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

[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

[lusimeles]

Ha, I'm admittedly kind of a sucker for faith narratives, so that was actually one of my favourite parts of the book! The murder was super interesting too, though.

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.

I hate you, I had this yummy mouthful of vanilla almond milk and you just made me snort it out.

On the basis of instinct alone I'm inclined to agree with you about Robinson's narrative feeling organic and Greene's forced. As you said, Greene just kind of uses Catholicism as this deus ex machina (almost literally?) to make his characters do things/go places they otherwise wouldn't. But then again, I've never been a lapsed Catholic.