Thursday, 5 January 2017

Brighton Rock – Graham Greene

Probably the last Graham Greene book that I still wanted to read (I’ve read plenty of others, it’s time to move on). And, as it’s often the case, this one was a good buy at Fopp.

I actually think it was the Greene book that I enjoyed the least, and that’s chiefly because Pinkie is so purely nasty that it made me actually quite uncomfortable. It’s bizarre, I have no issues with violence (I love McCarthy!), or with evil characters, but nastiness is just a bit much for me. Ida is a great counterpart, but her desire to do good was just not enough to make up for the goosebumps that Pinkie gave me.

Had it not been written so well, I think this book would have ended up at the charity shop with American Psycho.

And I also could have done without all the comments on Catholicism – I’m Italian, I have a feeling I know quite well the moral contradictions of Catholic guilt and repentance.  

No comments:

Post a Comment