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The Priest and His Karma
It’s 1964 and Sebastian Lobo has returned to Goa after a ten-year absence. He left his homeland in a flood of anger and despair, and he’s been running ever since, running from his guilt, his pain, and his past vocation. He is employed as a reporter for a newspaper in Panjim and no one knows who he used to be. Now, after having separated himself from the Catholic Church for a decade, he is consumed by an overwhelming desire to experience the sacrament of confession once again. But in the confessional he realizes in horror that the priest is from his old parish and denies him the sacrament. Sebastian is now hounded by both God and the Devil as he struggles to see justice prevail by confronting his former adversary, his struggle leading him to Bombay, Montreal, Toronto and back again to Old Goa.
212 pages, Paperback
First published May 18, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 2, 2009
“Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” – Exodus 34:14
The theme of this Biblical line echoes throughout Ben Antao’s latest novel, as protagonist Sebastian Lobo, an ex-priest, agonizes between the call of God, the call of his loins, and the damage that those two forces can commit on mankind when they get intertwined and conflicted.
Lobo flees the priesthood due to corruption in the Church, becomes an investigative journalist in Goa and Bombay, drinks, frequents prostitutes and tries desperately to stifle his bi-sexual instincts. He travels to Canada to cover Expo 67, falls in love during the flower power and free love era in North America but is drawn back to complete that “unfinished business’ back home. Through this tightly woven storyline, Antao brings us into the world of the tormented priest – one who is strong-willed in places, then weak, then lost, then damned, again revived and placed on the redemption trail, only to be brutally shoved back into a private hell for having abandoned God in the beginning. Much of the narrative takes place in Lobo’s head and he is isolated from people because every time he opens his mouth to have a discussion, he seems to be drawn back to his pre-occupation with God and the Church.
I think that Antao is bold to take on the Catholic Church for their now publicly known sexual misdeeds; at the same time he hedges his bet in having his renegade priest get his comeuppance for having transgressed his holy vows.
Writing about metaphysical manifestations in novels is okay as long as they are presented through the lenses of certain characters, I think. When Antao brings in those creepy crawly demons into straight narrative sections (prologue and epilogue) or when Sandra, Lobo’s Canadian girlfriend and an atheist, also wakes up to see Lobo’s nemesis, the God-light, illuminating their bedroom and hears the same ghostly voice that repeatedly tells Lobo “I love you”, I think we as readers are being forced into a belief frame that we may not all buy into. It shifted the focus for me from literary fiction into another genre that I find difficult to classify. I would rather Antao have kept the demons and God-voices with Lobo himself and not intruded with his own authorial, moralistic scene-painting.
That said, Antao gives us nostalgic and vivid descriptions of Canada in the ‘60’s when prospective immigrants had to be coaxed to reside here rather than have to go through the act of “getting through the eye of the needle” that it is today, when sex had no stigma of AIDS, and when the Toronto Zoo was not in its present location. There are also detailed descriptions of the ordination process for priests, vivid images of Old Goa, and of Bombay when it had only four million residents. And of course, there is always the sex...
The writing is fluid, the scenes move fast and I was able to read this book in a couple of sittings. Given Antao’s prolific output in recent years, I am awaiting his next book.
The theme of this Biblical line echoes throughout Ben Antao’s latest novel, as protagonist Sebastian Lobo, an ex-priest, agonizes between the call of God, the call of his loins, and the damage that those two forces can commit on mankind when they get intertwined and conflicted.
Lobo flees the priesthood due to corruption in the Church, becomes an investigative journalist in Goa and Bombay, drinks, frequents prostitutes and tries desperately to stifle his bi-sexual instincts. He travels to Canada to cover Expo 67, falls in love during the flower power and free love era in North America but is drawn back to complete that “unfinished business’ back home. Through this tightly woven storyline, Antao brings us into the world of the tormented priest – one who is strong-willed in places, then weak, then lost, then damned, again revived and placed on the redemption trail, only to be brutally shoved back into a private hell for having abandoned God in the beginning. Much of the narrative takes place in Lobo’s head and he is isolated from people because every time he opens his mouth to have a discussion, he seems to be drawn back to his pre-occupation with God and the Church.
I think that Antao is bold to take on the Catholic Church for their now publicly known sexual misdeeds; at the same time he hedges his bet in having his renegade priest get his comeuppance for having transgressed his holy vows.
Writing about metaphysical manifestations in novels is okay as long as they are presented through the lenses of certain characters, I think. When Antao brings in those creepy crawly demons into straight narrative sections (prologue and epilogue) or when Sandra, Lobo’s Canadian girlfriend and an atheist, also wakes up to see Lobo’s nemesis, the God-light, illuminating their bedroom and hears the same ghostly voice that repeatedly tells Lobo “I love you”, I think we as readers are being forced into a belief frame that we may not all buy into. It shifted the focus for me from literary fiction into another genre that I find difficult to classify. I would rather Antao have kept the demons and God-voices with Lobo himself and not intruded with his own authorial, moralistic scene-painting.
That said, Antao gives us nostalgic and vivid descriptions of Canada in the ‘60’s when prospective immigrants had to be coaxed to reside here rather than have to go through the act of “getting through the eye of the needle” that it is today, when sex had no stigma of AIDS, and when the Toronto Zoo was not in its present location. There are also detailed descriptions of the ordination process for priests, vivid images of Old Goa, and of Bombay when it had only four million residents. And of course, there is always the sex...
The writing is fluid, the scenes move fast and I was able to read this book in a couple of sittings. Given Antao’s prolific output in recent years, I am awaiting his next book.
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November 26, 2009The Priest and His Karma is an intriguing and contemporary tale that traces the underside of the Catholic Church and one man’s love-hate affair with it. We follow Sebastian Lobo across two continents as he battles his demons both literally and figuratively. A battle between good and evil is being waged and Sebastian is the battleground.
Antao probes his protagonist’s psyche as he attempts to escape from a past he cannot reconcile with his beliefs. We feel Sebastian’s ambivalence as he struggles between conflicting lifestyles and what his soul is calling him to do.
Halfway across the world he finds a reason to confront his past and put it to rest. But just when it seems he has found his way home at last, fate confounds him again.
The Priest and His Karma is Antao’s fifth novel and, in my estimation, his best. He has latched onto a character that he clearly feels connected to and the result is enjoyable reading.
Antao probes his protagonist’s psyche as he attempts to escape from a past he cannot reconcile with his beliefs. We feel Sebastian’s ambivalence as he struggles between conflicting lifestyles and what his soul is calling him to do.
Halfway across the world he finds a reason to confront his past and put it to rest. But just when it seems he has found his way home at last, fate confounds him again.
The Priest and His Karma is Antao’s fifth novel and, in my estimation, his best. He has latched onto a character that he clearly feels connected to and the result is enjoyable reading.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews