Graham Greene: The Power and the Glory

Graham Greene is a terrible author. I've intermittently been unfortunate enough to run across his novels and have never emerged better for the experience. His plots are pale shadows of half-formed tales. His tone is depressing and his view of the world is twisted and, despite the genteel confines of his English settings, subliminally brutal. Unlike Nabokov, whose oft-bewildering tales of despair, sorrow or loss shine and cut like fragile-looking jewels, Greene seems to be determined to bluntly gut any meaning or cohesiveness from the world.

The Power and the Glory is different from Greene's usual fare. Certainly, it's sad. Its Mexican setting is twisted, gory and perverse, much like Hemingway's war world. In this book, however Greene presents us with an actual plot. Even more, he includes a sub-plot, character development (or perhaps it's revelation) and symbolic substitution. Shockingly, Greene's subplot -- a tale of a recalcitrant, rebellious boy named Luis -- introduces hope.

The Mexican priest Greene chooses as his unwitting hero represents human confusion as he models the struggle between self-preservation and sanctification. The burdens of sin, guilt and persistent confusion that dog Greene's heroes are clarified through the priest's internal monologues. The priest wanders the Mexican landscape, avoiding capture by the dominant Redshirts and bringing death in his wake. Despite his desire for self-preservation, he repeatedly follows perceived duty into situations that prevent true escape. By the end of the book, it becomes clear that the priest's tortuous burden of guilt cannot overcome his sense of duty and mercy. His inevitable betrayal and death represent both the obvious Christological reference and the death of a martyr.

Do I recommend reading this book? If you have to read something by Graham Greene, this is the book to read. It's as appropriate in its setting as Crane's The Red Badge of Courage or Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. If you detest Graham Greene's other works, this book illuminates Greene's dedication to internal struggles of conscience in a comprehensible, interpretable plot. As the book ends, Greene reviews the reaction of the priest's significant hosts or enemies. Each of them has somehow been affected, somehow pushed to consider life. I suspect that each reader will also be pushed to reflect, to think.