Brighton Rock

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Book Report: Charles "Fred" Hale, aka newspaper columnist "Kolley Kibber," is in Brighton to hand out paper-chase prizes to loyal readers of his paper. He's also running as fast as he can from someone who means to kill him. Why? We aren't told. Who? That's made very plain within the first thirty pages. Well, there goes the suspense, right? Not right.

In a vain effort to live to fight another day, Hale hooks up with Ida, a blowsy pub-crawling broad with a heart of gold and a steely sense of right and wrong. Her trip to the public convenience to wash up a bit before her bit of fun with Hale allows the killer time enough to deal with Hale...permanently.

Ida, once she figures out the gentleman (!) who stood her up show more (and after she washed and everything!) in Brighton is the murder victim in her next morning's paper, determines that Hale will be avenged despite his lack of family, his murder being ruled a natural death, and her own complete lack of detective experience. The fun of the book, the bulk of the story, is in Ida circling closer and closer to the party we know to be the killer, and the multiple characters trailing in his wake slowly falling to his amoral, sociopathic self-preservation response. In the end, triumph changes Ida. The consequences of her victory over the forces of evil are such that she undergoes a sea change of feeling and desire. Justice never comes without a price. Never. Everyone involved in the story pays. Some with their lives.

My Review: Moralistic, yes; marvelously written, oh my yes! Greene's characters are, as in others of his work that I've read, mouthpieces for a worldview. He elevates them from the dreary, tiresome leadenness of Message Characters by imbuing them with a sense of humor as black as the world they inhabit, the world of carneys and racing touts and waitresses trapped forever in second-rate diners and gangsters whose souls are so dead to beauty that they can't see anything but violence as a solution to any and every problem.

It surprised me how often I laughed as I read on in this grisly, blood-soaked bagatelle. And yes, I meant "bagatelle" -- light, airy, almost inconsequential read that "Birghton Rock" is. I was completely delighted by the tone of the book, I was half in love with Ida, I was even sad for the killer and his parched, wounded soul.

A marvelous entertainment, then, and one whose substantial moral manages to keep itself underneath the story being told, supporting it. As it should be. Well made, worthwhile fiction. One expects nothing less from Graham Greene, no? show less

The more I do not read Contemporary Fiction, the more important the predecessors become. Case in point: Graham Greene. Never has the degradation of every but one of the dramatis personae been so trepidatiously depicted. Imagine someone writing in those years between the apexes of Hammett and Chandler, a British Catholic, setting his terrors at the most cliched of sites, the seaside resort. Impotent wanna-be gangsters collide with both semi-professionals and well-meaning interlopers. Being me, I knew how it all would end. Graham Greene proved me very wrong, to my delight.

Brighton Rock is a typical Graham Greene novel, in that it is a taut but literary character-driven story laced with a lot of Catholic angst. This angst sometimes gets rather dreary, but the pairing of 'Brighton rock' (an English candy whose writing looks the same no matter where it is broken off) with the concept of Original Sin is one of those things that sounds silly when you say it but which works in the story. Pinkie is one of Greene's cruellest characters; the 'splinter of ice' that Greene famously said every writer must have in their heart is on full display here.

That said, Brighton Rock sometimes seems overwritten, and my mind glazed over many unnecessarily verbose passages. After a strong start with Hale, it gets rather swampy show more and loses its narrative thrust. It is entertaining, but lacks the grace and clarity of Greene's later work. show less

Such anger and self loathing in such a young man. It was never going to end well. Witness the spiral into inevitable horror as Pinkie chases one bad impulsive decision after another.
"He had a fair smooth skin, the faintest down, and his grey eyes had an effect of heartlessness like an old man’s in which human feeling has died."
When Pinkie's boss Kite is killed by a rival gang Pinkie takes over, at 17 knowing everything and nothing.
"‘When people do one murder, I’ve read they sometimes have to do another—to tidy up.’ The word murder conveyed no more to him than the word ‘box’, ‘collar’, ‘giraffe’.

Brighton Rock by Graham Greene takes you on a trip to the seedy, underside of Britain’s premier seaside resort town in the 1930’s. Here we meet such characters as the rising gangster Pinkie Brown, a 17 year old, ruthless sociopath. Fred Hale, knowing he is targeted as Pinkie’s next victim but unable to escape his fate. Rose, young, innocent and naïve, as a witness that could incriminate Pinkie, he must shut her up either by marriage or murder. And the big-hearted Ida Arnold, generous, motherly and a stickler for the truth. She lives large and makes no apologies. Wanting to find out the truth behind Fred’s death, she becomes obsessed with saving Rose.

On the surface this is a book about Pinkie trying to cover his tracks and show more having everything escalate out of his control. But just like the glitz and glamour of the resort town, there is a lot going on underneath the surface. A superb character study, as we delve into the mind of Pinkie Brown and see a young boy who never had a chance, a product of poverty and neglect, he was destined to end up as he did. His relationship with Rose is both dark and twisted, yet gives a glimpse of tenderness now and again as well. Graham Greene also touches on religion, contrasting how Catholicism influenced both Rose and Pinkie, yet non-religious Ida appears to have the stronger moral core.

