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Summary: One of Graham Greene's best -- and that is saying a lot.
Review: Having read several other books by Graham Greene, the only other author I could compare him to would be Joseph Conrad. The complexity of the characters is unmatched in any of today's literature. Like "The Power and the Glory" the main character is imperfect but ultimately heroic (not in the usual sense of the term). This is one terrific read. Don't pick it up if you're looking for light reading -- this is potent stuff.
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Summary: A great plot providing plenty to ponder
Review: I'm not usually one for classic British literature (or even modern British literature for that matter), but this is an excellent book. Its rare when a novel can provide its reader with a deep and philosophical theme to ponder and still produce a plot exciting enough worth turning the page for. Here Greene explores the disturbing and complex world of Catholic guilt in a tale complete with adultery, corruption, and murder. Definately a classic, highly recommended for those seeking out truely great literature.
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Summary: This broke my heart
Review: New writers today don't know how to evoke this type of tragedy. The review that compared this to Shakespeare was on the money...timeless, beautiful and tragic. A great book that hopefully will not be lost behind the politically-correct and shock-value novels of today, in the curriculums of future generations.
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Summary: one line summary? bloody impossible!
Review: The Heart of the Matter provides a wonderful insight into man's weaknesses and foibles. Yet it does so in a way which makes the reader sympathize with, rather than condemn, the main character. Through Scobie, we learn about the dangers of duplicity, and how badly a man can ruin his life, and the life of those close to him, by avoiding the inevitable decisions life forces upon us. We see how quickly a man can lose the reputation he has spent years building. Despite these faults, I found myself sympathetic to Scobie; indeed, I even liked him. In that sense, he is like Updike's Rabbit, Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt, and Richard Ford's Frank Bascomb, all characters the readers can love "warts and all".. Greene also provides a portrait of life in the British Empire's far-flung and forgotten regions. It is a much more sympathetic portrait that the one painted by Orwell in Burmese Days, yet it is still very revealing. Anyone who wants to start getting to know this wonderful collection of stories written by Greene would do well to start here, and to then move on to Our Man in Havana.
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Summary: A unique tragedy reminiscent of Shakespeare or Thomas Hardy
Review: Though the religious aspect at times seemed forced to me, this is an incredible story of one man falling apart. The depth of his fall and the amount of sympathy generated in the reader reminded me of Shakespeare. At the same time, this book is an excellent philosophical discourse on the nature of love and relationships, that while pessimistic due to the nature of the book, certainly makes you think. Overall, this is one of the most complete stories involving character, plot, a strong theme and an overall strong narrative presence that I have ever read
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Summary: Brilliant story about the fallibility of us all
Review: Graham Greene - The Heart of the Matter This book is a great example of why I enjoy reading novels. For my money Graham Greene is one of the greatest novelists ever to have walked the Earth and one of only a few who actually matters. If you have never read a Graham Greene novel then you are missing out on something special and this would be a good place to begin - but then all of his novels are very good. It's no simple story - although it can be read as one. Scobie is the Deputy Police Commissioner of a West African state during the second world war. He has just been overlooked for promotion but couldn't really care less. His wife Louise, on the other hand, is shamed and having grown tired of the place, wants to spend some time in South Africa. Unable to afford the cost of the journey, the previously incorruptible Scobie borrows money from a local moneylender and well-known local bad guy. Having made one bad choice, Scobie goes one better by beginning a relationship with a much younger woman. From here Scobie's life spirals out of control and as a devout Catholic he quickly becomes overwhelmed by the sins he has committed and he struggles hugely with his intense guilt. Just under the surface of this fascinating story is commentary on themes such as faith, love, the shallowness of human relationships and deceit. Perhaps at the heart of the matter is the fallibility of humans and their relationships with others. Greene's novels linger with you long after you have put them down. They have substance. They have the power to affect and move you and I find myself pondering them long after I have put them down. Green is simply a brilliant story teller and an outstanding author. And this is a tragic, engrossing and moving novel. Highly, highly recommended.
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Summary: Twentieth century cavalier
Review: Graham Greene's "The Heart of the Matter" is a powerful story about the choices a man has to make with regard to love, duty, and honor -- his responsibilities to his wife, his job, and God. There are heavy religious overtones to this novel, but they never feel preachy or compromise the strength of the drama. The main character is Major Henry Scobie, the deputy-commissioner of police in a British-occupied West African state during World War II. He's an honest cop on a force that is given to corruption: Some officers routinely take bribes to overlook diamond-smuggling operations, many of which are masterminded by a sly Syrian named Yusef, who manipulates his friendship with the officers through favors and blackmail. Scobie's wife, Louise, is miserable; she is lonely and feels ostracized by the other officers' wives in the community. She would like to leave and go to South Africa for a while, but Scobie can't leave his post to go with her or afford to send her because he's been passed over for promotion to commissioner. His last resort to scrape together the money is to borrow it from Yusef, which puts him squarely under Yusef's thumb. After Louise's departure, Scobie meets a girl named Helen whose husband drowned when their ship was attacked. He falls in love with her despite the fact that she's young enough to be his daughter and mocks his piety. He wonders if adultery can be a sin if the love is genuine, but this is not just a cynical attempt to rationalize his infidelity. Adding to the conflict is a clerk named Wilson who is in love with Louise and, while he pretends to be Scobie's friend and moral compass, acts a sort of dual role as watchdog and betrayer. Like the protagonist of Greene's "The Power and the Glory," Scobie's character is defined by the fact that he is a devout Catholic who is contritely aware of his sins. Although he believes that suicide would be eternal damnation, he poses a crucial question for himself: Would it be better to kill himself for the sake of honor than to live shamefully, insulting God by kneeling before the altar while living adulterously? I see Scobie as a "white knight" type of character -- a cavalier, a protector, someone who was born to be a policeman, someone who is sworn to follow the moral code of Christianity. When he fails in this task, or believes that he fails, he is forced to question the validity of continuing his mission; that is, his life. After reading so many novels about people with moral uncertainties, I find a fresh perspective in this man who draws courage from his convictions and acts accordingly.
