai predicatorio.
Ho amato questo romanzo, infine, per la sua umanità, che è la cosa che sempre cerco in un libro, forse l’unica che cerco, il calore di un cuore lontano che parla al mio cuore.

During a book fair organized in my village, I was surprised to find this book by Graham Greene, which I had discovered as a teenager and had forgotten.
The story takes place around 1930 in Mexico. The communist revolutionaries hunt down and shoot priests who refuse to deny their faith. Finally, an undercover priest, the last exercising the profession, is pursued by a convinced Communist lieutenant. This hunted priest has alcoholism and is the father of a little girl he had with one of his parishioners.
A price is placing his head. His pursuers threaten to execute the villagers who come to his aid.
That's a vital text, not always easy to follow, but a significant work for the great Catholic writer Graham Greene.

A little too heavy-handed on the Catholicism-as-last-beacon-of-light-in-dark-world bit (Hitchens referred to it as "clammy handed") but it's got all the things that make Greene a fine, fine writer as well...

His cinematic vividness, his supreme control of pacing, drama and characterization, his feel for place and space...I've really got to read more of his work.

It really is a pleasure to read him. His sentences go down like good scotch.

داستان، راجع به کشیشیه که مشروب میخوره و طی یک رابطه‌ یک بچه داره!
حالا در مکزیک غربی، پلیس داره همه‌ی کشیش ها رو اعدام میکنه چون فکر میکنه اونا فقط مردم رو گمراه میکنن و فقط به فکر خودشونن..
من بیشتر مطمئن شدم که مذهب، حماقت رو به ارمغان میاره..
کتاب خوش‌خوانی بود و من دوست داشتم.

This is a re-read and, boy, no one writes this well any more.

The prison chapter, Part Two, Chapter 3, is an utterly amazing piece of writing. You feel you're right there in the dark, crowded cell with the whiskey priest and the rest of the inmates.

Sample....

"The old man seemed to be uneasily asleep; his head lay sideways against the priest’s shoulder, and he muttered angrily. God knows, it had never been easy to move in this place, but the difficulty seemed to increase as the night wore on and limbs stiffened. He couldn’t twitch his shoulder now without waking the old man to another night of suffering. Well, he thought, it was my kind who robbed him: it’s only fair to be made a little uncomfortable … He sat silent and rigid against the damp wall, with his dead feet under his haunches. The mosquitoes droned on; it was no good defending yourself by striking at the air: they pervaded the whole place like an element. Somebody as well as the old man had fallen asleep and was snoring, a curious note of satisfaction, as though he had eaten and drunk well at a good dinner and was now taking a snooze…. The priest tried to calculate the hour: how much time had passed since he had met the beggar in the plaza? It was probably not long after midnight: there would be hours more of this."

"Suddenly, he realized that he could see a face, and then another; he had begun to forget that it would ever be another day, just as one forgets that one will ever die. It comes suddenly on one in a screeching brake or a whistle in the air, the knowledge that time moves and comes to an end. All the voices slowly became faces— there were no surprises. The confessional teaches you to recognize the shape of a voice— the loose lip of the weak chin and the false candour of the too straightforward eyes. He saw the pious woman a few feet away, uneasily dreaming with her prim mouth open, showing strong teeth like tombs: the old man: the boaster in the corner, and his woman asleep untidily across his knees. Now that the day was at last here, he was the only one awake, except for a small Indian boy who sat cross-legged near the door with an expression of interested happiness, as if he had never known such friendly company. Over the courtyard the whitewash became visible upon the opposite wall."

============

Truly haunting.....

"They had travelled by the sun until the black wooded bar of mountain told them where to go. They might have been the only survivors of a world which was dying out; they carried the visible marks of the dying with them....At sunset on the second day they came out on to a wide plateau covered with short grass. A grove of crosses stood up blackly against the sky, leaning at different angles— some as high as twenty feet, some not much more than eight. They were like trees that had been left to seed....The evening star was out: it hung low down over the edge of the plateau— it looked as if it was within reach— and a small hot wind stirred."

============

the danger of spiritual pride for the whiskey priest......

"It was appalling how easily one forgot and went back; he could still hear his own voice speaking in the street with the Concepción accent— unchanged by mortal sin and unrepentance and desertion. The brandy was musty on the tongue with his own corruption. God might forgive cowardice and passion, but was it possible to forgive the habit of piety?....men like the half-caste could be saved, salvation could strike like lightning at the evil heart, but the habit of piety excluded everything but the evening prayer and the Guild meeting and the feel of humble lips on your gloved hand."

