I had decided to read some more by this acclaimed writer but I’m not sure I made the right choice. I did not enjoy this novel as much as his previous offerings, particularly Brighton Rock.
Graham Greene became a Roman Catholic in his twenties and it was an important part of his life.
In this story he uses the characters and the plot, such as it is, as a kind of literary trope, a device to explore his relationship with God and to examine his beliefs, indeed to challenge the existence of God. Inevitably at one point, when challenged, one of the characters says that you can’t prove that God does not exist. The power of prayer is mulled over as are miracles and coincidences.
All the characters in this book are troubled and indeed Monica Ali, in her well written introduction, says that this story is not really about love or hate but about doubt and the suffering that is implicit. She goes on to comment that Graham Greene shows the ‘deceptively simple complexity
( is that an oxymoron?) of a writer who never gives us easy answers to the question of what it is to be human.’
I can’t honestly say I enjoyed this novel but I could certainly appreciate that it was indeed good!