Hi, Kevin, I just finished reading the novel and listening to the podcast. I had not read any of Endo's novels before, but I did start 'The Samurai,'which deals with the 1600's in Japan. Now, I am more interested in finishing it.
The podcast covered many of the things which I had thought about during my reading-the image of the face of Christ as imagined by Rodrigues, the comparisons between Kichijiro and Judas, and the way Rodrigues tries to identify himself with Christ riding on a donkey and other events in the life of Christ. But, one thing that I didn't hear discussed in the podcast was the idea of the suffering Christ and the Atonement. I thought of the Christ who speaks to Rodrigues in the end and tells him to trample on the fumie as the Christ who suffered and died for our sins. Rodrigues has this idea of the glorious martyrdom, that he wants for himself.
He keeps trying to see himself with Christ or like Christ, and meditates constantly on what he imagines is the beautiful face of Christ. In the end, the face that he tramples on is a face that has been trod on before. It's an ugly face, like the faces of the peasants that have repulsed him. Perhaps the point that Endo is making is that Christ is really in the ugly faces of the peasants, the ones that truly do die for their faith, and that Rodrigues misses the point until the end, when he realizes that the God he has been worshiping in the churches is now different. He is the God of the ugly as well as the beautiful, and he is especially the God of the suffering. Rodrigues realizes that he and the ugly Kichijiro are the same.
They are both guilty of self-love,only in different ways, but neither has the true love of Christ. The silence that endures throughout the novel is finally broken in the end, when Christ speaks to Rodrigues, to tell him that He came to suffer for a reason: to be the bearer of people's sinful behavior. Rodrigues can never be a Christ figure; he's not weak, he's prideful.
My feeling is that Endo was trying to say something about the Church, that mercy and love were the true marks of a Christian, like Garrpe in his efforts to save the drowning peasants.In the end, I think Rodrigues' faith is deeped because he has learned that his Lord is different from the God that was preached in the churches at that time. Rodrigues is humbled, even though he is confused about his motives and actions. Perhaps he did do something for others, an unselfish act. I'll be interested in seeing if Scorsese's film leads the viewer to think that Rodrigues will follow Christ's path to a 'glorious' martyrdom, and then be let down, as in the book, at the end. I will also like to see how the tone of silence is handled throughout and how the images of Christ look as they are imagined by Rodrigues.
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Thanks for selecting this read for the book club. It's a very thoughtful and thought provoking choice. Jeanie Stallman.
Behind The Book. Correct us if we're wrong, but we're going to go out on a limb and say that if Martin Scorsese adapts a book into a movie, you can be reasonably certain that it's going to be an awesome book. Silenceis such a book. Yes, it's true—the legendary director of edgy crime dramas like Goodfellas and Wolf of Wall Street has been obsessed with a little book about Jesuit priests in Japan for over two decades.
That's a ringing endorsement if we've ever heard it. Published in 1966 by legendary Japanese Catholic author Shusaku Endo, Silence follows Father Sebastien Rodrigues, a Jesuit priest, as he performs missionary work in Japan during the height of the country's persecution of Christians in the 1600s.
His mission: to learn the truth about his former teacher, who supposedly renounced his faith after being captured and tortured. Sure, there might not be any mobsters or Wall Street bigwigs in this one, but don't let that trip you up—this thing is intense. Consider Silence a tour of 1600s Japan. We encounter hordes of Japanese Christians more devoted to Christianity than Ron Swanson is to. We meet powerful samurai who can sentence entire villages to death without breaking a sweat. We even meet a former priest or two: men whose rejection of Christianity shakes Rodrigues to his core. And in the midst of this, the poor priest is left scratching his head as to what it all means.
Plot Summary
Frankly, we're not entirely sure ourselves, and that's why we love the book so much. You might expect a novel with such heavy religious themes to beat you over the head with them, but that's simply not the case here. If you're looking for a novel that's subtle, powerful, and totally moving, then you could do a lot worse than Silence.
Why Should I Care? Silence is a novel about European Catholics who visit Japan, written by a Japanese Catholic who visited Europe. We don't know about you, but that little mind-bender is enough to get us hooked. Okay, so maybe a few rather racist Jesuit priests aren't exactly the most likable protagonists in the world. And, yes, it's odd that a book written by a devout Catholic spends so much time talking about the failures of the Church. And double yes, we know that the mere thought of a religious novel is enough to send you snoozing like you were in Sunday school.
But here's the thing—none of that matters. When push comes to shove, Silence is all about self-doubt.
Frankly, it doesn't even matter if you're religious. You could be doubting your current life path. You could be doubting your current romantic partner. Heck, you could be doubting why you started reading this analysis in the first place. Regardless, Silence will show you how quickly the radiation of bitterness can make your doubts grow Godzilla-sized and trample the city of your heart. Still want to put this book down?
Endo Shusaku Silence Movie
Shusaku Endo , born in Tokyo in 1923, was raised by his mother and an aunt in Kobe where he converted to Roman Catholicism at the age of eleven. At Tokyo's Keio University he majored in French literature, graduating BA in 1949, before furthering his studies in French Catholic literature at the University of Lyon in France between 1950 and 1953.
Silence Shusaku Endo Kindle
A major theme running through his books, which have been translated into many languages, including English, French, Russian and Swedish, is the failure of Japanese soil to nurture the growth of Christianity. Before his death in 1996, Endo was the recipient of a number of outstanding Japanese literary awards: the Akutagawa Prize, Mainichi Cultural Prize, Shincho Prize, and Tanizaki Prize. (from Shusaku Endo , born in Tokyo in 1923, was raised by his mother and an aunt in Kobe where he converted to Roman Catholicism at the age of eleven. At Tokyo's Keio University he majored in French literature, graduating BA in 1949, before furthering his studies in French Catholic literature at the University of Lyon in France between 1950 and 1953. A major theme running through his books, which have been translated into many languages, including English, French, Russian and Swedish, is the failure of Japanese soil to nurture the growth of Christianity.
Before his death in 1996, Endo was the recipient of a number of outstanding Japanese literary awards: the Akutagawa Prize, Mainichi Cultural Prize, Shincho Prize, and Tanizaki Prize. (from the backcover of ).
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