Customer Reviews

The Lawless Roads

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Reading The Lawless Roads reminded me of a comment from Albert Camus from his notebooks: 'What gives value to travel is its fear. It is the fact that when we are so far from our own country we are siezed by a vague fear, and an instinctive desire to go back to the protection of old habits'.

This is Graham Greene in Mexico. Travelling through the dry, dusty, mosquito and tick fly riven states of Southern Mexico in the 1930s, a period when the Catholic Church was under severe persecution from the state, Green clings on to the two things that remind him of happier times and nations - his Englishness, and the Catholic Church. His prologue is set in England, the title of his book comes from a piece of verse, quoted at the start, by the Scottish poet Edwin Muir and throughout his turbulent journey he seeks solace in quintissentially English writers such as Trollope and William Cobbett.

It is evident that Greene loathes Mexico. At one point he writes of the country 'No hope anywhere. I have never been in a country where you are more aware all the time of hate'. He finds, during his travels, a Godless, immoral and violently dangerous state. He retains a colonial contempt for the natives he comes across with their 'expressionless brown eyes' and is mistrustful of everyone. He defends the under fire Catholicism with extraordinary bias, declaring the Catholic Church 'Perhaps the only body in the world today which consistently - and sometimes successfully opposes the totalitarian state'. Remember this was the same period as the Spanish Civil war.

He plunges the depths in Tabasco, a state where Catholic persecution was particularly strong - 'One felt one was drawing near to the centre of something - if it was only of darkness and abandonment'. And his personality undergoes a disturbing descent into increasing misery and intolerence. After travelling through numerous grisly towns (Puebla is the only place he has any affection for, the only place in Mexico Greene can imagine living in with 'some happiness'), being plagued by mosquitos and diarrhoea and undergoing hours on cripplingly uncomfortable muleback, he reaches rock bottom - 'It seemed to me that this wasn't a country to live in at all with only the head and desolation; it was a country to die and leave only ruins behind'.

But Greene's vitriolic prejudices against Mexico serve as a blackly creative vehicle to contain his bluntly honest and hatefully evocative prose style. A more dispassionate, cheerful writer would not be nearly as successful in dredging up in striking detail the climate of this sinister Mexican age. Greene also owes a great debt to Mexico, for it was his travels in hell that provided the inspiration for one of his greatest novels 'The Power and the Glory'. In The 'Lawless Roads' we briefly meet the characters in the later novel - the 'Whisky Priest', the sweating dentist, the 'Mestizo' with two yellow fangs. This baleful travelogue highlights why Greene was able to use Mexico as the canvas on which to paint 'The Power and the Glory', a masterful tale of oppression, persecution, death and redemption.

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.

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.

Unfortunately I'm unable to compare with The Power and the Glory, because I haven't read it yet. this was my first Graham Greene book and i will definitely read more. The book is written in such a rich poetic style. Every sentence is precious and evocative. This is no ordinary travel book.

Tabasco and Chiapas in the 1930's - not a nice place either to live or to visit. Greene's explorations provided background and some characters for his great short novel or tale, The Power and the Glory. If you are a student of fine writing, read the novel first, then read this to see how he gathered and used material. Or read this first for background that adds depth to the novel. If you are an armchair traveler or student of Mexico, enjoy Greene's adventures and be grateful he went through them so you don't have to do it yourself. This is truly a classic of travel writing.

The Lawless Roads is the second non-fiction travel book of Greene's that I've read, and the other, Journey Without Maps was also a great book about travel in Africa. Greene is a brilliant travel writer; he makes detailed observations about the countryside, people, and customs of Mexico. The way he traveled in the 30s makes you appreciate modern infrastructure and the advances of civilization that make godforsaken places livable. He was on assignment for a paper to report on the anti-clerical government that was persecuting the Catholics. It was form this experience that Greene wrote The Power and The Glory, which germinated from an antecdote he heard in Mexico about a whisky priest while on assignment.

ahh, to have visited mexico in the 30's. palenque, bonampak, and all the other "undiscovered" sites of mexico. greene does an admirable job of describing all the sights of the mayan country of the south. however, stick to "the power and the glory" for the real thing.