Silence

I haven't see the movie Silence yet. I will eventually - though I may wait until it comes out on DVD.

But I am reading the book on which the movie is based, Silence, by Shusaku Endo. Endo is sometimes likened to Graham Greene, and in this novel about a hunted priest captured by the government I do see similarities to The Power and the Glory.

I'd heard about  the novel before the movie came out. I'd seen it on several "Greatest Catholic Novels" lists, so I'd bought a copy and had it on my bookshelf for a while. The movie just prompted me to finally read it. 

I'm about half way through. I'm enjoying it so far. The depiction of what is going through the priest's mind as he sneaks into Japan during the 17th Century when the Japanese government tried to crush Catholicism in Japan is believable. He is optimistic, heroic, then afraid, and when captured struggling not to betray his faith. I don't know what will happen in the end, but given what I've read so far I suspect the character will apostatize.

The "Silence" of the title has come up so far in terms of the supposed silence of God in response to the priest's prayers. I'm reminded of so many saints and mystics who talk about periods when they seemed to feel no sense of God, and seem to encounter only "silence."
  
Endo is such a good writer I want to continue to find out what does happen.

Pax et bonum