Office of Innocence

Rating:
Summary: Innocence assayed
Review: Clad equally in priestly vestments and an aura of innocence, Frank Darragh suddenly finds the world crowding his faith. Two great bastions of Empire have succumbed to Japanese invasions, and Frank's Sydney stands imperiled alone. As the remaining outpost of Empire, Sydney has become a military crossroads and, if the Japanese haven't invaded, the Yanks have. They are ubiquitous - on the streets, in pubs, and taking up with Sydney women. One of these women, a "POW widow" encounters Frank, setting off a disturbing chain of events.

War is busy time for young men - committment, training, combat. When that young man happens to be a priest, further emotional conflicts needing resolution arise. Social pressures become intense, with people seeking solace wherever it can be found. Frank's confessional has a queue. He's even more popular than the parish priest - "You'll have to put in for overtime!", Fr. Carolan tells him. There's more involved than Frank's light penances. He feels the need to reach out and bring consolation instead of waiting to be asked. That leads him to cross parish boundaries in support of an AWOL soldier. Crossing that line adds further complexity as Frank's confronted with race issues. Between the temptation of a woman, the startling revelation of child abuse, and a murder, Frank leads a hectic existence.

In one sense, Keneally's plot is relatively transparent. His characters follow predictable paths once they're introduced. Although not a "mystery" writer, he provides a murder and the perpetrator can be only one character. With Keneally, this is hardly a shortcoming. His strength is character development, and whatever your opinion of Frank Darragh, Keneally has portrayed him with his usual finesse. As with all Keneally fiction, this book ends with the resolution of a moral dilemma. The impact of that issue has little to do with the plot - it's wholly in the hands of the protagonist. Keneally's command of language and his ability to reveal inner feelings is unmatched and well demonstrated here. Pick up the book and follow the response of a man's discovery of the world. ...

Rating:
Summary: Naiveté In Action
Review: Father Frank Darragh is a recent, 1941 product of an Australian Catholic seminary, and is now a curate at a city parish. Author Keneally, a former seminarian himself, totally understands the mind of the young, devout parish priest. Father Darragh has assimilated all of the counseling techniques taught at the seminary, and now tries them out in real life. Alas he has no real understanding of human psychology. When people are mired in the complex, often sordid, problems of life our good priest offers them pious platitudes that provide no help.

One thing that the seminary did not prepare him for was the sexual stirrings that begin to intrude when he tries to provide some of his canned counseling to an attractive young mother whose husband is a Japanese prisoner of war. After she rejects his advice, Father Darragh, tries to find ways to see her again, telling himself that he just wants to help her resolve her problems. I guess they didn't teach much about psychological (or physical) denial in the seminary.

He does meet with her again, and the visit is quite innocuous, but shortly thereafter the young woman is murdered. Our hero continues to be peripherally involved in the case, which results in increased suspicion by the police, and increased annoyance by his pastor. We follow the stumblings of Father Frank as he sniffs along the murder trail, and gets involved in some other difficulties which even get him beaten up by some tough guys.

Keneally is a fine writer, having a great sense of style and wit. I found this to be a comfortable, entertaining tale that was especially appealing to me as I also spent some time in the seminary a century or so ago. Readers who are unfamiliar with Catholic liturgy will be either intrigued by the book's frequent description of it, or perhaps turned off by it. My only nit is that I wasn't tremendously pleased with the story's ending, but, that is probably just my problem. This is a good, literate read, and I have no reservations in recommending it.

Rating:
Summary: A Powerful Work by a Gifted Writer
Review: Frank Darragh's tale is an ancient one dealing with the perils of innocence in a society where paradise is not only lost but long gone. He is a priest living in rural Australia trying his best to be ethical and human at a time when it appeared that the Japanese were about to invade Australia during World War II. It's painful in places to see where Darragh takes his good faith and how the world and his church make him pay for it. Keneally weaves the tale artfully and takes the big questions head-on. His language is spare but he is able to paint living vistas and round characters in only a few well-drawn brush strokes. His writing is compelling as much for its art as for his considerable skills as a gifted story-teller. I was dazzled by this novel and am confident that Keneally is destined for great acclaim as a novelist who possesses a commanding presence on the contemporary literary landscape.

Rating:
Summary: Perhaps if you are Catholic...
Review: Keneally writes reasonably well -- not exciting, but serviceable prose. Possibly if you are a committed Catholic and interested in the difference between today's Catholic beliefs and those of fifty years ago, this novel might keep you awake. Otherwise, this novel is exhausting in its exploration of an inexperienced priest's coming-of-age, and the plot is slow-paced--I couldn't make it to the promised murder. Besides, the victim was so uninteresting, I couldn't bring myself to care who might have killed her.

