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Critics on
Graham Greene:
Graham Greene was in a class by
himself...He will be read and remembered as the ultimate
twentieth-century chronicler of consciousness and
anxiety. [Greene] appears to share the
idea, which has been floating around ever since
Baudelaire, that there is something rather distingué
in being damned; Hell is a sort of high-class nightclub,
entry to which is reserved for Catholics only. ...Catholicism as a public
system of laws and dogmas is far from being an adequate
key to Greene's fiction. There is a good deal of
evidence, internal and external, that in Greene's fiction
Catholicism is not a body of belief requiring exposition
and demanding categorical assent or dissent, but a system
of concepts, a source of situations, and a reservoir of
symbols with which he can order and dramatize certain
intuitions about the nature of human experience —
intuitions which were gained prior to and independently
of his formal adoption of the Catholic faith. Regarded in
this light, Greene's Catholicism may be seen not as a
crippling burden on his artistic freedom, but as a
positive artistic asset. It is, in fact, the ultimate
strength of Greene's books that he shows us the hazards
of compassion. We all know, from works like Hamlet, how
analysis is paralysis and the ability to see every side
of every issue prevents us from taking any side at all.
The tragic import of Greene's work is that understanding
can do the same: he could so easily see the pain of the
people he was supposed to punish that he could not bear
to come down hard on them. He became hostage to his own
sympathies and railed at pity with the fury of one who
was its captive. The most sobering lesson of Greene's
fiction is that sleeping with the enemy is most with us
when we're sleeping alone; and that even God, faced with
a wounded murderer, might sometimes feel himself
agnostic. In one book at least, The
Power and the Glory, he transcends his perverse and
morbid tendencies and presents a whole and memorable
human being; this wholeness is exceptional, for Greene is
generally an impressionist, or rather a cutter of
mosaics. We expect from incisive talents some kind of
diagnosis, some instinctive knowledge of the human
situation which we have not attended to; this Greene has
had. His subjects are the contemporary loneliness,
ugliness, and transience. The three novels...Brighton
Rock, The Heart of the Matter, and The End of
the Affair...all have claims to greatness; they are
as intense and penetrating and disturbing as an
inquisitor's gaze. After his modest start as a novelist
under the influence of Joseph Conrad and John Buchan,
Greene's masterly facility at concocting thriller plots
and his rather blithely morbid sensibility had come
together, at a high level of intelligence and passion,
with the strict terms of an inner religious debate that
had not yet wearied him. © Melody Yiu Images and quoted text on this website may be protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. They are presented here for academic interest and personal entertainment. No distribution, reproduction, re-transmission or other rights are given or implied by their appearance. If you have any copyright concerns, please notify me. |
Mr. Greene is a
story-teller of genius. Born in another age, he would
still be spinning yarns...His technical mastery has never
been better manifested than in his statement of the scene
-- the sweat and infection, the ill-built town which is
beautiful for a few minutes at sundown, the brothel where
all men are equal, the vultures...the snobbery of the
second-class public schools, the law which all can evade,
the ever-present haunting underworld of gossip, spying,
bribery, violence and betrayal...the affinity to the film
is everywhere apparent. It is the camera's eye which
moves from the hotel balcony to the street below, picks
out the policeman, follows him to his office, moves about
the room from the handcuffs on the wall to the broken
rosary in the drawer, recording significant detail. It is
the modern way of telling a story...