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Summary: Of all things life is supreme
Review: In his inimmitable manner Graham Green has shown in this distinctly humanist novel why the dictates of heart that recognizes life as the supreme should ultimately be valued. Religion has not been rejected but in a way rather integrated to an idea of life but it extracts its price for life to claim its own place. Major Scobie didn't know that the love that never existed between him and Louise would not be honoured even by mistake after his death. He was mistaken to assume that he was setting Helen free from the sin and trouble of their love by his death. Everything remains the same vindicating Heart and even religion at the end! What a grand story telling, excellent plot and unfolding of thoughts!
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Summary: Grim Story; Strong Sense of the Human
Review: "The Heart of the Matter" is the sad story of a man tormented by an inability to live up to the dictates of his religion. Deputy Police Commissioner Scobie begins the book as a rare subject, an English colonial policeman in Africa not on the take. He is cursed, however, with a wife who constantly, if not always overtly, reminds him that the life he has provided for them is beneath her. Louise Scobie is one of those Catholics of the mid-twentieth century that believes things like missing mass on Sunday is a mortal sin, but unfortunately can't bring herself to "avoid superbia" as the nuns used to admonish schoolchildren in the fifties and sixties. In other words, Louise is a snob. When it's announced that her husband won't be promoted when the commissioner retires she simply can't deal with the shame of it.Most of Scobie's capacity for love died several years earlier at a boarding school in England when their nine-year-old daughter was taken by a sudden illness--the difficulty of communication and the fact of World War II prevented him from even attending the funeral--and the third person narrator notes how he retreated into his job, but "[t]he less he needed Louise the more he felt responsible for her happiness." Louise does see Scobie's struggles, even gently accusing him of wishing she were dead. He responds, as he always does, that her happiness is his priority, and promises to find a way to pay for her passage to South Africa, where she'll be able to be with friends and without the ignominy of not being the new commissioner's wife. The only way to find the money is to borrow it from a well known but smooth Syrian crime boss who likes Scobie because he can trust him to be incorruptible. Crossing the proprietary line of borrowing the money flows into crossing the mortal sin line as Scobie takes up with a much younger woman. While he grows to love Helen, whom he meets in a hospital while she recovers from nearly dying in a shipwreck, he cannot love what he sees himself becoming. Scobie's struggles with despair are moving and genuine, even as the reader perhaps wishes Scobie were just a little bit smarter than he is. If he were of course, he wouldn't be Scobie, never able to attain his desired simple life where he can do his job and feel loved and loving, redeemed and free. Greene's narrator is sympathetic and not particularly judgmental. The style is clean and direct and the book is well organized. I won't necessarily rush out and read another book by Greene, as it's time I avoided reminding myself of the Church-inflicted and self-inflicted moral tortures that Catholics put themselves through. He's a fine writer, though, and "The Heart of the Matter" is a fine book.
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Summary: "O God , I offer up my damnation to you."
Review: "What an absurd thing it was to expect happiness in a world so full of misery," Graham Greene's protagonist observes in this novel; "point me out the happy man and I will point you out either extreme egotism, evil--or else an absolute ignorance" (p. 111). Like THE END OF THE AFFAIR (1951), this is a religious novel which explores the the dark interior landscape of human suffering. Originally published in 1948, Penguin Classics recently published a centennial edition of Greene's "Catholic novel," THE HEART OF THE MATTER, on the 100th anniversary of his birth.
The novel tells the story of Major Henry Scobie, a police officer serving duty in a miserable West African state during WWII. After he is passed over for a promotion, scrupulously honest Scobie borrows money from Yusef, a Syrian moneylender of dubious character, to send his wife, Louise, to South Africa. Despite the fact that he is incapable of love, as demonstrated by his loveless marriage to Louise, Scobie then falls into an affair with a woman, Helen Rolt, who is thirty years younger than him. Consumed by guilt, Scobie's attempts to reconcile the affair to his devout Catholic beliefs eventually lead him to spiral downward through a profound spiritual crisis to his final devastation, reveaing along the way an intense, unrelenting inner hell seemingly devoid of God's love. At one point in the novel, Scobie says that hell is more a sense of loss than an actual place.
THE HEART OF THE MATTER is a powerful exploration of suicide by one of the world's best novelists.
G. Merritt
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Summary: Makes you question your own motives, faith, and love
Review: After I read this book, I kept thinking about Scobie and his struggles with his faith or lack of it. When I was reading the novel, I didn't appreciate it as much as I do now. The complexities of his relationship with his wife, his job, and his faith have kept me thinking of different scenarios, things he could have done. Perhaps what I like best about Graham Greene's writing is that he doesn't dictate your feelings. You are free to make your own judgments of the characters. In fact it is very easy to argue one way or another about what the characters believed because he doesn't spell it out for you as if you were a child. By not overwriting the characters there is some mystery, as in real life. Can you ever truly know another person wholly? Also recommended: The End of the Affair by Graham Greene, which is even more complex and mysterious.
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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.
Rating:
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: 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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Summary: Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter
Review: It is only fair that I quickly mention that Greene is my favorite author, and that this is my favorite fictional work, period. But I of course have constructive reasons for these opinions, which goes to show that impartiality is often such a dumb requirement for evaluation. Like Greene, I have always had a confused relationship with Christianity; we both, I think, have struggled with those persistent questions which one's intellect enlists to assault one's faith, and thus also those feelings of guilt by which the latter defends itself. The result is most often some ethical, or worse existential, paradox. And, not surprisingly, this is exactly the focus of THOTM.
I expect most people struggle with similar spiritual dilemmas, and so this novel is highly recommended generally. If, however, you are firm in your faith or atheism, this story is a beautiful adventure into the life of those less spiritually stable. Greene's writing is quintessentially British, but in its most artistic capacity; his unoffending prose hides a wealth of latent emotional attachment to his characters. Finally, THOTM has one of the most morally intricate plots I know of, but Greene never stumbles in unfolding it.
In addition to THOTM, I recommend ... well, everything else Greene has written, including his collection of essays, which is rather hard to find, I think. Also, Norman Sherry somewhat recently wrote a three-volume biography of Greene, which is exceptional - although I admit I have only read volumes one and two thus far. His life is inordinately exciting for a writer. Greene was more than a novelist; he was an intelligence agent for the British government, and, less dramatic but still politically interesting, a newspaper - the London Times, I think - correspondent based in Mexico and North Africa throughout periods of social upheaval.
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