Rating:
Summary: A Young Priest in Turmoil
Review: Office of Innocence tells a somewhat familiar story (that of a young priest experiencing an inner crisis) in a different way. The fact that the story is set takes place in World War II helps because it gives it added drama. Frank Darragh is tempted by a POW widow, and he's faced with difficult choices because of his feelings for her. This novel is also a mystery story. All the plot elements all come together very well. Office of Innocence is not Mr. Keneally's best book, but it's readable and enjoyable.

Rating:
Summary: The Stages of a Catholic Conscience
Review: The place is a suburb of Sidney in New South Wales. The time is 1942. The Japanese armies are advancing and the Australians believe an invasion to be inevitable. Singapore has fallen, Darwin has been bombed, and people are extremely nervous.

And so we meet young curator Frank Darragh, whose specialty - if not his foremost - joy it is, to hear confession and then to absolve the sinner. Now Frank meets young and good-looking Kate Heggerty, whose husband has been taken prisoners by the Germans in North Africa, Kate is a proud woman who stands by her deeds and does not need a confession. Frank, of course, sees this differently.

Frank now wrestles with the soul of Kate and seems bent on wrestling with her body, as well. But Keneally is far too good a writer to follow such a cliche. Kate - the Temptress - is killed by strangulation.

Now we meet Fratelli, an MP in the US Army. Fratelli is the Devil. He knows the catholic canon inside out, is very soft-spoken and paid court to Kate Heggerty. Frank - who is rather innocent about humans - thinks a lot of him. But then Fratelli turns and accuses Frank of stealing Kate's soul from his grip and having started to also steal her body. Fratelli goes after Frank, who is already in deep trouble with his pastor and the hierarchy all the way to Sidney.

Will Father Frank be damaged? Or will he be destroyed?

Read all about it.

Rating:
Summary: Maybe You Have to be Catholic or Australian
Review: This novel is about a young priest in Australia at the beginning of WWII when Australia was worried about Japanese invasion and dealing with the invasion of American soldiers. The young man gets involved (as a priest only) with a woman who eventually is murdered. The confessional and the problems it brings to the priest are central to the plot.

I did not find the priest sympathetic. I actually did not like him even though he was a good-hearted sort. He came off as whiny and cold somehow. The position of the monsignor and church higher-ups is virtually indecipherable. I could not tell if Mr. Kenneally thought them wise or heartless.

There is a lot of tension brought by what the proper role of a priest should be. I found that part of the book interesting. However, the plot line was predictable and, as noted, the characters did not add much to the book. Even the "bad guy" was predictable, although the last portion of the book when the bad guy is identified is the best part. Unfortunately, you have to trod through a few hundred pages of drudgery to get there.

Rating:
Summary: Maybe You Have to be Catholic or Australian
Review: This novel is about a young priest in Australia at the beginning of WWII when Australia was worried about Japanese invasion and dealing with the invasion of American soldiers. The young man gets involved (as a priest only) with a woman who eventually is murdered. The confessional and the problems it brings to the priest are central to the plot.

I did not find the priest sympathetic. I actually did not like him even though he was a good-hearted sort. He came off as whiny and cold somehow. The position of the monsignor and church higher-ups is virtually indecipherable. I could not tell if Mr. Kenneally thought them wise or heartless.

There is a lot of tension brought by what the proper role of a priest should be. I found that part of the book interesting. However, the plot line was predictable and, as noted, the characters did not add much to the book. Even the "bad guy" was predictable, although the last portion of the book when the bad guy is identified is the best part. Unfortunately, you have to trod through a few hundred pages of drudgery to get there.

Rating:
Summary: The battle of faith
Review: To lose faith in another is disappointing. To lose faith in oneself is tragic. To lose faith itself is devastating.

Australian author Thomas Keneally, after 24 novels, is an acknowledged master of grafting intimate issues onto a greater framework of world issues. In his Booker Award-winning novel Schindler's List (later adapted to film by Steven Spielberg), he presented a man who found his humanity while Germany lost its way. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith surrounded a man's crisis of identity during the colonization of Australia.

Now, in The Office of Innocence, Keneally proffers a well-worn plot device, a priest undergoing religious uncertainty, contrasting his moral struggles against the larger canvas of Australia during World War II.

Frank Darragh is a scrupulous priest who has secured a reputation as a "merciful confessor," furnishing him row upon row of pious old women and "numerous platoons of self-abusers."

Encroaching warfare, and fear of Japanese attack, takes its toll on Darragh's parishioners. Confessions grow in complexity, morality becomes blurred, and, for Darragh, "an age of automatic grace had passed."

As his naivety lessens, his grasp on the nature of his calling similarly begins to decline. He is censured by his monsignor. And when a parishioner is murdered, an image-conscious church becomes anxious over its wayward clergyman.

