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It is easy enough to die for the good and beautiful; the hard thing is to die for the miserable and corrupt.

The context of the above line is based on the sacrifice Jesus made for sins of humanity. Now I am going to revise this line to explain the story of Silence.

For priests of Japan, it was easy enough to die as good and beautiful; the hard thing was to die as miserable and corrupt.

Hailed as one of the best novels of the twentieth century, Endo's Silence creates a fascinating as well as thought provoking historical fiction which draws deep from theology, faith, doubt, and pure human condition.

Set in the 17th century, the story introduces young Portuguese Jesuit Sebastião Rodrigues and his companions who travels to Japan to seek their mentor, father Ferreira who has gone cold. This was the time when Japan had enough of Christianity and started hunting and torturing converted Christians and their sympathizers. Also, the foreign priests were given special attention (not the good kind) by the officials.

Father Ferreira was one of the priests. The news from Japan is that he has renounced his religion.

Rodrigues and his friends don't believe this. The mentor they knew was the most faithful and strongest of them all. They decide to travel to Japan and investigate as well as act as priests for the underground Japanese Christian community.

In the introduction, Endo states that he was writing literature while writing the story, not theology. And I chose to read the book as literature and focused not on theological aspects, but on morality and conditions, our characters went through. Nevertheless, Endo's craftsmanship as he draws parallelism between Jesus and Rodrigues is captivating.

Endo also writes about tortures people had to go through because of their faith. Well, that's our world's history. Religion is like fire: It can warm a person as well as burn them to death. Here, Christians were under attack. Centuries before these incidents, Christians persecuted and tortured pagans under Constantinus II. It goes on and on and on.

These people would've felt pretty stupid if Thor received them at gates of the afterlife when they died.

Note: The tale begins with translator's preface, in which William Johnston, the translator, gives a brief and very interesting historical and political landscape of Japan from late 16th century and early 17th century. He talks about the dawn of Christianity in Japan, the love/hate relationship between Japanese politics and priests and Shimabara Rebellion. This fact-based set up in the initial pages of the book helped to pique my interest.

Recommended.