But also common human weakness...

"He told himself. In time it will be all right, I shall pull up, I only ordered three bottles this time. They will be the last I’ll ever drink, I won’t need drink there— he knew he lied."

=======================

In 1960, a Catholic teacher in California wrote Greene:

"One day I gave The Power and the Glory to…a native of Mexico who had lived through the worst persecutions…. She confessed that your descriptions were so vivid, your priest so real, that she found herself praying for him at Mass. I understand how she felt. Last year, on a trip through Mexico. I found myself peering into mud huts, through village streets, and across impassible mountain ranges, half-believing that I would glimpse a dim figure stumbling in the rain on his way to the border. There is no greater tribute possible to your creation of this character—he lives".

==============

And some interesting insight into the nemesis...

A hero-maker narrative based on moral superiority is convincingly captured in Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory, which is set in Mexico during the persecution of the Catholic Church. When a murderous police lieutenant examines a photograph of a wanted priest, the emotion comes first: ‘Something you could almost have called horror moved him’. Next comes the self-justifying memory, followed instantly by a hero-maker narrative that ties it all together so that the killer is reassured he’s a moral actor:

"he remembered the smell of the incense in the churches of his boyhood, the candles and the laciness and the self-esteem, the immense demands made from the altar steps by men who didn’t know the meaning of sacrifice. The old peasants knelt there before the holy images with their arms held out in an attitude of the cross: tired by the long day’s labour . . . and the priest came round with the collecting-bag taking their centavos, abusing them for all their small comforting sins, and sacrificing nothing at all in return . . . He said, ‘We will catch him.’"

====

A character’s conviction in their rightness and superiority is precisely what gives them their terrible power.

-Will Storr

=========================

A favorite Greene quote....

“Doubt is the heart of the matter. Abolish all doubt, and what's left is not faith, but absolute, heartless conviction. You're certain that you possess the Truth -- inevitably offered with an implied uppercase T -- and this certainty quickly devolves into dogmatism and righteousness, by which I mean a demonstrative, overweening pride in being so very right, in short, the arrogance of fundamentalism.”

============

The Power and the Glory was published in 1940. For all the struggle in the story, it has an idealistic ending. That would not be the case with Greene's "A Burnt-Out Case," published 20 years later....

"A Burnt-Out Case" review....

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

==========

Greene's writing method...

https://www.williamlanday.com/2009/07...

I like books that have more questions than answers. But the questions have to be good, like this:
"... she unhooked the child and held the face against the wood...Did she expect a miracle? And if she did, why should it not be granted her?...The priest found himself watching the child for some movement. When none came, it was as if God had missed an opportunity. Why, after all, should we expect God to punish the innocent with more life?"

The Power and the Glory started off slow and stifling. The air is hot, and the sound of a fly hovering around your ear is about all you get. There is no water. A scraggly guy shows up and talks to a mediocre dentist. Ho hum. Then the scraggly guy is off, somehow needed at a dying person's side. Somewhere in the jungle lightning cracks. The air shifts. The world of the book cracks open and the ground rumbles. And suddenly, tiny razor cuts of prose start to sting. You're alive, the book's alive, the scraggly man is alive. The pain is an exquisite reminder of reality and humanity. The scraggly man is Christ in the stranger's garb. Hunted, maligned, but pressing onward, riding a donkey, shunned by his own family and surrendered to forces beyond himself that he only wishes he could fight fairer and without drops of whiskey.

Obviously, I see this man being shown as a fool for the divine- a holy fool-the biblical kind of foolishness that somehow, like many Old Testament prophets, hits square on the center of truth and blackens the eye with true humility despite, because of, or combined with crazy assed behavior like being covered with matted animal skins, mouths dirty with smeared honey and locust tidbits. Am I reading too much into Greene? Consider this, the sacrificial servant passage:

"If he left them, they would be safe:and they would be free from his example:he was the only priest the children could remember. It was from him they would take their ideas of the faith. But it was from him too they took God - in their mouths. When he was gone it would be as if God in all this space between the sea and mountains ceased to exist. Wasn't it his duty to stay, even if they despised him, even if they were murdered for his sake, even if they were corrupted by his example? He was shaken by the enormity of the problem: he lay with his hands over his eyes: nowhere, in all the wide flat marshy land, was there a single person he could consult...."

