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Graham Greene

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The Lawless Roads Kindle Edition

by Graham Greene (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.3 95 ratings

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This eyewitness account of religious and political persecution in 1930s Mexico inspired the British novelist’s “masterpiece,” The Power and the Glory (John Updike).

In 1938, Graham Greene, a burgeoning convert to Roman Catholicism, was commissioned to expose the anticlerical purges in Mexico by President Plutarco Elías Calles. Churches had been destroyed, peasants held secret masses in their homes, religious icons were banned, and priests disappeared. Traveling under the growing clouds of fascism, Greene was anxious to see for himself the effect it had on the people—what he found was a combination of despair, resignation, and fierce resilience. Journeying through the rugged and remote terrain of Chiapas and Tabasco, Greene’s emotional, gut response to the landscape, the sights and sounds, the fears, the oppressive heat, and the state of mind under “the fiercest persecution of religion anywhere since the reign of Elizabeth” makes for a vivid and candid account, and stands alone as a “singularly beautiful travel book” (New Statesman).

Hailed by William Golding as “the ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man’s consciousness and anxiety,” Greene would draw on the experiences of The Lawless Roads for one of his greatest novels, The Power and the Glory.

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Praise for Graham Greene
“The most ingenious, inventive and exciting of our novelists, rich in exactly etched and moving portraits of real human beings . . . A master of storytelling.” —V. S. Pritchett, The Times (London)

“In a class by himself . . . The ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man’s consciousness and anxiety.” —William Golding

“A superb storyteller with a gift for provoking controversy.” —The New York Times

“Greene had the sharpest eyes for trouble, the finest nose for human weaknesses, and was pitilessly honest in his observations. . . . For experience of a whole century he was the man within.” —Norman Sherry, Independent

“No serious writer of [the twentieth] century has more thoroughly invaded and shaped the public imagination than Graham Greene.” —Time

“One of the finest writers of any language.” —The Washington Post

“A superb storyteller—he had a talent for depicting local colour, a keen sense of the dramatic, an eye for dialogue, and skill in pacing his prose.” —The New York Times

“Graham Greene was a profound and experimental stylist.” —Time Out

“Graham Greene had wit and grace and character and story and a transcendent universal compassion that places him for all time in the ranks of world literature.” —John le Carré

“Greene was a force beyond his books.” —Melvyn Bragg

“Greene’s fictional products are to conventional mystery stories what an Alfred Hitchcock exercise in cinematic suspense is to the ordinary Grade B Whodunit.” —Weekly Book Review

“Mr. Greene’s extraordinary power of plot-making, of suspense and of narration . . . moves continuously both in time and space and in emotion.” —The Times (London)

“Graham Greene taught us to understand the social and economic cripples in our midst. He taught us to look at each other with new eyes. I don’t suppose his influence will ever disappear.” —Auberon Waugh, The Independent

“A masterly storyteller . . . An enormously popular writer who was also one of the most significant novelists of his time.” —Newsweek

About the Author

Graham Greene (1904–1991) is recognized as one of the most important writers of the twentieth century, achieving both literary acclaim and popular success. His best known works include Brighton Rock, The Heart of the Matter, The Quiet American, and The Power and the Glory. After leaving Oxford, Greene first pursued a career in journalism before dedicating himself full-time to writing with his first big success, Stamboul Train. He became involved in screenwriting and wrote adaptations for the cinema as well as original screenplays, the most successful being The Third Man. Religious, moral, and political themes are at the root of much of his work, and throughout his life he traveled to some of the wildest and most volatile parts of the world, which provided settings for his fiction. Greene was a member of the Order of Merit and a Companion of Honour.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07F2637K8
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Open Road Media (July 10, 2018)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 10, 2018
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 6089 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 226 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #680,070 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #47 in Religious Travel
- #61 in Central American Travel
- #267 in General Central America Travel Guides

