With this post I finally come to look at the end of the novel, and to the heart of the novel’s problem. (There are more themes in the earlier parts of the novel that I thought I was going to write about, but now they seem less important than...
At the time I began my re-read of Silence, a novel about a Jesuit missionary to Japan, I was also re-reading a memoir by another Jesuit missionary to the east. He Leadeth Me by Father Walter Ciszek, SJ, tells the spiritual side to the story of...
Part five of my never-ending series about Shusaku Endo’s novel, Silence. I’ve probably got at least two more posts in me, if I don’t just get bored and walk away. Actually, I really want to write them, so hopefully that won’t happen. I don’t know...
In Part 1, I looked briefly at the way Endo highlights Rodrigues’ failure to be a shepherd. I want to look more closely at that theme of the negligent shepherd because I think Endo develops it quite intentionally and with great subtlety. Endo...
“But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the...
In which I address some theological concerns, including the problem of the unforgivable sin. In my first post about Silence I mentioned that I have been very frustrated as I’ve read reviews of the novel and the movie because so many reviewers fail...
In which I address some critical concerns, including the problem of the unreliable narrator I first read Shusaku Endo’s novel Silence back in 2009 and I didn’t really know what to make of it. The novel was more than I could take in at...
