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A Burnt Out Case by Graham Greene…
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A Burnt Out Case by Graham Greene (1961-12-08) (original 1960; edition 1960)

by Graham Greene (Author)

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1,877268,854 (3.84)45
Querry, a world famous architect, is the victim of a terrible attack of indifference- he no longer finds meaning in art of pleasure in life. Arriving anonymously at a Congo leper village, he is diagnosed as the mental equivalent of a 'burnt-out case', a leper who has gone through a stage of mutilation. However, as Querry loses himself in work for the lepers his disease of mind slowly approaches a cure. Then the white community finds out who Querry is...… (more)
Member:AlastairGavin
Title:A Burnt Out Case by Graham Greene (1961-12-08)
Authors:Graham Greene (Author)
Info:William Heinemann Ltd 1960, first edition
Collections:Your library
Rating:
Tags:Loss at top of spine, else very good, very good

Work Information

A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene (1960)

  1. 00
    The Quiet American by Graham Greene (John_Vaughan)
  2. 00
    Brighton Rock by Graham Greene (John_Vaughan)
  3. 00
    In Search of a Character: Two African Journals by Graham Greene (gtross)
    gtross: The notebook Greene used while working on A burnt-out case, with footnotes describing how Greene incorporated his notes into the finished novel.
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» See also 45 mentions

English (23)  Spanish (1)  Swedish (1)  Dutch (1)  All languages (26)
Showing 1-5 of 23 (next | show all)
3.75 ( )
  TheScribblingMan | Jul 29, 2023 |
Could have been (or should have been) one of Greene's great books, but somehow never quite reaches its potential. Rycker ranks among Greene's most disturbing creations. The exposition proceeds at an effective, slow boil, and then suddenly the climax and denouement are dispatched within a few pages: the entrapment is sprung, a new antagonist revealed, and then all is over. It almost feels as though Greene became bored with writing the book or something ( )
  gtross | Jan 9, 2023 |
I am a bit puzzled that the critics do not include this novel with
his "Catholic" ones, because the protagonist is a lapsed Catholic, the book's themes are of a religious and moral nature, and the action takes place at a leper colony in the Congo that has priests and nuns attending to the spiritual needs of the patients.

One of the better novels from his later years that seems to have been
overlooked by critics and readers alike, but those who have read it tend to give it high marks. The book is about the existential crisis that faces Querry, presumably a French or Belgian architect. It would seem that the characters are all speaking French, for Greene tells us when they are speaking English.

Querry almost right away on arrival faces questions and assumptions from a doctor, a factory owner, and a journalist who all seem determined to find out why he has come to this remote place. The factory owner and journalist put demands on Querry which make him uncomfortable and wanting to be left alone. But there is much more to that when the factory owner's wife brings the novel to its climactic events. It might seem contrived, however, as each character represents a type that Greene as puppeteer uses to get his points across.

Greene's writing is superb, and as such (along with his themes) puts him in the company of the many great 20th century authors who have been ignored by the Nobel Prize people. This one is not just for Greene completists; not his best, but thought-provoking and humane. ( )
1 vote nog | Oct 10, 2022 |
On the down side, the character Querry is a bit of cliché- brilliant architect facing the void and going up river with nothing left to prove and a bit too prone to speechifying and explaining exactly how he doesn't care about anything (if he really didn't care, would he spend so much time telling everyone about it?). And yet.... it is pretty great for all that … the mileau, the leprosy, the churchmen, the atheist doctor, the amusing newspaperman (tracking down the elusive Querry!) and the awful chatty religious wannabe Rycker. Did not think the running away from European women theme was well played out and the ending (the dramatic confrontation over Rycker's doll like wife) was convenient. Still... ( )
  apende | Jul 12, 2022 |
Graham Greene is one of my favorite authors, primarily because his books (at least those I've read) expound a central theme through well-executed literary devices, providing a richer reading experience. In A Burnt-Out Case, Greene uses leprosy, particularly the physical scars left after the disease has run its course, as a motif for the emotional damage the novel's protagonist, Querry*, has suffered as a result of his decadent lifestyle. In his masterpieces (The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter), this style is the subtle backdrop to the action of the story. In A Burnt-Out Case, it overtakes the story, to the novel's detriment. The ancillary characters actually verbalize the motif, likening Querry to his servant, Deo Gratis, who is a cured victim of leprosy. This heavy-handed approach gives the novel a didactic quality that distracts from an otherwise interesting exploration of faith through the viewpoints of both devout believers and atheists. Even the novel's two epigrams bludgeon the reader with an explanation of the book, making the process of reading it one of observation rather than of discovery.

I won't belabor the novel's other deficiencies (extended dialogue and monologue also serve as thematic cudgels), because it is still a good read. The climax results from a series of nondescript events that are assigned incorrect meaning in varying degrees of maliciousness by both the participants and witnesses. A summary of this plot would read like an airport novel, but Greene builds to it slowly and deliberately. When it finally and suddenly happens, you are not surprised, because Greene has lead you unsuspectingly to the only conclusion the novel could have. In that sense this reads a little like detective fiction, where the solution was always right there in front of you.

Although leprosy has been around for all of recorded history, its stigma has diminished significantly. That diminishment seems an apt motif for A Burnt-Out Case, which is an interesting but lesser version of Greene's other works, one less deserving of attention but still worth a read if you have time.

