Prince of Peace

Rating:
Summary: Vietnam Redemption
Review: As a baby-boomer, anti-Vietnam protester, and clergy (Methodist, not Catholic), this book grabbed me where I live. While there is a culture in the Catholic Church that I will never know, the struggles with hierarchy, obedience, and the confusion of secular, political ends with spiritual "correctness" will be familiar to all who serve or served in ministry while disagreeing with our government about Vietnam. Overlaying this is the tension of the whole obedience to a sacred vow of celibacy versus true romantic love and the jealousy that such love creates between friends. The resolution of these tensions is a powerful image of redemption - both personally, politically and spiritually.

Rating:
Summary: Vietnam Redemption
Review: As a baby-boomer, anti-Vietnam protester, and clergy (Methodist, not Catholic), this book grabbed me where I live. While there is a culture in the Catholic Church that I will never know, the struggles with hierarchy, obedience, and the confusion of secular, political ends with spiritual "correctness" will be familiar to all who serve or served in ministry while disagreeing with our government about Vietnam. Overlaying this is the tension of the whole obedience to a sacred vow of celibacy versus true romantic love and the jealousy that such love creates between friends. The resolution of these tensions is a powerful image of redemption - both personally, politically and spiritually.

Rating:
Summary: Cross Purposes
Review: I read this on recommendation of a friend who was mostly interested in the research concerning the Catholic Church's involvment in the Vietnam War. It did encourage me to look up information in the FBI files on Cardinal Spellman. There was much that bothered me in the book. I was never a priest but went to Catholic School and became friends with many priests, even close friends with several. The priests in the novel are nothing like those I knew. Neither were the nuns I knew anything like those in the book. What gives? Could there really be people like that with commitment enough to become priests or nuns? I suppose so. What with the recent issues concerning priests in the news, maybe Carroll is right. My feeling is the novel needed sex and cheap contemporary slang to connect the dots in his research. The research at least was interesting.

Rating:
Summary: The Vietnam War and the Catholic Peace Movement
Review: I was awed by this novel. It is not a fast read, but a most satisfying one. With a great deal of historic detail, Carroll draws from his own experience as a priest during the Vietnam era, and the conflicts he confronted. This book is a "must read" part of Vietnam era literature, along with The Quiet American by Graham Greene. These were complicated times, the country was divided, and it wasn't until the Mai Lai massacre story was revealed that most U.S. citizens realized that our soldiers were capable of, and ordered to by their superiors, commit mass murder of unarmed civilians.

Rating:
Summary: The Vietnam War and the Catholic Peace Movement
Review: I was awed by this novel. It is not a fast read, but a most satisfying one. With a great deal of historic detail, Carroll draws from his own experience as a priest during the Vietnam era, and the conflicts he confronted. This book is a "must read" part of Vietnam era literature, along with The Quiet American by Graham Greene. These were complicated times, the country was divided, and it wasn't until the Mai Lai massacre story was revealed that most U.S. citizens realized that our soldiers were capable of, and ordered to by their superiors, commit mass murder of unarmed civilians.

Rating:
Summary: a haunting story of love and betrayal
Review: This is an intricate story of love on many different levels. Set in New York and Vietnam in the 1960's, the story revolves around two friends who grew up together and took very different paths in life. The characters are wrapped in webs of love; romantic love, love for friends, love for God, love for the church, love for their country. One by one each of these strands starts to unwind. I think this is what gripped me...how far can the love be stretched...how much betrayal can love withstand? I have been haunted by the ending of the book, wondering if it is believable. It leaves the reader examining their own presuppositions about the endurability of love and the meaning of forgiveness. I would highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Potential social commentary gone awry.
Review: Try this on: Michael Maguire is a highly decorated Korean War veteran turned anti-Vietnam War Catholic priest. Frank Durkin, his best friend from childhood, is married to Carolyn Campbell, a former Catholic nun (Sister Anne Edward) who actually is in love with Michael. And, of course, Michael is in love with her.

Sound like your typical romance novel? It's not. This is the plot of James Carroll's novel "Prince of Peace," a book which purports to make a social commentary about "what divides American Catholicism." It could have done that successfully, except for three major flaws: first: the characters have no real depth; either they think, speak and act in ways that make them frequently come off more like caricatures in a parody than real characters in the human drama; second: The plot is so predictable that it borders on the cliché; and third: the author's visceral dislike for the Catholic Church (bordering on anti-catholic bigotry - certainly an unusual sentiment for a former Catholic priest) is very distracting.

Don't waste your time or money on this novel.

Rating:
Summary: Potential social commentary gone awry.
Review: Try this on: Michael Maguire is a highly decorated Korean War veteran turned anti-Vietnam War Catholic priest. Frank Durkin, his best friend from childhood, is married to Carolyn Campbell, a former Catholic nun (Sister Anne Edward) who actually is in love with Michael. And, of course, Michael is in love with her.

Sound like your typical romance novel? It's not. This is the plot of James Carroll's novel "Prince of Peace," a book which purports to make a social commentary about "what divides American Catholicism." It could have done that successfully, except for three major flaws: first: the characters have no real depth; either they think, speak and act in ways that make them frequently come off more like caricatures in a parody than real characters in the human drama; second: The plot is so predictable that it borders on the cliché; and third: the author's visceral dislike for the Catholic Church (bordering on anti-catholic bigotry - certainly an unusual sentiment for a former Catholic priest) is very distracting.

Don't waste your time or money on this novel.