Rating: 
Summary: Disturbing, but in a good way.
Review: This is a profound exploration of the limits of a man's faith under extreme persecution. The events of the story will stay with you long after you have finished the novel. It's a very disturbing book, especially on the subjects of persecution, sacrifice, and ultimately apostasy. Bring a friend and have a nice long discussion.
Rating: 
Summary: Disturbing, yet beautiful
Review: This is not a book for the faint of heart. It looks at the question of a "good" God allowing so much pain and suffering in this world. The answer that it offers I found to be disturbing, yet beautiful. It may be a more honest answer than we'd like to admit. I recommend it highly.
Rating:
Summary: Awesomely thought-provoking
Review: This novel of Portuguese seventeenth century missionaries in Japan is hauntingly told and really is more gripping than Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory, which it calls to mind. Without writing a "spoiler" one cannot really comment on the questions raised. The book is easy to read and should be read by anyone interested in the type of book which The Power and the Glory is.
Rating:
Summary: How can God remain silent?
Review: This question, raised countless times by the main character Rodrigues, is just one of many theological issues that Endo explores in this highly emotional, extremely probing novel. The Christian period of Japan is regarded as a somewhat curious anomaly by the Japanese themselves, and is largely unknown in western circles. That Endo could weave so elegant a tale, using a foreign main character (there are few precedents in Japanese literature) and frequently changing narrative styles no less, is an accomplishment in itself."Silence" raises several theological points, but the two that stuck with me the most were the following: how can God remain silent despite the suffering of his people (a question no less relevant with the events going on in the world today), and secondly, is it possible that Christianity cannot "grow roots" in the "swamp" that is Japan. A Catholic himself, it is obvious that Endo has struggled over these questions himself, searching for answers. Is it possible to betray your faith but stay true to your God? Endo's frank look at questions like this is part of his universal success. It is amazing to consider that this book was a huge seller in Endo's native Japan, which itself is barely 1% Christian. "Father, you were not defeated by me," Inoue says to Rodrigues. "You were defeated by this swamp of Japan." "No, no ... my struggle was with Christianity in my own heart" Rodrigues replies. Ultimately, Christian or non-Christian, no matter your age or nationality, faith comes down to these battles in the heart. Endo does a magnificent job depicting this, and Silence is an outstanding book because of it.
Rating:
Summary: This a book you will never forget.
Review: This story burns into the soul of every reader, particularly if they are a Christian. Be prepared to question the most basic parts of your faith, and to hear your own doubts and fears expressed. It leaves you with the terrible question: "What would I do?" This book is excellent and ten million miles away from any concept of an easy religion. I am a Christian minister, so I not only know about the easy religion, but also about the dark night of the soul.
Rating:
Summary: Silence a tale of grace
Review: Using a variety of narrative approaches author Shusaku Endo sweeps the reader up in the lives of two fictional Jesuit missionaries Sebastian Rodrigues and Francis Garrpe. The reader follows Rodrigues and Garrpe as they struggle with cultural difficulties of 17th Century Japan, which does not welcome the presence of Catholic Missionaries. While the story takes us through the brutal experiences of persecution, it whispers a tale of gentle grace.
The protagonist Rodrigues encounters a silent God in his suffering. This silence forces him to examine his relationship with the "church" compared to his relationship to a living God. In Silence Rodrigues was asked to willingly tread on a "fumie," an or a holy image, in demonstration of his apostasy. Rodrigues experiences the Grace of Christ in the moment of his denial, and realizes wholeness only through brokenness. As a reader Endo asks us to examine our relationship with a Living Christ, rather than the depth of our beliefs. Silence tells us, to experience grace we must first be broken.
Rating:
Summary: Tremendous Book about Christian suffering.
Review: While Silence deals thoughtfully with Christianity and culture, human frailty, faithfulness and disloyalty, and a number of other important themes, it is, for me, very much a meditation on the depths of Christ's suffering and the extent to which his love (manifest in suffering) reaches. Endo shows how Christ remains with humanity, even in the unspeakable moments of suffering and in those times when a "right" choice seems impossible. Endo's Silence is a profound book about suffering in general and Christ's suffering in particular.
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