Keneally has a unique vantage point from which to view the priesthood. He studied theology with an eye toward being ordained, abandoning the quest in 1960. His clarifications of church rituals, and Darragh's satisfaction with the nuances of repetition, lend the story an ambiance of authenticity.

Keneally's priests, despite their vocation, are resolutely human. Darragh is neither an example of the stereotypical saintly priest or of the Catholic embarrassments of recent events, but is a man who cannot reconcile the difficulties life offers with the compulsory innocence of his profession.

Torn between desired action and forced contemplation, he asks, "Was Catholicism and its orthodoxy sometimes better designed for the timid, for twitching souls who came too often to confession, for the scrupulous so hungry for absolution at every hour?"

Keneally parallels Darragh's distress with Australia's fragile standing in the war. Theological arguments of the church in society shadow Australia's sense of itself as an observer to the world's struggles, as well as victim in "the geography of dread."

Yet despite Keneally's tightly wound scenes of genuine tension, the whole seems less than the sum. His muscular storytelling steamrolls over the finer nuances of his narrative.

Somehow, the more thematically expansive efforts of Schindler's Ark and The Great Shame (covering eighty years in Irish history) seem more intimate, more focussed. The story lacks the innovation and boldness of his finest works, and suffers in its familiarity.

A priest in the thralls of doubt is a archetypal plot device, employed in both the mundane (Richard Vetere's The Third Miracle) and sublime (Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Seville Communion). Keneally deserves kudos for bringing fresh insight and style to an overworked genre. From a lesser author, the novel would impressive in its achievements. The Office of Innocence, a good novel from a great writer, disappoints only because of the talent involved.

Rating:
Summary: A great artist, a common theme
Review: To lose faith in another is disappointing. To lose faith in oneself is tragic. To lose faith itself, is devastating.

Australian author Thomas Keneally, after 24 novels and four Booker Award nominations, is an acknowledged master of grafting intimate, personal issues into a larger framework of world issues, both political and geographic.

In his Booker Award-winning novel Schindler’s Ark (later adapted into Steven Spielberg’s award-winning film Schindler’s List), he presented a man who found his humanity while Germany lost its way. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith surrounded a man’s crisis of identity during the colonization of Australia.

Now, in The Office of Innocence, Keneally proffers a well-worn plot device, that of a Catholic priest undergoing religious uncertainty, and contrasts his moral struggles against the larger canvas of Australia during World War II.

Father Frank Darragh is a scrupulous young priest obsessed with confessions who has secured the reputation as a “merciful confessor,” furnishing him row upon row of pious old women and “numerous platoons of self-abusers.”

The encroaching warfare, and fear of Japanese attacks, begins to take its toll on Darragh’s parishioners. Confessions grow in intensity and complexity, morality becomes blurred, and for Darragh, “an age of automatic grace had passed.”

As his innocence of the world’s workings lessens, his grasp on the nature of his calling similarly begins to decline. And when a parishioner is murdered, an image-conscious church becomes unsettled by the unsanctioned actions of its wayward clergyman.

Keneally has a unique vantage point from which to view the priesthood. He studied theology with an eye toward being ordained, before abandoning the quest in 1960. His clarifications of the rituals of the church, and Darragh’s private satisfaction with the nuances of repetition, lend an ambiance of authenticity to the story. Keneally’s priests, despite the sanctity of their appointments, are resolutely human.

Darragh is neither an example of the stereotypical saintly priest or of the defrocked disappointments of recent events, but a man who cannot reconcile the difficulties life offers with the compulsory innocence of his profession. Feeling inadequate to the mission, torn between action and contemplation, he asks, “Was Catholicism and its orthodoxy sometimes better designed for the timid, for twitching souls who came too often to confession, for the scrupulous so hungry for absolution at every hour?”

Keneally parallels Darragh’s distress with Australia’s fragile standing in the war effort. Theological arguments of the church’s place in society shadow Australia’s sense of itself as an observer to the world’s struggles, as well as victim in “the geography of dread.”

Yet despite Keneally’s tightly wound scenes and moments of genuine tension, the whole seems less than the sum. His muscular storytelling power steamrolls over the finer nuances of his narrative.

Somehow, his more thematically expansive efforts in Schindler’s Ark and The Great Shame (which covers eighty years in Irish history) seem more intimate, more focussed. The story, while well-told, lacks the innovation and boldness of his finest works, and suffers in its familiarity.

A priest in the thralls of doubt is a archetypal and much misused plot device, employed in both the mundane (Richard Vetere’s The Third Miracle) and sublime (Arturo Perez-Reverte’s The Seville Communion). Keneally deserves kudos for bringing fresh insight and style to an overworked genre. From a lesser author, the novel would impressive in its achievements. The Office of Innocence, a good novel from a great writer, disappoints mostly because of the talent involved.