The unique vision of Graham Greene has resulted in a book that is both complex yet thrilling. Timeless, entertaining and thoughtful, I highly recommend Brighton Rock. show less

There are some spoilers in this review.
Our story follows the leader of a 1930s Brighton gang in the aftermath of a murder. Pinkie Brown is a cold, ruthless 18-year-old psychopath whose grey eyes give “an effect of heartlessness like an old man’s in which human feeling has died.” (God damn, Graham Greene.) Following the murder of his gang leader, Pinkie is in charge of those loyal enough to remain, and his first order of business is vengeance.
Pinkie’s target is Fred Hale, a man who betrayed the gang leader in some way, presumably (I can’t claim I understand how gangs work at all). Just before Fred’s murder (spoiler, but I don’t think Fred even makes it to page 30), he encounters the easy-going Ida, whose bosom is described show more in virtually every chapter. When Fred disappears, Ida is extremely suspicious and refuses to rest until she discovers the truth about what’s happened.
As Ida pursues Pinkie, Pinkie pursues Rose, a teenager who unknowingly holds a key piece of evidence that could implicate Pinkie in murder. Even though the idea of romance is utterly repellent to Pinkie and he sees the traditional path of marriage and children as a slow death, he convinces Rose he loves her in order to dissuade her from talking to anyone about what she knows. Is he willing to sacrifice his “bitter virginity” (whatever the fuck that means), his freedom, and even his eternal soul in order to keep Rose quiet?
Like basically every other Graham Greene novel ever written, this one is highly critical of the Catholic Church. Pinkie and Rose are both Catholic, in contrast with Ida, who isn’t religious is spiritual and has a few weird superstitions about ghosts and Ouija boards. As a child, Pinkie wanted to be a priest, and Greene draws parallels between his contempt for the rest of humanity, indifference to suffering, and disdain of sex and romantic love with the Catholic Church. Greene also prods quite a bit at the two Catholic characters’ willingness to sin despite the promise of eternal damnation, going so far as to say “a Catholic is more capable of evil than anyone” (246).
For some reason I didn’t get into his the first time around I tried it, but I LOVED it this time. It’s outrageously cynical, and the only novel I can think of in which a candy tourists buy in Brighton is used as a metaphor for the inescapability of human nature.
Fair warning that you’ll have to deal with a reasonable amount of dated ‘30s slang that feels made up, esp. re: women. (Both “buer” and “polony” get thrown around A LOT and I still don’t fully understand what either means. I just kept thinking of Polonius from Hamletand also Thelonious Monk every time someone used the word “polony.”)
The end also gets a bit melodramatic, and it’s hard not to imagine physically throwing Rose. She’s an idiot. Most frustrating is that Ida, the only likeable character, gets quite a lot of focus at the beginning of the novel, but then Pinkie receives more and more attention. I was so excited when I thought (however briefly) this was actually a female-centric Greene novel.
My favorite quote is also a good test of whether you might enjoy this one or find it too dark and cynical: “That was what happened to a man in the end: the stuffy room, the wakeful children, the Saturday night movements from the other bed. Was there no escape––anywhere––for anyone? It was worth murdering a world” (92). Chills, you guys.
The Spectator’s review on the back of the book says of Greene, “Entertaining he may always be; comforting, never,” which I think is the most accurate description of his novels I’ve ever read. (And at the same time seems a bit like backhanded praise and also possibly written by Yoda?) I can’t think of another writer quite like Greene; perhaps Cormac McCarthy in terms of bleakness? John Le Carré in terms of suspense and a darker take on spying (as inThe Quiet American)? William Golding for shared views on human nature? He’s not quite like any other writer I can think of, which is why I love him so much. show less

Graham Greene has many different faces, as I have discovered in reading his other novels, and Brighton Rock seemed to me to offer yet another side of a multi-faceted writer. Brighton Rock is a murder story, which follows the brief career of Pinkie, a seventeen year old who has taken over as leader of the mob after the murder of its previous leader, Kite. Pinkie is a paranoid who has obviously had a rough life and has learned the ways of the street. He is overconfident, cruel minded, and in over his head. He is a ruthless character.

Rose is a young girl who knows something she should not know, information that might threaten Pinkie. He needs to keep her close, so he pretends to woo her, and in her naivety, she believes. Her involvement show more with Pinkie leads her into places a young innocent should not go, and we see her struggle with her feelings and beliefs.

At one point in the story, Pinkie pushes a group of blind musicians off the roadside because they are blocking his way.

but he hadn’t realized they were blind, he was shocked by his own action. It was as if he were being driven too far down a road he only wanted to travel a certain distance.

What Greene seems to be saying in much of the book is that once we begin to depart into the path of evil, we find ourselves trapped on a road that has no exit.

As he so often does, Graham tackles the question of morality and sin, personal responsibility, and Roman Catholic doctrine through several of his characters: The ruthless Pinkie, the naive and innocent Rose, and the worldly but good-hearted Ida. He explores the difference between religion and morality and the nature of mercy. The surface of the tale might be rather simple, the underside, of course, is not. Greene is nothing if not complex and insightful.

Despite the depths Greene attempts to plumb, this is not his best work, from my point of view. I did not find a single character to relate to or invest in, and I even found the story tedious in spots. But, a lesser Greene novel is better than many another author’s best work, for he always has something of import to say. It is an early work, with the spark of genius skimming the surface and never truly reaching the heights that his later works do. Brighton Rock does not have the humor that underpins [b:Our Man in Havana|133394|Our Man in Havana|Graham Greene|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327926887l/133394._SY75_.jpg|1912267], the emotional impact of [b:The End of the Affair|29641|The End of the Affair|Graham Greene|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1613946254l/29641._SY75_.jpg|267229], the character development of [b:The Quiet American|3698|The Quiet American|Graham Greene|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388187216l/3698._SY75_.jpg|1469913], or the philosophical intelligence of [b:The Power and the Glory|3690|The Power and the Glory|Graham Greene|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388210459l/3690._SY75_.jpg|1036817]. I have come, in fact, to expect so much excellence from Greene that anything less than tremendous seems a letdown. I am still quite glad to have read this, and excited to see what his other novels that I have yet to read will have to offer. show less