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Summary: A Good Man in Africa
Review:
Considered by many critics to be one of the great novels of the twentieth century, The Heart of the Matter is also Greene's most penetrating dissection of his Catholic faith. Greene was a Catholic the way Dostoievsky was a Russian Orthodox Christian: both used belief to slip through the gates of orthodoxy; once inside, they hurled their doubts like bombs, in prose so powerful it shook the very structures they claimed to support.
Greene's hero, Henry Scobie, is an honest, if plodding, police superintendent in a malarial British outpost in West Africa. Scobie's primary ambition is to cause no unnecessary suffering, and, in the case of his wife Louise, no additional unhappiness. His fall from grace begins when he borrows money from the morally dubious Yusef because Louise wants to get away to South Africa and an easier life. Once Louise has set sail, Scobie takes up with Helen, a young widow stranded in the colony. When Louise unexpectedly returns, Scobie has to choose between doing the right thing according to Catholic dogma or following his feelings.
Scobie has increasing difficulty embracing a god who refuses to let him be passionate (with Helen) and compassionate (to Louise). The choices he makes put him on the Catholic version of the Perdition Express. Unable to give either woman what she really needs, increasingly in Yusef's debt, and, most importantly, bereft of the comforts of his religion, Scobie drifts toward despair on a quickening current.
Scobie has only good will toward those he cares for, but, in the Catholic sense, commits the sin of pride. His attempts to resolve the suffering of others usurps god's role. These attempts are doomed to fail because Scobie, unlike god, can't foresee the consequences of his actions. Greene published this book in 1948, at a time when fascism had just been put down at enormous cost and communism was ascendant throughout Eastern Europe. The Heart of the Matter is his response to those who put forward atheistic solutions to human suffering: absent god, human compassion alone is inadequate to heal the wounds we inflict and incur.
The book is slow going at times - it's full of knotty interior monologues that are heated arguments with god - but it rewards the effort. The plot is intricately constructed and unfolds with Greene's typical skill and flair. The minor characters are well-drawn. The sweaty, bug-infested coastal setting is palpable in its oppressiveness. And whether or not you buy into Greene's religious outlook, you'll have no difficulty feeling for Scobie, a good man in Africa undone by the wayward promptings of his all-too-human heart.
If you like this book, I'd recommend A Burnt Out Case, also set in Africa, and The Power and the Glory, a powerful look at the meaning of faith, often thought to be Greene's greatest work.
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Summary: Scobie Does It
Review: Henry Scobie doesn't know what he wants but he knows he's not in love with his "darling wife" Louise, not any longer. As a Roman Catholic, he is bound nevertheless to stay with her, and as a respresentative of England in a steamy West African country, he is honor bound to present himself as a happily married man. However there are cracks in the surface, in which doubt and anguish seep through, and it's almost as if a cloud of locusts follow him around as he passes his days in a fever of unknowing. God seems very far away, and the lies that he never used to tell himself come fast and furious now. Can he find grace in the arms of another woman, the fresh, dewy eyed Helen? Upon this dilemma Graham Greene hangs a whole tragedy of misunderstanding and meanness, with deep spiritual implications.
I sometimes wonder where Graham Greene drew his inspiration from. When he developed the characters of Louise and Helen, it's almost as if he were thinking of the old madonna-whore syndrome and trying to make it revitalized along with the deeply entrenched conservatism of the Catholic Church.
Reading the book today, of course, we are more critical than most readers might have been back then, of Henry Scobie's ambiguous place within black African culture. Greene however sees through this apparent oversight and manages to finish the book with a flourish that will satisfy even the most determinedly post-colonial savant. The only thing that seems unlikely to me is Helen's attraction to a man so much older than herself and who is no sex machine. Dream on, Graham Greene!
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Summary: On the outside looking in
Review: I initially had difficulty with the last hundred pages of Graham Greene's 1948 novel about an English policeman in war-torn colonial Africa. Thankfully I devoted another few days to a proper re-read, and found the book indeed one of the most powerful tragedies I've read.
Since the intricate moral dilemmas are outlined in the plot summaries of other reviewers below, I will only add a couple of points:
Apart from the key theme of man confronting God - in particular the ritualised sufferings of guilt-ridden Catholics - Greene also delineates the petty snobberies of British colonial administrators. This is mainly seen in the marginalisation of the protagonist, Scobie.
At the outset, when Harris first meets the newly-arrived Wilson (Scobie's antagonist), he repeats a false rumor: that Scobie sleeps with native women. It's not the rumour that's important, just the fact that Scobie is already an outsider. Discovering much later that they are alumni of the same British public (US: "private" or "independent") school, Wilson and Harris form a strong bond and become housemates. The "old school tie" is a potent motif in English society and literature and this is enough to sideline Scobie.
Professionally and socially passed over by his colleagues, Scobie is vulnerable to Yusuf. In their ambiguous relationship, Yusuf feels friendship for him, but also preys on Scobie's moral waverings, with resultant corruption and murder.
The suicide of a young officer, Pemberton, foreshadows Scobie's own. The confused wasteland of Scobie's mind, in both his adultery and his corruption, is harrowingly presented. Part of the "heart of the matter" is literal, not metaphorical: Scobie has angina.
A painful book on every level, with the niceties and difficulties of British colonial life encountering brutal human instincts and struggling spirituality.
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