Romanzo pubblicato nel 1940, Il potere e la gloria trascina il lettore in un polveroso Messico post rivoluzionario in cui la religione è vietata e punita severamente. Il protagonista del romanzo è un prete, che per sopravvivere fugge e si nasconde, cercando aiuto nei villaggi in cambio di conforto religioso e sacramenti.
A dargli la caccia un luogotenente spietato e totalmente convinto della necessità di estirpare la religione, ma che non è esente da generosità e anche larghezza nell'esercizio del suo dovere.
Ma il nostro prete protagonista è ben lontano dai martiri dell'iconografia cattolica: è alcolizzato, ha avuto una relazione con una donna da cui è nata una figlia, è codardo e anche superbo. Ma è perfettamente conscio di tutti i suoi difetti e lotta con essi per la maggior gloria (per l'appunto) di Dio, cercando di convincersi che anche un cattivo prete è meglio di niente, perché lui è solo un veicolo di qualcosa di più grande e più forte, che sopravvivrà a lui e a chi lo osteggia.
Greene ci porta nella mente di un uomo perduto eppure autentico, pieno di debolezze e paure, ma che pure non si sottrae al suo dovere, perché riesce a credere in qualcosa di più grande.
Notevoli anche i personaggi secondari, pur tratteggiati anche in pochi paragrafi, emergono con pregi e debolezze (più debolezze in realtà), come se fossero persone vere.

Simply one of the most artfully written novels I've ever read. Mr Greene, of whom I'm a big fan, writes simply, but with great meaning. Few words, commas or semicolons are out of place.

With each of his novels, he is able to examine a trait of the human condition at the extreme. I've been told that many stay away from him because, like Evelyn Waugh, he's considered a Catholic writer. He did convert to Catholicism in his late twenties in order to marry a Catholic, then later dove in head first, spiritually speaking. Despite that, his novels are really about the human condition. This novel is perhaps his most overtly Catholic. It's about one of the last Mexican priests left in a very poor area of Mexico during the Spanish/Mexican inquisition. He's quite the despicable priest. There isn't much the man hasn't done that one wouldn’t abhor in general, but as a Priest it is particularly distasteful and probably criminal. Without shining the man up, Greene finds an avenue for the reader to have compassion for this horrible priest. To that end, perhaps this novel is about forgiveness, compassion and second chances. Those are ideas I hope we can all get behind. I highly recommend this book.

I read this book during my 3-day visit in San Diego and it was an appropriate choice because of the proximity of the place to Mexico and there are more Mexicans in that place than causcasians. This book is considered by many novelists as Graham Greene's masterpiece and I think they are right.

This is a story of a nameless Catholic priest who is pious but at the same time alcoholic and fathered a child. These may not be shocking at the present time but this novel created a scandal in the catholic world when it was asked by a cardinal of Westminster to be revised including the two other novels of the same author. The setting of the story was in Mexico when the government, in the 30's was trying to eradicate Catholicism in the country.

The main two characters are that priest (the last one standing) and the lieutenant who was able to arrest and prosecute the priest towards the end of the story. However, prior to the final scene another priest came up that gave the hint that the catholicism was there to survive in Mexico.

What I really liked about the story is the presentation of the characters. The 'human' character of the priest was not hidden for the sake of making him saint-like. Also, the character of the lieutenant was also not all evil. In fact, in most parts of the story he made more sense that the priest except when he was killing people for the priest to surface.

This book is both in the 501 and 1001 Must Read Books and indeed it is right to be there.

I've tried with Greene, I really have, but I've yet to read a story of his that truly grabs me and holds my attention.

For a short book of just over 200 pages, it felt like an endless waiting game. I kept waiting for the moment when I would connect to this "whisky priest", feel for him, and become immersed in his story. I kept waiting for an inexplicable something else to happen that would elevate the story and make it more interesting to me. I kept waiting... and then suddenly it was the end.

The best aspect of The Power and the Glory is that it introduced me to an area of Mexican history I knew little about-- La Cristiada. This was a time when Catholicism was outlawed, and in some areas of Mexico the ban was enforced with violence. Catholics were tortured and executed; churches were fired upon. But that premise is where my interest ends.

The rest of the story follows a whisky priest on the run in rural Tabasco. He moves around, evades capture and ruminates over Catholic doctrine. Themes of duty, faith, sin and a heavy serving of Catholic guilt abound. Sound interesting? Then this is the book for you.

