Reader: Mr. Savchuk

Readers who have taken the challenge . . .
Mrs. Kavanaugh
Mr. Schlemmer
Miss Libben
Nelson L.

Available: I can be contacted in my classroom between 7:40 and 8:00; between 11:05 and 11:30 (4A); and between 3:10 and 3:30. (Note that during the third nine weeks that I have after school duty.)

Why I like this book:

I selected this novel because it was originally one of the required readings for Honors English 11. I had the opportunity to teach this novel the one year I had a section of Honors English 11 and I found it absolutely riveting. The story is set in tropical Mexico during a period when Communists have taken over several provinces and has severely limited the operation of the church; namely the Roman Catholic Church. A flawed priest is pitted against a lieutenant who is intent on arresting him. We have both an external and internal struggle between faith and doubt and between right and wrong. Graham Greene is one of the great British writers of the Twentieth Century. This novel was born out of his real life experience in the Mexico that is written about. Greene replaces the wit and humor found in his short stories with a serious intensity in his novels. Other Green titles include: Brighton Rock, The Heart of the Matter, and The Third Man.

Summary:

How does good spoil, and how can bad be redeemed? In his penetrating novel The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene explores corruption and atonement through a priest and the people he encounters. In the 1930s one Mexican state has outlawed the Church, naming it a source of greed and debauchery. The priests have been rounded up and shot by firing squad--save one, the whisky priest. On the run, and in a blur of alcohol and fear, this outlaw meets a dentist, a banana farmer, and a village woman he knew six years earlier. For a while, he is accompanied by a toothless man--whom he refers to as his Judas and does his best to ditch. Always, an adamant lieutenant is only a few hours behind, determined to liberate his country from the evils of the church.
On the verge of reaching a safer region, the whisky priest is repeatedly held back by his vocation, even though he no longer feels fit to perform his rites: "When he was gone it would be as if God in all this space between the sea and the 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?"
As his sins and dangers increase, the broken priest comes to confront the nature of piety and love. Still, when he is granted a reprieve, he feels himself sliding into the old arrogance, slipping it on like the black gloves he used to wear. Greene has drawn this man--and all he encounters--vividly and viscerally. He may have said The Power and the Glory was "written to a thesis," but this brilliant theological thriller has far more mysteries--and troubling ideals--than certainties. --Joannie Kervran Stangeland

Source: librarything.com