A difficult one

This is one of GGs more difficult books. Although excellently written as usual, the subject was one of the hardest to listen to and the author did not hold back. The feelings of desperation and helplessness of practically all the characters came through vividly in this excellent narration. Advice: don’t read or listen to this book if you are in an unhappy frame of mind…

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2 people found this helpful

An oddly inspiring story about human frailty

A flawed priest in 1930s Mexico embodies the average Catholic in any era. At once tragic, hopeless and hopeful. This is a powerful story about the misery and majesty of the human condition. A must-listen.

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1 person found this helpful

Moving, sad and realistic

With what is happening in the U.K. currently (August 2024) I initially found it hard to read about a Mexican state (Tabasco) suffering under a totalitarian Marxist/Stalinist regime during the time of the Mexican Revolution. A regime that had reified the idea of thought crimes as real crimes (punishable by death); banned alcohol; criminalised religious practice; hunted down and executed priests as traitors; and, thrown an already poor state into abject poverty and desolation (shades of 21st century Venezuela). The regime also (contrary to socialist principles?) treated native peoples as sub-human. All of these things and more are seen in this rather moving novel about a ‘whiskey priest’ attempting to stay alive by escaping Tabasco. Along the way, he meets a highly believable, rag-tag, and not always nice bunch of characters. Yes, the novel can be grim at times, but that’s because life and death were grim during this terrible time in Mexico’s troubled history.
Graham Greene - a devout Catholic - was quite brave to write about the revolution and its impacts on ordinary people, as it would have been easy to get it wrong. But he doesn’t get it wrong. Far from it. For when all is said and done, we are all human. Yes, some of the monsters running these countries and states appear to be inhuman and have no redeeming features (eg Stalin in the USSR, Canabal in Tabasco) but everyone else is just trying to survive. And that is the most important point I think is being made in Greene’s this ‘masterpiece’ (as John Updike described it).
The narration is superb. I think Graham Greene would have approved.

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Thought provoking

I did this book at school and it remained with me in the back of my mind. The complexity of the main character was sore on my head, as it twists and turns depending on when you look. Well narrated

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8 people found this helpful

An excellent performance of this superb book

The performance was fantastic, with all voices and accents suitable. The Book of course is superb, depending how you like your literature!

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Gripping and atmospheric

Andrew Sachs reads this story of a hunted, and haunted, flawed priest perfectly. The evocation of the various characters that the priest meets in his wanderings is greatly enhanced by Sach's rendition of the text. Perhaps Greene's best Catholic novel, it is a laying bare of the priest's tormented guilt, fear and weakness as he seeks to avoid martyrdom at the hands of a virulently anti-religious South American revolutionary state.

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Thought Provoking

This novel took me a while to get into but I’m very glad to have carried on with it.
One of those books that allows you to become a traveler in another era and country.
Fabulous narration!

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1 person found this helpful

Brilliant book Graham Greene at his best.

This is such a brilliant book; revolution, love, betrayal and faith. Perfect narration Andrew Sachs

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Engaging and fabulously read

the story has a slow pace and describes an important time in the history of Mexico through the journey of a priest. Fantastically well read which brings it alive as sometimes the pace is too slow.

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3 people found this helpful

story feels dated

The book is undoubtedly well written, but the story feels somewhat dated now, narration brilliant

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