The Power and the Glory is a forceful parable about faith and human nature from that most Catholic of novelists, Graham Greene. Set in Mexico during the anti-clerical violence of the 1920s, the story follows an unnamed Catholic priest who is fleeing persecution by the state, along with a vicious police lieutenant, an English dentist who is trapped in the country, an American outlaw and an unnamed "mestizo" whom the protagonist fears plans to betray him. The novel is dark and heavy, as one might expect from the premise; most of the human interest emanates from the protagonist, a self-described "whiskey priest" who enjoyed alcohol, women (he fathered illegitimate children) and the sacraments of his office a little too much, now being forced Job-like into a position of suffering that reaffirms his faith...in God, if not himself. The novel sparks during its confrontations between the priest and policeman, whom Greene portrays as a highly moral man serving what the author considers an amoral cause - the extermination of the Catholic Church, identified in Mexico with reactionary repression and corporeal corruption. Among other thematic conceits, Greene weighs whether the protagonist's religious faith redeems his personal failings, and whether the villain's honorable intentions balance his brutal actions, resulting in a fascinating moral dialogue that will challenge the open-minded reader even to its tragic conclusion. Made into a leaden, dreary film (retitled The Fugitive) by John Ford, who seems to miss Greene's point aside from the copious Catholic imagery.

When a man with a gun meets a man with a prayer.....the man with a prayer is a dead man."

Not many people would start off a review of a Graham Greene novel with a paraphrase from a Clint Eastwood movie, but I am just a drifter on the high plains of literature. This is no doubt a powerful novel with the same theme of man's relation to God that suffuses many of Greene's other works. In a Mexico where state control had broken down, local satraps carried out projects of their own, taking national policy to extremes. So, in Tabasco, a warlord decreed that all priests must be expelled, forced to marry, or killed; all churches would be closed or destroyed. A few priests dared to stay behind in secret, defying the tyrant, ministering to the suffering masses (or continuing to bilk them---from an atheistic point of view) The main character here is a priest, driven from pillar to post, hunted like a bandit (indeed he is paired with a gringo killer in terms of police priorities), riding a mule through the jungles and swamps, hiding out with reluctant villagers, fearing betrayal at every step, but never giving up. He recognizes that he is a sinner (alcoholic, father of a child) but though he is human, he is yet divine through his soaring spirit, which slowly emerges and arises through his fear. Whether Greene could really get inside a Mexican priest's head is another question. I'll leave it to Mexicans to decide. A cold-blooded police lieutenant hunts the priest, swearing to kill him. He too is human, not a cardboard baddie, he has hopes for the new generation who will never be subservient to the wiles of `the Church'. A couple minor English characters appear from time to time: though well-drawn, I felt they were superfluous in a parable-style tale like this. Pain and martyrdom, sacrifice, duty, contradiction and consistency---all these in God's name or in the name of no God, but Fate. The priest escapes to Chiapas, a more moderate state, but returns at the behest of a debased informer, knowing his certain doom full well, accepting his Fate (even though dreading it) like Christ. The police lieutenant understands the priest's humanity at the end, but carries out his duty. The power wins out, but the glory lives on. A great book which carries a lot of suspense within its pages.

Πραγματικά αριστούργημα. Νομίζω πως όποιος αγαπάει τον Γκριν "πρέπει" να το διαβάσει. Σπουδαία δουλειά στη μετάφραση (αλλά αυτό δεν ήταν έκπληξη).

[9/10] a great book, I could easily have given it 5 stars, but I'm trying to curb my enthusiasm a little, seeing how high my overall rating is. What can I do? I love books and I'm not that difficult to please. Although pleasing is not the first thing that comes to mind about The Power and The Glory.

Disturbing, heart wrenching, gloomy, suicidally downbeat for most of the journey - yet I feel this is a story that needed to be told, one that couldn't be sugar coated with witty remarks or beautiful phrasing.
The first things to meet the reader are the buzzards hanging on top of derelict buildings in a small Mexican town suffocated by relentless heat and poverty. The setting feels like the cemetery of dreams - all dreams, whether they are of monetary success (the dentist) , revolutionary victory (the lieutenant) or redemption (priest) .