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4.3 95 ratings

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Graham Greene

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Henry Graham Greene OM CH (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English novelist and author regarded by some as one of the great writers of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a reputation early in his lifetime as a major writer, both of serious Catholic novels, and of thrillers (or "entertainments" as he termed them). He was shortlisted, in 1967, for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Through 67 years of writings, which included over 25 novels, he explored the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world, often through a Catholic perspective.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

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Jim F. Baughman

One of the Best Books I Ever Read

Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2012

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Greene is a consummate observer of humanity, and this chronicle of a trip he made to southern Mexico, an area deeply steeped in Catholic tradition, is nearly flawless. He went at a time of Socialist convulsion in Mexico, when the government actively worked to suppress the Church and destroy its influence, with the sort of results that have happened everywhere and in every time with such programs--life is merely made even more miserable for and incomprehensible to the poorest, who have little choice but to wait out this latest madness from the central authorities.

7 people found this helpful

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Bestgb

Dyspeptic Mexican Travelogue is Seedbed for Great Novel

Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2008

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The Lawless Roads is a non-fiction account of a trip Graham Greene took in 1937 to report on the persecution of Catholics in the Mexican states of Chiapas and Tabasco. This trip was the precursor to and inspiration for his greatest novel, The Power and the Glory, about a whiskey priest who becomes the last representative of Catholicism in a blighted Mexican province.

As journalism the book is thin and cursory. We don't get much framing of why the Marxist government decided to outlaw Catholicism in the first place. Did the priestly class milk the peasants? Was this ancient creed bogging the society down in ignorance and superstition and preventing material progress? Did any of the Bishops commit financial, personal or political indiscretions? Beyond a brief mention that it had to do with "a war...for the soul of the Indian" we aren't told.

Although he attends a few masses, visits some ruined churches and meets with priests and bishops, Greene spends little time talking to average Catholics. Since not observing the Church's rituals is a big sin, these Catholics must have been living in an emotional pressure cooker, but we don't see it. And Greene provides no justification for why Catholicism, imposed under Spanish colonial rule, deserves a central place in Mexican culture. He seems to assume the answer is obvious. Obviously it wasn't to the politicians and landowners who sent out the army to shoot priests and destroy churches.

Absent journalism, we get travelogue. It's clear that Greene is repulsed by the grubby sensuality of Mexico, and he doesn't like Mexicans. His Spanish is limited, which makes many of his interactions fraught and difficult. He is very often too hot or cold, irritated by dogs and rats, plagued by flies and mosquitoes, sore from mule travel over rough roads. His Mexico is a place full of hate and death. Being the world class writer he was, there are some compelling descriptions of flyblown mountain towns and the people in them, but throughout he is clearly more repulsed than emphatically engaged.

The most fascinating question raised by Greene's dyspeptic travelogue is this: how did the bigoted, self-absorbed, biased journalist who wrote The Lawless Roads turned into the great-souled novelist who wrote the Power and the Glory less than two years later? In that novel, Greene turns empathy and vast compassion for the whiskey priest, his desperate flock and even the priest's persecutors into a masterpiece of world literature. Despite the outpouring of words by and about Greene, this transformation of sensibility has never been satisfactorily explained. The mystery of how a person can rise above the limitations of a small, demanding self to create something that endures through time is, like faith, powerful and compelling. Which is why it's fascinating and worthwhile to read The Lawless Roads and then read its metamorphosis into The Power and the Glory.

21 people found this helpful

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Nancy S. Cunningham

Graham Greene was one of the best travel writers of the 20th century

Reviewed in the United States on March 23, 2017

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Graham Greene was one of the best travel writers of the 20th century. He didn't like Mexico much (he was way south in the late 1930s) but his descriptions of people, places, politics, atmosphere, and his own failings are to be savored. After you read this, read his greatest novel, The Power and the Glory, which is set in Mexico in the same years, written just after his visit there.

