This Paperback Book item from Penguin was reviewed on 14-Oct-2008.
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1) Paperback Book The Heart of the Matter (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) by Penguin. Over forty years ago a new English teacher at my school answered a question asked by an eager student. The question was, "What do you think is the greatest novel written in English?" He didn´t think for very long before replying, "The Heart Of The Matter."
We academically-inclined youths borrowed Graham Greene´s novel from the library and eventually conferred. There were shrugs, some indifference, appreciation without enthusiasm. We were all about sixteen years old.
I last re-read The Heart Of The Matter about twenty-five years ago. When I began it again for the fourth time last week, I could still remember vividly the basics of its characters and plot. Henry Scobie is an Assistant Chief of Police in a British West African colony. It is wartime and he has been passed over for promotion. He is fifty-ish, wordly-wise, apparently pragmatic, a sheen that hides a deeply analytical conscience. Louise, his wife is somewhat unfocusedly unhappy with her lot. She is a devout Catholic and this provides her support, but the climate is getting to everyone. She leaves for a break that Scobie cannot really afford. He accepts debt.
The colony´s businesses are run by Syrians. Divisions within their community have roots deeper than commercial competition. There is "trade" of many sorts. There are accusations, investigations, rumours and counter-claims. Special people arrive to look into things. There´s a suicide, more than one, in fact, at least one murder, an extra-marital affair, blackmail, family and wartime tragedy.
But above all there is the character of Henry Scobie. He is a man of principle who thinks he is a recalcitrant slob. He is a man of conscience who presents a pragmatic face. He makes decisions fully aware of their consequences, but remains apparently unable to influence the circumstance that repeatedly seems to dictate events. He remains utterly honest in his deceit, consistent in his unpredictability. His life becomes a beautiful, uncontrolled mess. His wife´s simple orthodox Catholicism contrasts with his never really adopted faith. He tries to keep face, but cannot reconcile the facts of his life with the demands of his conscience. His ideals seem to have no place in a world where interests overrule principle. He sees a solution, a way out, but perhaps it is a dead end.
For twenty-first century sensibilities, the colonial era attitudes towards local people appear patronising at best. Perhaps that is how things were. But The Heart Of The Matter is not really a descriptive work. It is not about place and time. Like a Shakespearean tragedy, the events and their setting provide only a backdrop and context for a deeply moving examination of motive and conscience. And also like a Shakespearean tragedy, the novel transcends any limitations of its setting to say something unquestionably universal about the human condition. Forty years on, I now realise, that my new English teacher was probably right.
¤ 2) Paperback Book The Heart of the Matter (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) by Penguin. Graham Greene does something in The Heart of the Matter which is extremely difficult to do: he depicts the inner turmoil and emotional breakdown of a human being in a non-pretentious, non-self-conscious, completely BELIEVABLE way.
So many other allegedly great authors have tried to do the same thing, with very few successes. Most often you get turgid "prose" which reeks of pseudo-intellectual showboating, turning the character in question from a flesh-and-blood entity into a cipher, which leads to a predictable conclusion that you could not care less about.
Greene avoids that lot and achieves true profundity. I was impressed almost in spite of myself, because I previously did not conceive of him as a front-ranker, and I have no truck with religious mores. I still don´t think he is an all-time genius, but I DO think that there was something beyond sheer erudition and assiduity to the man...something which the gods either confer or don´t.
The MLA asserts that The Heart of the Matter is the 40th best novel of the 20th century, which underrates it...at least compared to some of the books--e.g., Henderson, the Rain King; To The Lighthouse--which are ranked higher. But enough time wasted on the MLA...
The novel starts off slowly, almost prosaically--you may think to yourself "What´s the fuss?" for a hundred pages. But then comes the moment when the protagonist, Scobie, comforts a dying girl in two outstanding paragraphs...and from that point the book shifts into high gear.
Things begin to happen abruptly, but not in a manipulative, writer´s-construct way--they have the patina of real life, where sometimes years of equilibrium are disturbed by life-altering events which occur in rapid succession. (Greene--mirroring life, perhaps--does leave a few loose ends.) I am as keenly attuned to factitiousness as a hog to truffles, but I never caught a whiff of artifice.
Aw, Christ, just read it.¤ 3) Paperback Book The Heart of the Matter (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) by Penguin. The setting for Greene´s novel, although never named, is Sierra Leone, where the author himself spent some time as an intelligence officer. But law enforcement, subterfuge, and colonialism serve as mere (if occasionally satiric) sideshows for the crisis of faith of one well-meaning, upright policeman, Scobie, whose fatal flaw is a sometimes-misguided sympathy for those closest to him.