* - I particularly admire the suggestiveness Greene supplies through his protagonist's name - sounding like a form of question (query) and prey (quarry), both of which are apt descriptions of the role he plays in the novel. ( )
1 vote skavlanj | Jan 16, 2021 |
Showing 1-5 of 23 (next | show all)
he somewhat forbidding title of Graham Greene's new novel is a term used for those victims of leprosy who can be cured because the disease has eaten about all that it wants -- toes, ears, fingers. They no longer suffer the excruciating pains of those who undergo cure with their bodies intact. Pain is the alternative to mutilation.

"A Burnt-Out Case" is a fascinating study of the relationship of suffering, especially freely accepted suffering -- to wholeness. Greene has set his novel in a remote African leprosery run by nuns and priests. They have as their unexpected guest an internationally famous architect named Querry who arrives incognito, trying to escape as far as possible from his past.

Querry is himself a burnt-out case. He is no longer moved to design a building or sleep with a woman. His love of women was really self-love, and his artistic self-expression was the kind that consumes the self. Even when he was creating modern churches, Querry's art was inhuman, a matter of space and light and textures, with no feeling either for people or prayers. Now whatever fed his vocation has ceased to exist. In his terrible aloneness and deadness he can neither suffer nor laugh.

The novel tells the story of Querry's gradual recovery, or what would have been recovery if the world he tried to flee had let him alone. But a celebrated journalist seeks out Querry, a fat man who "carries his corruption on the surface of his skin like phosphorous." He wants a story that will have the appeal of the stories about Dr. Schweitzer at Lanbarene. With the aid of a neighboring colon, he cooks up a sensational story which falsifies and sentimentalizes the simple, good relationship between Querry and Querry's crippled leper servant. And then Querry's relationship with the colon's pretty young wife is falsified in another way that brings the novel to an ironic and violent close.

The events, however, are less important than the conversations about pain and wholeness, self-love and selflessness, belief and disbelief show a changed and milder mood in Greene. Though this does not necessarily make it a better novel, "A Burnt-Out Case" is free from the theological arrogance, the baiting of rationalists, the melodramatic use of attempted bargains with God which gave a peculiar edge and intensity to Greene's earlier religious fiction. Speaking particularly of his "The End of the Affair," Martin Turnell once wrote: "It is impossible not to be struck by the vast place occupied by hate and the tiny place reserved for charity in the work of contemporary Catholic novelists."

In "A Burnt-Out Case" the balance has shifted. Greene no longer tries to make both humanity and Christianity seem as distasteful as possible. There is ample charity both in the sense of good works and of affectionate understanding.

The sympathetic characters are the religiously uncommitted doctor with his special sense of what Christian love means and the priests who are more interested in curing the natives' bodies that in regulating their sexual mores, who would rather talk about the practicalities of being useful than about the state of each other's souls. The unsympathetic characters are the scrupulously self-righteous. The most repellent character is the spiritually and socially ambitious colon who prides himself on his informed Catholicism. He is a former seminarian, a spoiled priest, morbidly preoccupied with the rights, duties and symbolism of Christian marriage.

Though she plays such an important part in the plot, the colon's young wife is rather lightly sketched in, as are some of the other characters. This is not a novel of great intensity of feeling or one much concerned with the violently changing Africa which is its locale. "A Burnt-Out Case" does not have the color or richness or freshness of detail of "Brighton Rock," "The Power and the Glory" and "The Heart of the Matter." In its quietness, its retrospective air, the parabolic quality of its plot, it is more like Camus' "The Fall." The protagonist's tiredness and detachment affect the novel as a whole. And yet, though Greene does not seem to be trying very hard so far as the story-telling is concerned, though he is not practicing to the full the arts of the novelist, he does nevertheless out of his own humanity make this a very appealing novel, wise, gentle and sympathetic.
 
And yet, though Greene does not seem to be trying very hard so far as the story-telling is concerned, though he is not practicing to the full the arts of the novelist, he does nevertheless out of his own humanity make this a very appealing novel, wise, gentle and sympathetic.

added by InfoQuest | editNY Times, R G Davis (Jul 9, 1961)
 

» Add other authors (44 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Graham Greeneprimary authorall editionscalculated
Morant, RichardNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Williamson, MelCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
'Io non mori', e non rimasi vivo.' (I did not die, yet
nothing of life remained.)

DANTE

'Within limits of normality, every individual loves
himself. In cases where he has a deformity or
abnormality or develops it later, his own aesthetic
sense revolts and he develops a sort of disgust
towards himself. Though with time he becomes
reconciled to his deformities, it is only at the
conscious level. His sub-conscious mind, which
continues to bear the mark of injury, brings about
certain changes in his whole personality, making him
suspicious of society.'
R. V. WARDEKAR in a pamphlet on leprosy
Dedication
To Docteur Michel Lachat
First words
The cabin-passenger wrote in his diary a parody of Descartes: 'I feel discomfort, therefore I am alive,' then sat pen in hand with no more to record.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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Querry, a world famous architect, is the victim of a terrible attack of indifference- he no longer finds meaning in art of pleasure in life. Arriving anonymously at a Congo leper village, he is diagnosed as the mental equivalent of a 'burnt-out case', a leper who has gone through a stage of mutilation. However, as Querry loses himself in work for the lepers his disease of mind slowly approaches a cure. Then the white community finds out who Querry is...

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