• Graham Greene's
  The Power and the Glory

-Madeleine Glaser

What happens to a priest when religion has been outlawed and he has become the outlaw? What happens to the Church and its influence on culture and everyday life of the common man when the doors are closed amid cruel religious persecution? What happens to people who have been denied freedom of religion? These questions are addressed in Graham Greene's timelss story of life in a country where hopelessness has become a way of life: The Power and the Glory. This is not a book for the faint of heart. The images of death and decay which dominate the action of the story do not set well with those of us who eat, sleep, and live in relative peace of mind on a daily basis. Perhaps Greene's strength as a writer lies in his ability to make us identify with the characters as if they were people we may have known at another time, or maybe we can see ouselves in such a compromised situation as to deny our faith or to do whatever it takes to save our own skins. At any rate, reading the book is a memorable experience.

I will never again take my freedom of religion for granted again because this book reminded me to be thankful to live in a country where I can worship wherever and whenever I please. This is a very disturbing book, not only for its prevalent morbidity, but for its sharp truthfulness. Beyond the issue of religious freedom lies a subplot of people reacting to oppression and how that experience affects the human psyche. Another issue explores the predictable social problems associated with inhumane living conditions. The book invites many questions, most certainly those concerned with conflict without resolution.

This was a difficult book to read, yet I couldn't put it down. Perhaps Greene intended to shock the reader into a state of perpetual and cyclic fascination and disgust with the over-riding theme of futility in the face of oppression. If you're looking for a story with a hero, this isn't the one to read because the only situation close to looking heroic in this book is the protagonist's final submission to the inevitible and his noble effort to accept his fate. Nevertheless, it has left me with a compulsion to read the entire collection of this prolific and timeless author.

A complementary non-fiction piece to this novel is Greene's The Lawless Roads, a 1938 report on religious persecution in Mexico and a precursor to the novel.

Graham Greene. The Power and the Glory. New York: Penguin, 1940.