ISBN: 058602770X
Godina izdanja: 1972
Jezik: Engleski
Autor: Strani

Roger Peyrefitte - Keys of St. Peter
Panther, 1972
285 str.
meki povez
stanje: vrlo dobro

English translation by Edward Hyams

Controversy over this deliberately shocking book is sure to create a certain amount of interest. But religious controversy is not always healthy. Catholics- at least publicly- will decry the tongue in cheek, and at the same time scholarly, handling of matters theological, traditional, symbolic. The most successful figure in the story of a naive young seminarist, Victor Mas, assigned to a post in Rome, is his patron, Cardinal Belloro, to whom little the Church has to offer remains sacred. The Pope is revealed as more human than saint; the basic tenets of Church polity, in particular perhaps, the matter of indulgences, is approached with a cynical and wicked humor. The Cardinal is irresistible, and Victor, under his tutelage, loses many of his illusions, and finds that he is still a man first, a priest second. The story bogs down too often in the minutiae of argument, as members of the Cardinal`s household chart the prescribed course of thinking in meticulous detail only to have their pattern destroyed by a quick-witted, oblique barb on the part of the Cardinal. Inevitably, Victor falls in love -- in a most adolescent way. And the denouement is inevitable, as the apprenticeship nears its end. This has been, we are told, sensationally successful in France. I wonder whether the story, with its subtle and often brilliant undertones, will carry to a more staid American audience. I`m keeping fingers crossed.