Word: ostergothenburg
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...stories contain little drama; the characters' search, and their eventual despair, is all quiet, internal. The Bishop of Ostergothenburg (Minnesota), who believes firmly in the hierarchy of authority but whose position is usurped by a cold, efficient assistant, doesn't go out in a blaze of glory. He is sideswiped by a truck and merely stays a while in the hospital, "doing fairly well for a man of his age, he understood, until he took a turn for the worse." And that's all. It is the understatement in these stories that make Powers such a master of his chosen...
...rather than an institutional one, and because of this presentation the stories gain dramatic force. But the offices of the Church are no longer sacrosanct. As a result, the traditional hierarchy has been permanently weakened. Even God is brough down to a mundane level. When the Bishop of Ostergothenburg tries to retrieve his authority, he investigates behind the new bishop's back reports of a miraculous visitation--but the divine message is only "Keep Minnesota Green." The Bishop, shocked, can only respond with a prayer. God is no longer universal--the rest of the country, the rest of the world...
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