8 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Mexico in persecution

Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2020

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Here you find long suffering Mexico and the people whose hope is perennially in the Visitation of Mary at Guadalupe and in the solidarity of the crucified Lord. Some passages that will humble the proud. Great to read Greene

One person found this helpful

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Brandon Wilkening

Had a hard time getting past the bitterness

Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2006

I read about this book in a New Republic article about Lopez Obrador, the leftist who recently lost in Mexico's presidential election. Obrador is from the southern state of Tabasco, an isolated, southern state that Greene visits in this book. Greene's interest in the state stems from the fact that in the 1930's the region's governor spearheaded one of the most virulent anti-religious campaigns in all of Mexico. Greene was commissioned to write about how Mexicans were coping during this period of intense suppression of religious expression. My interest in the book was purely historical and sociological; I wanted to better understand the ideology that led the state to clamp down on religious institutions and how ordinary Mexicans reacted to this. In that sense, the book did not quite live up to my expectations. Instead, in spite of the beautiful prose (which ensures a pretty quick read) and occasional sparks of wisdom, the book read like a bitter, disgruntled travelogue.

For starters, as Greene himself concedes, his Spanish was apparently not so good at the time, something that obviously limited his ability to talk with ordinary Mexicans who knew no English (this is not to mention that many of the Indians in Tabasco and Chiapas did not even speak Spanish). Tabasco and Chiapas are both built up at as hearts of darkness; he announces at the beginning of the book his intention to visit these remote places, but he does not even reach Tabasco until halfway through the book, as the first part consists of his journey from Texas down to Mexico City. And then, when he finally does reach these places, the effect is rather anti-climactic, as he doesn't even seem to talk to any ordinary Mexicans about the religious situation. Obviously this probably had a lot to do with people's unwillingness to talk about such a politically sensitive issue, but it was still disappointing that he went to so much effort to reach such remote places, only to come away with so few real insights. In Tabasco and Chiapas, the only people Greene seems to befriend are odball expatriate Europeans and Americans. These were fascinating characters and the stories of how they ended up in the backwaters of southern Mexico are worthy stories on their own, but I think we would be critical of any contemporary journalist who only fraternizes with expats.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing, though, is something that Sirin alludes to in his review (but surprisingly none of the other reviewers have mentioned), namely Greene's explicit hatred for the country and its people, which was quite unexpected. As I was reading it, I kept reminding myself of the context, since the book was written in the 1930's from an obviously colonial mindset. However, by the end of the book, when Greene is tired, ill, and ready to return home, the bitterness towards Mexico becomes hard to ignore. Virtually every behavioral trait he observes in Mexicans obviously hides sinister intentions. He has something bad to say about every place his train passes through. Again, I realize that the author was fatigued from his travels and ill at this point, but it still didn't make for particularly fun reading.

I gave the book three stars because it does have many merits. As I mentioned, Greene writes beautifully (I have read and loved the "The Comedians" and plan to read some of his other novels in the near future). Also, the simple fact that he visited some of these remote places during this interesting period of Mexico's history makes the book intrinsically interesting. Overall, however, the book just wasn't quite what I expected.

26 people found this helpful

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patrick brooks

Greene's Tough Trip thru Mexico

Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2017

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The Bestick and Daily reviews are written with a lot of anti Catholic bigotry. Concurrent with the Mexican govt anti church campaign the Soviet govt was methodically crushing the Orthodox and other religious institutions. Later we see the same brutal Socialist/Communist techniques employed in China and Tibet. All part of the same pattern of totalitarian dogma.

3 people found this helpful

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Uncle Fatz

A fascinating bit of history

Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2019

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If you want to understand Mexico better you'll want to read this. While it is not contemporary it takes you into some seldom seen-or heard of-bits of that country and hints at events and characters who shaped the countries beliefs and customs. Not everybody's cup of tea.