But this is not the only thing to see through Greene's looking glass. There's more- that right and wrong/good and evil is not a black and white road as the Catholic Church seemed to at times imply, but a gray path through a hard wilderness- that evil people can do very good things and good people can do very bad things. The sinner and the saint come in unlikely bodies and their spirits cross. And this is reality and it is also the most fantastical fantasy.

Authors who deal with religious themes often include characters that, to use the lyrics of a CAKE song, "shine like justice." Greene's whiskey priest character doesn't do this. He wrestles with the divine, like Jacob with the angel the whole night through and when he awakes he finds that, like Jacob, he is limping. The priest doesn't float a foot off the muddy ground blessedly sermonizing to all he meets full of the awareness of his own power among the people, sanctified with a golden ring over his head. He walks through the mud, for years hides out among them, plodding along through life shitting and eating and fucking just like everyone else, making mistakes and trying to find meaning in the mess of it all. Greene takes characters, gives them flesh, feeds them on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and then watches them fall like the rest of us mortals. And the way that they fall! There are serial killers who use their last dying gasps of air trying to save someone else, law breakers who remain smug in false piety and feel comfortable enough passing judgement on those who share the same shitbucket, poser priests who have sold their shepherd staffs and flocks for the wolfish clothing of easy survival and governmental compliance, a conflicted lieutenant who would see his own noble theories and principles violently enforced, and a Judas figure who doesn't even have the good sense enough to hang himself from the nearest tree. And the whiskey priest shares communion with all of them, sharing the bread and the wine in equal amounts.

The story distills itself by the end, culminating in a powerful and heady sip of the inevitable. The whiskey priest manages to "work out his own salvation with fear and with trembling" and abide by the Pauline exclamation that the meaning of death is the same as the meaning of life ("To live is Christ and to die is gain.") It is my understanding that the title also expresses this, through a small bit of the Lord's Prayer: "To thine be the Power and the Glory forever, amen." But, like the whiskey priest, I am open to others' interpretations.

Graham Greene is known as a “Catholic novelist” even though he objected to that description. I mention that because this book is one of his four novels, which, according to Wiki, source of all wisdom, “are the gold standard of the Catholic novel.” The other three are Brighton Rock, The Heart of the Matter, and The End of the Affair.

Like many other Greene novels, this one is set in a down-and-out environment in a Third World country. (Third World at least at the time Greene visited: Mexico and Africa in the 1930’s and 1940’s; Haiti, Cuba and the Congo in the 1950’s.) Greene’s travels around the world (including a stint as a British spy in WW II) informed many of his novels. This one, The Power and the Glory, was based on his travels in Mexico in 1938; The Comedians, Haiti; A Burnt Out Case, the Congo; Our Man in Havana, Cuba, and The Heart of the Matter, Sierra Leone.



Greene hit his literary stride in writing set in these destitute countries marked by starvation, disease, political tyranny, graft and corruption.

In this novel the focus is on anti-clericalism in Mexico in the 1930’s. Greene’s publisher specifically paid for his trip to Mexico for this purpose in 1938. Anti-clericalism has a long history in Mexico related to the Revolutions in 1860 and 1910 and the Constitution of 1917 which seized church land, outlawed monastic orders, banned public worship outside of churches, took away political rights from clergy and prohibited primary education by churches.

By the 1930’s the persecution of clergy had reached new heights, varying in each Mexican state depending upon the political inclinations of the governors. In Tabasco state, on the southernmost curve of the Gulf of Mexico, persecution was the worst and it’s likely the geographical setting of the story. We’re in a place of subsistence farming and banana plantations, days from any city by walking, mule or water. Churches here were closed and many destroyed. Priests were forbidden to wear garb or even conduct masses and many were forced to marry. The persecution escalated to the point where priests were hunted down by police and executed without trial.



On to the story: Our main character is a priest on the run because there is a reward on his head. He's not dressed as a priest but his diction and decorum as an educated man give him away. Just about everyone he meets assumes he’s a priest on the run.

But he’s a “whiskey priest,” addicted to his wine. He has also fathered an illegitimate child. At one point he meets his 7-year old daughter for the first time. Everywhere he goes crowds of peasants beseech him to perform a mass, conduct weddings and baptisms. Depending on his level of fear, sometimes, in despair, he ignores them and moves on; other times he conducts the sacraments. Sometimes he calculates how much he will charge for baptisms and how many bottles of wine the receipts will buy him. Because of his drinking, his illicit liaison, and his fear of death by firing squad, he feels unworthy of his role. He’s human.

