As I look back now, and begin to appraise the independant novels that I have read in the past few weeks, I was both stunned and surprised by the psychological effects that they had imposed on my mind. Whether it was Rushdie's tale of diabolical consequences or Kazantzakis' story on the trial of Christ, I found it increasingly difficult to maintain a coalition between the influence of society and the animosity of religion. Both novels featured plots centralized around the presence of an unseen mystical force, or rather, the significance and po ....