The Power and the Glory

 

The Power and the Glory
by Graham Greene
read: 2020
Time 100 Novels, Guardian 1000 Novels

The Heart of the Matter was about Henry Scobie's gradual betrayal of nearly everything he holds dear, and Greene puts similar themes on display in The Power and the Glory. The novel follows a priest in Mexico on the run from a government suppressing the Catholic faith. He loses all the trappings of his office as he goes. A drunkard who once sired a daughter, the priest has crossed almost every line that exists. Despite that, he cannot give up his faith. He refuses to, like Padre Jose, take a wife and renounce the church, and he continues to put himself in danger by practicing his religion when he has the opportunity to flee to safer pastures. He's weak for his failings, but there's a kernel of resolve there too, or at least stubbornness.

The Heart of the Matter

The Heart of the Matter
by Graham Greene
read: 2020
Time 100 Novels, Modern Library #40

The story arc of The Heart of the Matter takes us through the betrayals, compromises, and infidelities of well-meaning Henry Scobie, as he betrays his job, his wife, his integrity, his religion, and his soul. Spoilers ahead.

Two themes stand out to me: one is the misery involved in the human condition. Scobie's daughter dies young. Scobie's wife Louise is unhappy, and when Scobie has an affair he finds his new mistress just as unhappy. Pemberton, a young soldier, commits suicide. A ship is sunk many die, including a young child who survives days of exposure at sea before finally succumbing. If there is a God, is He capriciously cruel?

Pointlessness is the other theme that stands out. Actions rarely have consequences. Wilson is investigating Scobie the whole time, but cannot pin anything on him even though Scobie eventually does help smugglers. Scobie fails to keep his affair secret, and his wife finds out, but it doesn't matter. Scobie is passed over for Commissioner, then gets the job, then doesn't wind up taking it. The one daring chance Scobie takes for Helen, writing her a letter, never reaches her. Scobie takes great pains to plan his suicide so it will be taken as a natural death, but Wilson finds him out. And even that suicide, which Scobie does with the understanding that it will damn his soul forever, may not condemn him in the end. On the book's final page, Louise talks to Father Rank, who tells her, "[D]on't imagine you—or I—know a thing about God's mercy ... The Church knows all the rules. But it doesn't know what goes on in a single human heart."

In light of these two themes, how do we judge Scobie? Does it matter that he tried to reduce the misery of others, at all turns, even at great cost? Does it matter that he failed? Does anything matter?