Even Scobie´s troubled relationship with his wife is described early on as one in which "pity and responsibility reached the intensity of a passion," hardly the emotions on which an untroubled marriage can be based. Both marital duty and a sense of guilt prompt the first of his many offenses; to allow her an extended vacation away from the colony, an extravagance they can´t afford, he must compromise his integrity. Then, while his wife is away, "pity and responsibility" in no small part lead Scobie to fall in love with a woman rescued from a shipwreck. In Scobie´s confused mind, adultery seems equally an act of selfless compassion and an act of selfish passion. And the series of lies required to maintain this relationship rapidly turns the path he has chosen into a maze he can´t escape.
And into the maze he goes, at the center of which is damnation. To many non-Catholics, Scobie´s decline might seem the result not only of real sins (bribery, adultery) but also of the trappings of seemingly arbitrary rules that rely more on religious dogma than on a universal morality--for example, taking Communion in a state of "sin," a violation presented as if it were one of the worst breaches Scobie could commit. While this "mortal" sin is only one of several steps in his apostasy, his subsequent angst is depicted in legalistic terms rather than moral ones. The walls of the maze are constructed as much by the rules of his faith (and the corresponding damage to his own peace of mind) as by acts that genuinely hurt others.
What saves this discussion from a doctrinal parochialism is the fact that Greene himself seems unsure of the relative value of faith (an individual matter) and of charity (the desire to do well to others). Scobie´s slide down the slippery slope is a series of actions that, in no small part, are well meaning--his first crime, burning a contraband personal letter written in German, which might or might not contain secret code, is certainly meant as an act of kindness to a fellow Catholic. His sins and their consequences can´t hide the heart of the matter: Scobie is a good man. There´s more than a little mockery when Father Rank says, "The Church knows all the rules. But it doesn´t know what goes on in a single human heart." The real question, Greene seems to be asking: who are we to judge?
Finally, the reader is well advised to avoid the so-called "introduction" by James Wood in the Penguin Centennial edition of this novel; Wood´s spoiler-filled summary of the plot, its various twists, and the book´s ending are so thorough as to make reading Greene´s text itself beside the point.¤ 4) Paperback Book The Heart of the Matter (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) by Penguin. What most struck me was the sense of isolation and despair (and removal from God) that one human being can effect in himself through a series of acts that create value conflicts that cannot be easily remedied once certain events have occurred. The planning of a suicide and the carrying out of said suicide were described without any romance but also in a way that I perceive as an accurate portrayal of one who is intent on pulling off the "real deal." In that I would say this is a masterful work of fiction, but I only gave it three stars because the landscape of despair became a despair to me as I was reading it...I felt that all of the characters were stagnant and that the dialogue was stilted (more likely a sign of the time in which it was written). I was impressed by Greene´s ability to throw out seemingly obvious (but rarely, if ever, raised) theological conundrums without being prolix.¤ 5) Paperback Book The Heart of the Matter (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) by Penguin. It´s hard for me to review The Heart of the Matter without mentioning The Power and the Glory, so I won´t even try. While many people think The Power and the Glory is Greene´s tragic masterpiece, I think the case could be made for this book. In a way, The Heart of the Matter is the reciprocal of The Power and the Glory - instead of leading a fairly villainous protagonist on a path to redemption through death at the hands of the ruling authority, it takes a basically good authority figure, the police commissioner Scobie, down a path to both spiritual damnation and public and private ridicule. I find it ironic that Scobie´s one abuse of his power, sleeping with a native, is but one of the many committed by the whiskey priest in The Power and the Glory, and the final act of each, suicide, is seen as heroic in The Power and the Glory, and quite pitiful in The Heart of the Matter. The is of course easily attributable to Greene´s Catholic obsession with redemption - the whiskey priest proclaims his sinful nature and the narrator forgives (and deifies) him, while Scobie (and the narrator) clings to his own essential goodness - thus the sin of pride is what ultimately prevents Scobie from either human or divine forgiveness. This is problematic at best and arrogant at worst for an audience unconcerned with godly redemption. I would fall into the godless swine category, which is why I find Scobie so much more likeable than the whiskey priest, and why I find his ultimate ruin so much more tragic. And if we´re rating tragedy, isn´t that the most important indicator?¤ 6) Paperback Book The Heart of the Matter (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) by Penguin. With a new introduction by James Wood
Scobie, a police officer serving in a wartime west-African state, is distrusted — being scrupulously honest and immune to bribery. But then he falls in love, and in so doing, he is forced to betray everything he believes in, with drastic and tragic consequences.¤ Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 11-Nov-2008, 01402833239780140283327, 230-010-720-800-060-240-8 
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