We have other characters of course. A dentist, cut off by WW II from contact with his family in Europe, despairs of ever seeing them again. A precocious 13-year old runs the family plantation for her incapacitated parents. She hides the priest for a time. We have good cops/bad cops in pursuit of the priest; some want to see him killed and some try to help him. The priest can’t trust anyone --- an offer of help may be a trap to get the reward on his head --- a huge sum in this backwards, destitute world.

A few quotes:

He walked slowly; happiness drained out of him more quickly and completely than out of an unhappy man: an unhappy man is always prepared.

[A man talking to his wife] It’s not such a bad life…But he could feel her stiffen: the word “life” was taboo: it reminded you of death.

The woman began to cry – dryly, without tears, the trapped noise of something wanting to be released…

Of course, a classic.

Photo from runyon.lib.utexas.edu
Anti-clerical logo from newworldencyclopedia.org

It’s 1930s Mexico, and we follow an ‘outlaw’ priest on the run. A priest who – I’m not sure if 'self-loathing' is the right term – is struggling with his belief that he is a bad priest.

The internal struggles of a Catholic Priest's heart and mind, which to me seem fairly pointless, as they appear to be self-imposed, and also the internal conflicts created by religion such as witnessed here, is something I have little interest in.

A couple of hundred pages of this was painful.

I now understand Greene converted to Catholicism in the late 1920s. I have also learned that his books seem to be classified into two genres. First, the entertainment, suspense novels, and second, the more literary type, such as this work dealing with matters of faith.

Note to self: I must remember to avoid the latter like the plague.

However, I didn’t want this drab affair to go to waste as the history is fascinating, albeit terribly violent. Mexico during this period was destroying churches and shooting priests to move towards a secular society. Alcohol was also banned. Tens of thousands of people on both sides (Government and Christian) sadly died during this conflict. So, it was interesting from a historical perspective.

My fascination came after reading this book. I had no relationship with any of the characters, and I found the plot a tad diffuse. I couldn’t wait for it to finish.

تشعر انها ديستوبيا الحرب ضد الدين من بدايتها
سوداوية مهاجمة الدين والكنيسة وقتل الرهبان

شعرت فب بعض المواقف اننا في العالم برادبري في فهرنهايت وعقاب من نجد عنده راهب او كتاب ديني

في المجمل كانت جيدة لكن لم تكن رائعة للأسف ولكن الترجمة سلسة جدا

Si te gustan los libros diferentes, aquellos que invitan a reflexionar, éste es uno de ellos.

El autor, Graham Greene, fue un católico converso que se debatió toda su vida entre el deber ser y el ser, entre lo que debía hacer teóricamente... y lo que realmente hacía. Esta dualidad la plasmó en muchas de sus obras, pero tuvo aquí su punto culminante. ¿Quién obra mejor, el que dice que hace pero no, o el que dice que no pero realmente hace?

Para enmarcar esta pregunta, Greene nos lleva a uno de los momentos más duros del siglo XX: la Guerra Cristera mexicana, cuando este país católico prohibió la religión bajo pena de muerte. A partir de ese momento, hubo quienes optaron por la legalidad y renegaron de su fe y los que siguieron practicándola ocultamente. Pero, ¿eran tan malos los de la primera opción y tan buenos los de la segunda? ¿es posible hacer cosas buenas aún siendo "malo"? ¿son absolutamente puros aquellos que se nos presentan como "ejemplares"? Todo ello en medio del tórrido calor mexicano, acompañado de tequila y tradiciones culturales.

Una novela para disfrutar. Para mí, una de mis favoritas.

Io che ero abituata al Greene dello spionaggio e degli intrighi internazionali sono rimasta senza parole di fronte a questa storia così sofferta, a questa atmosfera piene d'angoscia, di stanchezza e di dolore. È la storia di un prete che fugge e si nasconde dalle persecuzioni del Messico rivoluzionario; un prete che si consuma pensando al suo orgoglio, ai suoi peccati, a quanto in basso è caduto, ma che non cessa mai di interrogarsi sulla sua fede e sul significato della sua vocazione. Al di là della riflessione puramente religiosa, che a me non interessa granché, vediamo proprio un uomo dibattersi e, grazie alla maestria di Greene, percepiamo tutta la sua miseria. La scena della bottiglia di vino, ad esempio, per me è stata straziante.