One person found this helpful

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Anno Domini

Excellent

Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2019

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Excellent

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The lawless roads

Reviewed in Mexico on January 12, 2018

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Un viaje por el México de los años 30, convulso por una guerra cristera, en el lejano sureste en una zona donde el principal cacique Garrido Canabal, anatematizado por el clero corrupto y manipulador, Graham Green con gran carga religiosa se horroriza de un Tabasco para él sin ley, pero no relata las cosas positivas de ese régimen socialista llamado en su época el laboratorio de la revolución que se daba educación socialista a todos por igual, había educación sexual, se prohibía el alcohol y se expulsaba a los curas que no se adaptaban a las disposiciones del régimen en cuanto al celibato.Como tabasqueño me gusta la parte que habla de Villahermosa, antes San Juan Bautista, donde leo la referencia de los personajes que me fueron conocidos en mi infancia al través de mis abuelos y padres, y describe la ciudad magistralmente.
La parte de Chiapas me pareció aburrida y sin ninguna relación con mis vivencias.

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Anthony Fagg

Good but loses the reader at times

Reviewed in Australia on December 10, 2023

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Enjoyed the journey but occasionally lost me on the road. Interesting places along the way and learnt a lot about Mexico in the 1930s.

jemmeto

Text is back to front and upside down... illegal copy?

Reviewed in Japan on December 4, 2017

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I’ve only just opened the book now... it’s all upside down and back to front. Quite literally. It looks to be a pirate version or illegal copy or something. Who would I complain to? Amazon? Police?

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Bob Salter

El Presidente is Dead, Long Live El Presidente!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 2, 2011

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Reading Graham Greene is quite chastening. It makes me realise what a poverty stricken grasp of imagination and the English language that I have. Millions of readers are of course not wrong! He was a hugely gifted writer. What is less well known is that he was also a fine film critic, and the author of two superb travel books in "Journey Without Maps", and the subject of this review "The Lawless Roads". Commissioned to visit Mexico in the late thirties to report on how the ordinary people had reacted to the anti-clerical purges of President Calles, he paints a vividly entertaining picture of this country during that time period, which remains amazingly fresh to this day. Greene is your typical Englishman abroad at times complaining of mosquito's, bad food, the oppressive heat and the casual violence that was so common in Mexico then, and from what I read still is today. But he is also full of amusing dry humour, and I liked him for that.

His journey took him through Mexico City and then into the remoter southern states of Tabasco and Chiapas. Given the instability of the country and the general dislike of Gringo's, this was a genuinely dangerous journey to undertake, some of which was done on mule back. Greene makes it quite clear what he thinks of Mexico early on in the book. He says on one occasion, "I loathed Mexico - but there were times when it seemed there worse places", which was one of the nicer things he said about the country. His prose sparkles throughout with descriptions that paint a vivid description for the reader. He describes the hands of one old Indian as "like last year's leaves", and a slumped drunk as "like a doll from which the sawdust has run". This Mexico is still a country of armed pistoleros, where death potentially lurks around every corner. On another occasion he arrives at a small piece of paradise hewn out of the jungle, only to be reminded of the casual violence when he sees a bullet hole through the front door. Welcome to Mexico!

Perhaps most interesting of all for the reader, are the characters who are forged by misfortune that populate the pages. There seemed to be a lot of misfortune in Mexico following years of turmoil. Think "El Presidente is dead,long live El Presidente". It was also not that many years since Zapata's peasant revolt! As a Catholic, Greene was genuinely sympathetic for the plight of the church. He visits many ruined churches and speaks to the despairing people. Perhaps most touching of all is when a poverty stricken, half starved Indian family share what little they have with Greene and his disconsolate muleteer. I am fascinated by Mexico, through watching far too many westerns, although sadly I have never visited the place. This is the next best thing! Greene is a truly great writer who is also entertaining in the same way that Bill Bryson is today. In fact I suspect Bryson may well have read these books, and been influenced, given the style similarities. It seems incomprehensible to me that this book has been out of print for so long. This is one of the finest travel books I have read in a very long time.

11 people found this helpful

Keith L Rogers

Let's get this straight. The Mexicans were brutally killing ...

Reviewed in Canada on May 8, 2015

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Let's get this straight. The Mexicans were brutally killing themselves in the 30s and still are. No change after all this time. Very depressing. I don't mind hard travel at all, but hard because of just making it that way is crazy.

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