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    The Devil's Advocate
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    The Devil's Advocate
    Unavailable
    The Devil's Advocate
    Ebook363 pages6 hours

    The Devil's Advocate

    By Morris West

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    In an impoverished village in southern Italy, the enigmatic life and mysterious death of Giacomo Nerone has inspired talk of sainthood. Father Blaise Meredith, a dying English priest, is sent by the Vatican to investigate. As he tries to untangle the web of facts, rumors and outright lies that surround Nerone, The Devil's Advocate reminds us how the power of goodness ultimately prevails over despair. The Devil's Advocate was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the W.H. Heinemann Award of the Royal Society of Literature, and was made into a film.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAllen Unwin
    Release dateAug 1, 2017
    ISBN9781495640070
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for The Devil's Advocate

    4/5

    102 ratings7 reviews

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    • 4/5
      708. The Devil's Advocate, by Morris L. West (read 9 Sep 1962)(James Tait Black Memorial fiction prize for 1959) I found this to be a good book, but apparently I did no post-reading note on it.
    • 4/5
      A Vatican bound English Catholic priest is told he is terminally ill. The novel reveals how he decides to spend his last days investigating a proposal for sainthood in a small, postwar Italian village with a secret.
    • 5/5
      Monsignor Blaise Meredith, who is dying of cancer, is sent to a small, isolated Italian town to be a Devil's Advocate for beautification of Giacomo Nerone. We see the story, told largely in flashbacks, of a controversial character in an isolated peasant village. A vivid portrait is painted of the people who knew Nerone and how their actions resulted in good and evil. All are in need of spiritual healing or guidance, and West clearly shows us the changes that are still being wrought in their lives by their memories of Nerone. The question of whether Nerone is actually a saint is left for us to decide and I, myself, am undecided on that particular question. However, in this book it is the journey that is important along with actions taken on the way ... as it is in our own lives. There is no question about that. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      Old fashioned story telling at its best. I thought it was well ahead of it's time in theme since it was published in 1959 when we were not questioning the residual effects of war, , written incredibly well. A very good insight to war and it's aftermath for a civilian group that is just trying to survive when survival is questionable no matter what the circumstance. The faith issues the book address give pause, reflecting a genuiness that is thought provoking.
    • 5/5
      In a small town in Calabria,the local partisans condemn a man to death.Allied deserter, traitor,collaborator,Giacomo Nerone deserved to die.Years after the war,there are those who remember Nerone as a saint-a wounded fugitive who appeared from nowhere to lead them through the harsh winter and hunger of the German occupation into spring.Blaise Meredith,the sceptical emissary from the Vatican has to act as 'THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE'Interesting investigation of the past !
    • 3/5
      This was a fun re-read of a book I last read in the early 70s. I enjoyed it the first time, and I enjoyed it again the second time.The book shows its era - while there are some slightly sordid chaurch activities are revealed, the book is a full-on promo for the Catholic Church. In Lazarus, one of Morris West"s sequels to this book published 30 years later, the tone of faith in the church is considerably more subdued - still there, but not as strident as the 1959 book.So, good writing, a bit of fun in plot development, a lot of pro-church prpoganda to stomach or ignore, but otherwise an interesting and enjoyable read.
    • 5/5
      Sadly, for many people the only truly admirable priests the meet are in the pages of fiction. When one starts to read Morris West’s novel The Devil’s Advocate one may be disappointed. Despite his illness Meredith is not a very sympathetic figure. ordained to be a priest of God he has spent his career as a paper pusher in the Vatican. As the story progresses and the clerk meets with real people, an agnostic Jewish physician, a saint’s lover and their child, a narcissistic English dowager a pederast painter a barely educated parish priest and a pastoral bishop his heart changes. The reader gains sympathy for Meredith. Highly recommended. Loyola are to be commended for bringing West’s book back into print. As the title suggests this book is more about the Devil's Advocate than it is about the saint he investigates.