The Father is a memorable character not in his role as the last priest to escape fatal persecution at the hands of the new government, but in his human frailty. In his own words he is not a martyr and is not trying to become one, but for all his vices and weaknesses, he is still trying to do good for his fellow men, deserving or not. He is also self aware and constantly struggling to reconcile his cowardice with his enduring belief in a higher power. I don't subscribe to any established religion myself (I prefer the term "humanist" to "atheist") , but I have always been interested in the role faith plays both in the individual development and in defining a culture at a certain moment in time. This book provided a lot of food for thought, and while it criticizes some of the most ill advised practices of catholicism (celibacy, greed, intransigence, the doctrine of suffering in this life for rewards in the next one) , it also brings out the best in some people - mercy, tolerance, empathy, selflessness.

The book also contains one quote that I have long memorized, without putting it in the context of this particular story:

Hate is a failure of the imagination

If I have any criticism of the book, it will not be about the writing - Greene outdid himself here - but with a little anti-science sermon right by the end. I'm trying not to give spoilers, but it was a claim that miracles still happen today and scientists are refusing to acknowledge them. It felt for me unnecessary to the story so far and poorly argumented.

Extraordinary, my favorite of the Greenes I’ve read, like a kinetic action scene with some slowed down sequences out of Dostoyevsky, and a touch of The Night of the Hunter. Goodness I loved this book.

After I finished this, I found myself thinking about it. It's not a romantic story about faith, and I remember Greene writing about 'anti-heroes' at best. The "whiskey priest" is arrogant, cowardly, crude, and blasphemous, and sometimes most at once. Reflects an ambiguous and complicated relationship with faith, and I'm not even sure if Greene believes in the ending.

Graham Greene's whisky priest is one of our better martyrs. Self-loathing, self-pitying, starving, he shambles helplessly through this parable of a book.

It gets off to a fragmented start; for the first third or so, you might not be sure who the protagonist is. Stick with it; it will gain focus, and everyone is there for a reason. Greene's structure is in fact precise. The fat, hopeless Padre Jose, miserably married, is there to show us what the whisky priest is doing right. The vicious but surprising lieutenant is a key player. The dentist...well, okay, I'm not totally sure what he's about, but he feels right. Even Luis, the boy bored by the lame story of pious Juan, turns out to be the whole point.

The point is hopeful. This is a forgiving conception of God, oddly enough. In its way it recalls that last sentence of the great Middlemarch:

The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

Eliot wasn't talking about God, and Greene is, but their messages are similar.

I was reminded of Shūsaku Endō's searing Silence (1966), which (I now realize) must be a response to Greene. That book is also terrific. Maybe better.

But this is awfully good.

„Moartea începea să-l atragă prin felul în care simplifica lucrurile...” (p.203).

Firește, preotul din Puterea și gloria are toate păcatele: e alcoolic, i se spune „popa Țuică = Whisky priest”, a făcut și un copil, pe Brigitta, deși clerul catolic e obligat să respecte abstinența etc. Dar e singurul preot care a ales să rămînă într-un ținut din Mexic, Tabasco, stăpînit de revoluționari atei. Ceilalți clerici ori au renunțat la slujbă (precum padre José, renegatul), ori au fost uciși. A rezistat doar el.

Omul „sărman, rău îmbrăcat, uscățiv”, care cerșește brandy cu o „umilință ostilă” (p.59), continuă în pofida amenințărilor să-i împărtășească pe oameni, să-i asculte, să-i boteze, să spună o rugăciune la căpătîiul defuncților, să-i urmeze la cimitir.

Trăiește o viață de pribeag. Nu are un acoperiș. Doarme pe unde apucă. E hăituit de poliție. Suferă adesea de foame și sete. Fiica lui, Brigitta, îl disprețuiește. E ros mereu de îndoieli: „Dar eu nu-s un sfînt... Nu sînt nici măcar un om curajos” (p.300). Se consideră mai mult rău decît bun: „Răul circula prin venele lui precum malaria” (p.272). Poate fugi din țară (și chiar o face pentru cîteva zile), dar se întoarce resemnat tocmai pentru a-și urma soarta de preot mărunt, mult îndurător, cu greșeli strigătoare la cer și cu momente de vădită sfințenie. Ceea ce nu uită el niciodată e umilința. Știe că va muri...

Oare cum se va descurca Dumnezeu cu acest păcătos?

Un roman care dă de gîndit. Nu-l ratați...

P. S. Se înțelege că romanul lui Graham Greene i-a iritat pe unii prelați catolici. Ei n-au putut sesiza deosebirea dintre o ficțiune și un reportaj și au văzut în Puterea și gloria un pamflet la adresa catolicismului...