The Power and The Glory

Book: The Power And The Glory
Author: Graham Greene

I couldn't help but think of parallels to state control over religion in India around the same time period as this book. Quite certainly a few religious institutions put up a fight (the Dharmapuram adheenam still controls a few temples today), but the Madras Presidency and the Indian state eventually won. There are other themes in book - on duty, the sense of sacred, the need to confide in a infallible figures, the all too human-ness of the priests and the people who seek their services etc. There is also a Judas-like figure that reminded me of a similar character in Scorsese’s Silence. This is someone our protagonist knows better than to trust, but does so anyway. This is the sort of thing that interests me these days and this book should have kept me engaged throughout. It didn’t. Thankfully, it was short.