Vividly written, but the characters were bland bumblers and the story depressed me. ( )

The fierceness of this book beats down on me like the tropical sun that illuminates the life of the characters within it, and the emotional tenor feels like a hot sweat the memory of which is still salty sharp despite the coming of evening coolness as I weigh up its themes. Stefan Zweig once wrote about the dangers of pity, and this novel by Greene is in reality almost a paean to that sensibility, to a love of failure, and how we are caught up in ideas of duty and steadfastness, and how betrayed we are by our weakness and guilt.The novel starts off strongly, and is a regular page-turner but it does feel hollow at the end, inconsequential, just as consequences bite, and the main character, Scobie, comes to his own reckoning of things - with a writer of Greene's calibre, however, this feels to be a deliberate effect, rather than the story's losing strength. On the other hand, there is a journey ever inwards, from behaviour, to psyche, to soul, and the last monologues are abundantly theological.The work is peppered with glorious one-liners, startlingly succinct phrases that hazard whole philosophies in a single sentence, lines that seem so right that you sit up and shake your head.There's also something here for the non- native English speaker in terms of how Empire might have felt, and by extension how multiculturalism is still perhaps underpinned in modern British society by a certain history and sense of experienced mission on the part of the political class, which still haunts Whitehall. ( )

"He felt tired by all the lies he would some time have to tell; he felt the wounds of those victims who had not yet bled. . . . Somewhere on the face of those obscure waters moved the sense of yet another wrong and another victim, not Louise, nor Helen."

Greene's tale is dark and hardly redemptive, but as in THE POWER AND THE GLORY, Christ blazes forth suddenly in the least likely places--even in the faith of a man who is damned by his weakness. ( )

Quite an interesting read, though not Greene's best. The central character as so often is a Catholic struggling with his conscience, obligations towards his fellow man and woman and the strict standards of his religion. The novel also reminded me a bit of Orwell's Burmese Days, though there is no real focus here in Greene's novel on the political backdrop to colonialism. The novel also takes place during the Second World War, though this hardly impinges on the plot. ( )

What does it mean to love others? To love God? How far should we be willing to go to protect those we love from pain? How much should we be willing to sacrifice for love? And at what point does what we call love become something else? These are the questions that went through my head as I read Heart of the Matter.

Scobie is a police officer in a British colony in West African during World War II. His wife, Louise, is a socially awkward lover of poetry who wants to get away to South Africa, but when Scobie is passed over for a promotion, the hope of retirement to a better place seems more distant. Scobie’s regrets and desire to please send him on a downward spiral, leading him into a destructive affair and yet another love that he desperately wants to make happy.

Along the way, Scobie’s feelings are influenced by his Catholicism. Louise is a devout believer, but Scobie generally goes through the motions. Still, he believes Catholic doctrine, and although he may act in ways contrary to the commandments of his faith, his feelings about his actions are deeply wound up in his Catholicism. And he eventually acts in ways that he believes that it is beyond even God to forgive. The results are heart-breaking.

This book raises questions about love, God, faith, and the church and how things that seem good can lead to our destruction when misapplied and misunderstood. Profoundly moving, and a book that will stick with me. Highly recommended.

See my complete review at my blog. ( )