The Power and the Glory (1940) by Graham Greene — novel #259

What an impossible fellow I am, he thought, and how useless. I have done nothing for anybody. I might just as well have never lived. ~ thoughts of the priest and main character of the tale.

 

• by Graham Greene
• British lit, Mexican lit, Historical fiction
• Published: 1940
• My edition: Open Road Integrated Media (eBook)
• Setting: 1930s Tabasco, Mexico
• Awards: Hawthornden Prize 1941
• Also by this author (that I’ve read): The Heart of the Matter

 

In Mexico, God has been outlawed; religion at least, but only in the southern state of Tabasco is the law seriously enforced. Catholic priests are rounded up and summarily executed. A few are given the chance to renounce their faith. But one remains at large—the unnamed hero of the tale, nicknamed the whiskey priest, for his misappropriation of the sacramental wine, though it is wine, brandy and beer that he drinks in the story. Alcohol in most forms is also illegal, making the priest a double offender. He could probably escape to a neighboring state where the law is not so zealously enforced, but he is repeatedly called to minister to the shepherd-less flock in Tabasco—a call he will not ignore.

 

He considers himself a bad priest, for his alcohol use, but more so because he has an illegitimate child, and yet more because he has abandoned her. These flaws are revealed slowly to the reader as the priest makes haphazard, unappointed rounds, or perhaps, appointed by providence? During his wanderings he finds a scrap of paper containing the poem Lord Ullin’s Daughter by Thomas Campbell; the final line 'O daughter, O my daughter’ affects him greatly.

He felt in the foreign words the ring of genuine passion and repeated to himself on his hot and lonely perch the last line—‘My daughter, O my daughter,’ The words seemed to contain all that he felt himself of repentance, longing and unhappy love.

For all his faults, his compassion shines through. One night, spent in a prison cell, with a miserable group of humanity, he reflects on his inability to despise them.

When you visualized a man or woman carefully, you could always begin to feel pity—that was a quality God’s image carried with it. When you saw the lines at the corners of the eyes, the shape of the mouth, how the hair grew, it was impossible to hate. Hate was just a failure of imagination.

It was not a happy time in Mexico, and this is not a happy tale, though it is heart-warming at times. It ranges from faith to faith in crisis; courage to cowardice, guilt, redemption, and love.

 

I’ve not mentioned the police lieutenant, the priest’s chief pursuer and zealous enforcer of the state’s law. By the end, the priest is not the only one suffering a crisis of faith. They are a little like Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert from Les Misérables, though the priest is not so virtuous as Valjean, nor the Lieutenant so ruthless as Javert.

 

I have read that Greene did not consider himself a catholic writer. Of the two novels that I’ve read by Greene, the Roman Catholic faith plays considerably. I’ve also read that some years after converting to Catholicism, Greene described himself as a Catholic agnostic. I think the priest in The Power and the Glory might consider himself the same. He certainly had doubts about organized religion, while still seeing value in the compassion of Christ. It is a novel of energy and grandeur.¹

 

My rating 4/5 stars

 

 

Title #28 of 50 for The Classics Club Challenge – Round IV and also as my spin book for The Classics Club Spin #44

 

The title is derived from the final line of the Lord’s prayer: 

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. Matthew 6:13(b)

 

Not an excerpt from this novel: When asked what the greatest commandment is, Christ responded…

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these. Mark 12:30-31

¹ “energy and grandeur” are terms I borrowed from John Updike’s introduction. It’s a marvelous play on the title.