The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene


Graham Greene nearly cured my insomnia.

The Heart of the Matter was only 250 pages long, but it took me over a week to read it . . . mostly because it was so incredibly boring, three pages was enough to send me into a torpor.

THOTM is set in Sierra Leone during World War II. Our hero, Henry Scobie, is a principled police officer suffering with a serious case of ennui. He’s been passed over for a promotion, is married to the tedious, poetry-loving Louise, and is sort of, kind of grieving the death of their only child.

Louise’s non-stop whining about how unhappy she is and how much she hates living in Africa finally pushes Scobie over the moral edge. He borrows money from a shady, diamond smuggler to send her to South Africa. This he does because he feels the heavy weight of responsibility for her happiness, but let’s face it: getting rid of her markedly improves his life.

While Louise is away, Scobie begins an affair with a teenage widow, Helen, who turns out to be every bit as whiny and difficult as Louise. Scobie feels responsible for her happiness, just as he feels responsible for Louise’s, which puts him in a difficult position when Louise suddenly decides to come back home to repair their strained marriage.

Sounds romantic, huh? Well, it’s not. In fact, Greene goes to great lengths to ensure that all passion is crushed out of THOTM. As we’re told on nearly every other page, Scobie doesn’t have any passion for either Louise or Helen. He’s first drawn to them because of their ugliness and vulnerability, as well as some sort of compulsive need to be responsible for needy women. There’s nothing remotely attractive about either woman – or about Scobie for that matter – which makes the constant “Do you love me, because I love you” conversations all the more tedious.

Oh, yeah. And then there’s the religious angle. Mostly the book is supposed to be about one man’s faith, and his fall from grace. Scobie spends a lot meditating on his Catholicism and his relationship with God. Unsurprisingly, this closely resembles the relationship he has with the women in his life: it’s one of duty and disappointment and unhappy endings.

THOTM is boring and depressing, but excellent reading for a late night when you can’t sleep. Nearly as good as a Tylenol P.M. and a mug of hot milk. I rate it a C.

 

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