Brighton Rock. Greene, Graham. 1938. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1970.
Graham Greene achieved the seemingly impossible: he was popular with the common reader as well as the critic. But once you read his works you can see why. If there is one thing that people who read literature love it is commiseration. His books are a celebration of commiseration. Not emo depressing commiseration. I mean commiseration as in the constant reminder of how many emotional wounds the business of living requires. It is commiseration combined with tolerance that defines Greene's writing. He is so very aware of the difficulties that his protagonists face. He does not dismiss them in a nihilistic way. He expounds on their suffering but without being overly melancholy. It also helps that he has extraordinary powers of imagery. So one can see why his books are so relevant and readable.
To write about the rich, the all-powerful and the intellectually charming is the easy road. That does not mean that writers that focus on these matters should be dismissed. But to limit the intelligence, freedom and power of your characters requires more skill. This is especially true with matters of intelligence since it can be assumed (but maybe not proven) that all writers of literature are intelligent. It is easy to write about intelligent people who love conversation but harder to write about those that use language in a stoic, utilitarian manner. Introspective people make wonderful characters but not everyone is introspective. Sometimes the decision to not speak does not mean that the person has some hidden thought that justifies the choice. To write about the ignorant and feeble-minded truthfully requires a great use of imagination since it requires the writer to lower himself. It is for this reason that we admire books that deal with the sordid. As I Lay Dying (birthplace of this blog's title). Wuthering Heights. Sons and Lovers. There are many examples. We enjoy these stories about the poor even as we cling to our Austens, our Waughs, our Fitzgeralds.
Brighton Rock is an achievement because it concerns sordid people grounded in a provincial mindset. Pinkie's gang are laughable excuses for gangsters. They seem on the verge of destitution yet they continue to risk being caught and hung for the transgressions. Perhaps this is typical of prewar gangs but the promise of wealth seems to be the main reason why people break the law for a living. Yet Pinkie's gang never seem close to a windfall. Furthermore they are constantly reminded that Brighton is the turf of the slick Colleoni (who fits the gangster archetype a little better). One gets the feeling that Pinkie and his cohorts are gangsters because they are ignorant and don't know any better. Rose is stupid. Her limited intelligence does not deserve a more exhaustive adjective...though one feels for her poor upbringing. She is an example of someone that is given absolutely nothing bar the fact that her parents are alive (even though they are depicted as cretins). Even the heroine Ida Arnold is a working-class girl fueled by good sense grounded in pleasant but limited maxims. Her relationship with men borders on prostitution, or at least it probably did in the 1930s.
There is a certain degree of duality in this novel. It is a tightly drawn, intricately plotted mystery stemming from the ramifications of the death of a newspaper salesman. But it is not mere noir. Like others works of Greene, there is a distinctive Catholic element at play as Pinkie and Rose are both "Romans." Part of their Catholic identity is shaped by how Catholicism is defined in opposition to Protestantism (a betrothal instead of an engagement, the rigor of Catholic schools, how attending Mass on Sundays is the path to heaven). But the other aspect of it is purely sexual. A reader would be hard-pressed to find a book that approaches sex with such a degree of repulsiveness. Of course the repulsiveness is not universal (what is fun to Ida is sickening to Pinkie). But Brighton Rock reminds one of the story of the child who sees his parents have sex and is spiritually (and psychologically) cursed afterwards. This is what happens to Pinkie and it shapes him into a teenager who is utterly disgusted with his burgeoning sexual yearnings. Pinkie is not really a psychopath since he holds out on a rather forgiving view of the faith; that confession at some point before death equals absolution. One could argue that he has transferred his sexual urge into an urge for blood (and that is certainly less healthy than the other way around). Yet Graham Greene is too smart, too human a writer to present only one side of Catholicism. He does not dismiss it as self-flagellating and overly tense because of its sexual close-mindedness. Rose trusts the murderous Pinkie and can only absolve herself by means of confession in the final scene of the novel. And even though the record of Pinkie's wrongs is clear, the priest sees his love for her as evidence of his innate, God-given goodness...even if only scraps of it.
