SOURCE: A review of Stained Glass Elegies, in National Review, Vol. 38, No. 5, March 28, 1986, pp. 68–9.

In the following review, Williamson focuses on the theme of Japanese Christianity in Endo's Stained Glass Elegies.

This is one of those rare instances when a book's title is perfectly appropriate to its contents, for, in this delicately wrought collection of stories, the most ordinary aspects of life are viewed as if through stained glass, revealing previously unseen colors and shadings. In addition, Endo's prose has the elegance and economy of poetry. Each word is weighted with meaning. Endo writes of “Old Friends,” “The War Generation,” “Mothers,” and an unloved wife in “My Belongings,” but one theme, the dichotomy of Christianity in Japan, is predominant in most of these stories. Endo, who is himself a Christian, seems almost obsessed with the persecution of early Japanese Christians and, in particular, with the relationship between those...