/lit/ - Literature

>>19615218
Yeah, a bit. My priest shares some of the weaknesses of Greene's priest, but is more akin in outlook to Bernanos' priest of Ambricourt. A big part of the novel is intellectualism in faith vs the mystical.

I was partly inspired by this quote from Chesterton, which I tentatively plan to include as the novel's epigraph:

‘Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason… The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.’

>>19355602
I liked The Power and The Glory the best. As a Catholic writer, though, I feel he's outstripped by the other heavyweights roughly contemporaneous with him, like Chesterton, Waugh, and Flannery O'Connor. And Bernanos' priests are slightly more compelling to me. Though, nonetheless, I have a bit of a soft spot for Greene's Whisky Priest.

The End of the Affair is good, too, although I wasn't a huge fan of the subplots - the PI's kid, and the ugly ex-priest, both detracted from the main narrative for me. I would rather have had more Bendrix and Sarah shenanigans. I also feel Sarah's husband (civil servant - name escapes me) was, if anything, overly pathetic, though I appreciate the narrative is from Bendrix' perspective. But as far as cuckolded husbands go he's no Karenin, Casaubon, Charles Bovary, etc.

If it's Catholic literature you're after I highly highly highly recommend Diary of a Country Priest. It did more for my faith than literally any book other than the Bible, and ranks alongside The Brothers Karamazov for me as the best religious novel of all time. Never see it get discussed here, probably because it's quite slow for the first third.