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Catholics | 
| Author: Brian Moore
Publisher: Flamingo
Category: Book
Used (3) from £6.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 409440
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 112
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.3
ISBN: 0006548369
EAN: 9780006548362
ASIN: 0006548369
Publication Date: May 7, 1996
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| Customer Reviews:
 Find a copy! March 18, 2008
It's astonishing that most of Moore's (very good) novels are kept in print but his best book (this one) isn't. Rush to buy a second-hand copy, if you can find one! This is a novella pared down to not more than a short story, really, but where every sentence is freighted beautifully, touching and drole, slyly humourous and lucidly intelligent. The story has reverberations beyond the Graham Greenesque central character, the Abbot who loses his faith. What the story hinges around is the paradox of a deeply traditional place (the monastery island) which becomes paradoxically a centre for tourism, a roaring success because of, not despite, its auld ways and simplicity. A kind of intimation of what would happen to the Irish economy in the 1990s and 1990s. It's also postmodern in how it pictures religious belief/dogma being emptied out, but with faith (in an inner-life way) broadened and deepened. A terrific and very interesting little book.
 Bleak and powerful October 8, 2000
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
Brian Moore tells the story of an Irish Abbott who clings to the old Catholic Faith - Latin Masses, individual confession and all - long after the Fourth Vatican Council which has gone far further down the ecumenical route than anything we have yet seen.Moore's sparse, taut prose and his incisive understanding of the traditionalists' position make this a fascinating read, and the tension builds steadily until the very last page of the book, when the inherent flaw in the traditionalists' position - obedience to authority - is deployed to devastating effect. But the outer plot, the abbott's duel with the superior sent to 'get that fool off the mountain' is only half the story. The abbott's own spiritual desolation, and the emptiness of his opponent's belief system provide the internal tension that make this a tremendously powerful read.
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