I have just read the Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman by Louis De Bernieres.  And at first I was afraid I wouldnt like it and that it would simply be a theist bashing novel, or a literary work of art that sought to undermine religion (see Phillip Pullman). I was really suprised how much I enjoyed it, and how challenging to me (a religious believer) it was.

Synopsis lifted from wikipeadia:-

Cardinal Guzman lives extravagantly in the capital, and immorally, due to the discoveries of his having had a young son and his loathing of the poor shanty-dwellers who live below his palace. Despite the downfall of El Jerarca in Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord, the drug trade continues and the economy of the country spirals ever downward. Cardinal Guzman’s clergy and the corrupt military of the country set out to destroy the heresy of the countryside, and, more specifically, Cochadebajo de los Gatos, the town where the characters of the previous books have settled. In so doing the hypocrisy of his faith with his own promiscuousness is revealed.

My thoughts:-

The book provided an insightful commentary on the absurd hypocrisies of life. Nothing is beyond the books scope, religion, politics, secularism, militarism, drugs, its got it all. The heros of the book dwell in Cochadebajo de los Gatos and encompass ex-communists, vigilantes, a defrocked priest, a professor, an indigenous Indian shaman, desertors from the army, a musicologist and an army of prostitutes. This city ruled on egalitarian principles with no institutional moralising (polygamy is tolerated) is presented as an idyll, inhabited by every type of person you could imagine, peacefully co-existing side by side. Politics and religion, the two main themes are represented in every form, desireable and abhorrent. In the postmodern character of this novel the heros are tolerant of all traditions. The criminals of the piece President Veracruz, Cardinal Guzman, Monsignor Anquilar are depicted in their fully abhorrent, corrupt and malign selves. The basic message of the novel is about the plurality of human traditions and beliefs, and the corruptibility and hypocrisy of power. The crusade scenes are deliberately bloodthirsty and make very hard reading, but achieve the desired effect both as an analogous comment and as a historical account of the real crusades that the religion of ‘brotherly love’ once perpetrated against those whose beliefs were somehow different.

The book though was full of hope, that the ordinary person can do extraordinary things. And any number of ordinary people can achieve even greater feats of extraordinariness. My favourite tool used in the book was the various spiritual entities, from ghosts, to saints, to heretical visions, to the indigenous gods of latin america. They are portrayed as real beings (for those who believe in them) but most importantly as reasonable beings. St Thomas Aquinas who appears renounces all his earthly writings and condemns those who engage in spiritually inspired violence based upon the theological ideas he was once certain of. The author interestingly has Thomas quote from his own hagiography where sometime prior to his death he stopped writing, having had a vision, and realised the hopeless inneffability of God. The spiritual beings, where they come into the book constantly remind us that the reality of belief often falls way short of the ideal. Likewise secularism is commented upon as having its own fanatics, its own violent failings (mostly this is done in the political storyline).

Like I said it was a challenging read, the villains were as bad as could be imagined, the atrocities conducted on their behalf too real for comfort. But I finished the book with a renewed sense of hope. The spiritual and political ideals that underpin the lives of many will survive the degradations of the institutions that purport to uphold them. There are good Christians for whom the taint of the inquisition would be grossly unfair. There are political people who wish to change the world we live in for the better, for whom the crimes of the powerful were a betrayal of all that was good. Power, as the saying goes, corrupts absolutely. But tolerance, plurality, sharing and common sympathy. These are virtues that can change the world, and you dont need to be a President or a Cardinal to bring about that change. In a ringing endorsement of existentialism and postmodernism, you and I can make choices about how we live and how we treat those who are different (which is everyone else in essence). Our choices can bring about change.