The sky wept endlessly around him; he had the sense of wounds that never healed.

[decemberthirty]

In The Heart of the Matter Graham Greene tells the story of Henry Scobie, a police officer stationed in an unnamed British colony on the west coast of Africa during WWII. He is a lone honest man surrounded by spies, smugglers, and corrupt officials, and he defines himself by his honesty. Scobie is stuck in a loveless marriage to Louise; he pities

Comments

[decemberthirty]

I thought it was interesting despite its flaws--hope you enjoy!

[lusimeles]

i'm with you, graham greene sucks. the last book i hated as much as the end of the affair was fucking atlas shrugged. i don't always even think evelyn waugh succeeds at weaving the catholic themes but graham greene just makes it super awkward for all.

[decemberthirty]

I wouldn't say I exactly hated either this book or The End of the Affair, but yeah, Greene's approach to religion is a mess. He just brings it in like a sledgehammer out of nowhere and everything that may have been interesting about the book gets demolished.

[lusimeles]

i seriously do not understand how he is so well-regarded. maybe you have to have grown up deeply catholic to get it.

[pax_athena]

I feel with you on the topic of faith/believe. I'm generally interested in religion as a phenomenon, but books which hinge on crises of faith or faith in general just do not work for me. I can understand that this is the way some people think, but I can't get into their heads. It's so ... illogical, for me.

[decemberthirty]

That's exactly it. I can only read so much of someone agonizing over religion before I want to say, "You know none of it is real, don't you?"

[lusimeles]

gilead, though! i thought that was one of your favourites. although i suppose he doesn't really agonize too much exactly...

also come on, the brothers karamazov. (sorry, clearly butting in.)

[decemberthirty]

Oh yeah, the religious stuff in The Brothers Karamazov drove me crazy. "Come on, can't you shut up about god and get back to the murder?!!?!?"

Gilead is an interesting question though. Until this moment I don't think I had given any thought to why the religious elements of that book don't bother me. Part of it, I suppose, is that Gilead seems to be about a lot of other things in addition to being about faith: family and history and place and voice and.... Whereas The Heart of the Matter was disappointing because at first it WAS about a lot of different and interesting things, until suddenly it was just all Catholicism all the time. And of course Robinson handles it all must more subtly than Greene does. In Gilead, the character's faith feels totally organic to the narrative, as opposed to Greene's approach which basically amounts to a church falling out of the sky and crushing his characters, leaving just their feet sticking out like the wicked witch of the east

[salvagejob]

Hm. I don't know this book and you make a very strong case against it, but I love Graham Greene. I read "The Human Factor" and "The Quiet American" and thought they were brilliant. I don't remember any religion in either of them. In fact, I Googled him to make sure we were talking about the same person. You might try The Quiet American. It's about war in Asia and it's really relevant now....

[decemberthirty]

I remember liking the movie version of The Quiet American with Michael Caine that came out about ten years ago, and I remember thinking back then that it was really relevant to the war in Afghanistan and what would soon become a war in Iraq. So I should probably give that one a try, especially if Greene manages to avoid ruining it with a lot of heavy-handed Catholicism at the end.

[salvagejob]

Absolutely none of that as I recall. I do know that he's a famous Catholic -- he was important to Muriel Spark, who you may know converted to Roman Catholicism, somewhat bizarrely for a half Jewish girl from Scotland -- but it was so very much not present in the two books I loved that I did question my sanity/memory when I read your post. Maybe it was there and I missed it? I don't think so. Anyway, I did not know there was a movie of the Quiet American; I will check that out. Thanks!