Silence by Shūsaku Endō
My rating: 5 of 5 stars “And like the sea God was silent.” Shusaku Endo’s Silence (1966; translated by William Johnston 1969) is a compact, grueling novel. It explores the nature of faith and love in a persecuted Christian context, as Portuguese missionary Father Rodrigues sneaks into a 17th-century Japan that has become intensely intolerant of Catholicism, Christianity, and missionaries. Rodrigues’ goal is twofold, to find out what happened to his revered teacher, Father Ferreira, who is rumored to have apostatized and gone Japanese, and to nurture the seed of Christianity planted in Japan by earlier missionaries before it can completely wither away. The most moving and absorbing parts of the novel concern a weak and servile outcast apostate Japanese fisherman called Kichijiro (Father Rodrigues’ personal Judas), Rodrigues’ intense struggle to reconcile God’s love with His deafening silence in the face of such terrible exploitation and persecution of humble Japanese peasants, and his even more intense struggle to decide whether apostatizing would be an act of love and self-sacrifice consonant with Jesus’ compassion or an act of selfish weakness and betrayal. Endo does not give clear and final answers to such fraught questions. But through its depiction of earthy, kind, steadfast Christian peasants who would be tortured and die rather than step or spit on an image of Mary or Jesus, his novel does debunk the Japanese authorities’ official view that Japan is a unique country where Christianity cannot grow. Endo writes many vivid details of life in 17th century Japan: feudal system, crime and punishment, religious festivals, food, names, international trade, etc. He writes a sublime moment when Father Rodrigues, fleeing pursuit in the mountains all alone and deprived of food and water, happens at one point to look up and see the face of Kichijiro with the beloved face of his imaginary ideal Christ transposed over the unshaven, yellow-toothed, degraded face of his betrayer. Even I, an atheist with no great love for Christianity or missionary work, found the novel absorbing and moving. It reads like a Christian Heart of Darkness, with Rodrigues as Marlow and Ferreira as Kurtz. Did Ferreira really apostatize? Is he still alive? Will Rodrigues ever meet him? If so, what will come of the encounter? Endo’s novel must challenge Christian readers with some uncomfortable questions even as it reaffirms their faith. This audiobook edition (well read by David Holt) begins with a compact and interesting foreword by Martin Scorsese in which he explains the novel’s twenty-year appeal for him, especially in its assertion that faith and questioning go hand in hand and in its focus on the role of Judas (but you should probably read this after finishing the novel, as it may contain spoilers!). Endo’s introduction then establishes the historical context of the novel. The novel is then mostly told from Rodrigues’ journal-letters to his superiors back home, till near the end it dramatically changes to a third person point of view, and concludes with an appendix of Dutch and Japanese official log entries, some of which in context pack revelatory emotional punches. Silence is recommended for people interested in feudal Japan, missionary history, and matters of faith. View all my reviews
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