One can only hope to achieve remotely half as much as Graham Greene did in his 86-year lifetime. The journalist, novelist, playwright and civil servant lived through two world wars, so it certainly makes sense that many of his most beloved works deal with life’s greatest moral ambiguities in the context of a perennially tumultuous political landscape.
Following his time at Balliol College, Oxford, Greene converted to Catholicism – a change that would greatly influence his most esteemed works of ‘religious’ fiction. Brighton Rock (1938), The Power and the Glory (1940), The Heart of the Matter (1948) and The End of the Affair (1951) all have an overarching moral conflict at the centre.
Still, we put ‘religious’ in inverted commas because deeply individual, personal transgression takes centre stage in the vast majority of Greene’s narrative fiction before the author ever delves into the concept of collective moral judgement and forgiveness. One glaring exception is a favourite of Anthony Hopkins, Monsignor Quixote (1982), an overtly Catholic novel dealing with faith in the modern world.
Even then, his theological didacticism is coded in shades of grey, with each of his protagonists plunging into the depths of sin before finding redemptive clarity at the end of the tunnel. Many fans of Greene continue to debate over whether his supposedly ‘Catholic’ novels can be regarded as such given their universality, while others revere the grittiness with which the ostensibly Catholic writer examines the harsh and uncouth realities of individual moral disobedience.
Indeed, The Power and the Glory drew the attention of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1953 (almost 14 years after its publication) for the book’s depiction of sexual immorality. Greene’s friend and fellow writer Evelyn Waugh suggested waiting 14 years to respond to their complaint – a comedic quip which also illustrates both writers’ inherently playful nature.
No one is immune from sin, far from it, and Greene appears to have seen it all throughout his travels. He worked as a copy editor for The Times, and as a film critic and literary editor for The Spectator before working for the Foreign Office during the Second World War. He was also recruited into MI6 where he dealt with counterespionage in the Iberian Peninsula.
He was stationed in Freetown, Sierra Leone – which became the scene for The Heart of the Matter. He proceeded to travel everywhere from Mexico to Vietnam, Vienna to Havana, Haiti to Congo, all of which became the basis for further literary material which ranged from morality-based narratives to thrillers and comedic yarns.
Greene’s command of language, his globalised perspective, and his weaving of textural, marvellously alive narratives which speak to both the religious and agnostic soul firmly secure his place in the global literary canon. Keep scrolling for the best Graham Greene books of all time.
Brighton Rock
Set in the criminal underworld of Brighton, we follow young and ruthless protagonist Pinkie who is on the run having just killed a man. A Roman Catholic who is resigned to his eternal damnation, the novel deals with themes of morality, original sin and the loss of innocence within an increasingly commercialised world.
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Dr Fischer of Geneva
A darkly comic satire, Dr Fischer of Geneva has an element of Gatsbyism about it, except our millionaire, the eponymous protagonist is a misanthrope with a penchant for sadism. Instead of throwing lavish dinner parties to win over unrequited love, Dr Fischer hosts opulent celebrations to humiliate and disturb his greedy guests by forcing them to clamour for a mysterious prize.
When Alfred Jones falls in love with Dr Fischer’s daughter, he is invited to one of these infamous celebrations and is forced to navigate the disturbing, caricature-filled setting.
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Our Man In Havana
In an effort to improve cash flow thanks to his spendthrift adolescent daughter, a vacuum-cleaner salesman in 1950s Havana named James Wormold accepts an espionage job for MI6. Yet with no intel to deliver, he begins to make some up with the help of information found in local newspapers. When Wormold’s fabricated reports begin to have real-world consequences, his fictitious network of spies begins to crumble.
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The End of the Affair
Against the backdrop of the London Blitz, Maurice Bendrix and Sarah begin a love affair. Suddenly and without explanation, Sarah breaks off their burgeoning relationship. Two years later, a chance meeting rekindles Maurice’s love and jealousy resulting in his hiring of a private detective to follow Sarah, and his unrequited love quickly transforms into a dark obsession.
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The Heart of the Matter
The Heart of the Matter delves into the troublesome dichotomy of individual versus collective, religious identity when adulterous, romantic love enters the equation. It takes place on the west coast of Africa during the Second World War and follows the life of a senior colonial police officer named Henry Scobie who prides himself on his unequivocal honesty, yet finds himself swept up in the turmoil of a sinful affair.
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The Power and the Glory
Widely considered to be Greene’s greatest novel, The Power and the Glory is about the persecution of the Catholic clergy in Mexico throughout the 1930s. The last known practising Catholic clergyman in the region known as the “whiskey priest” is forced to go on the run, pursued by Mexican authorities, and doomed to confront his personal, sinful failings throughout the Odyssean journey.
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Monsignor Quixote
One of Anthony Hopkins’ favourite books, Monsignor Quixote borrows its name from Cervantes’ 17th-century novel Don Quixote. The story’s protagonist is Father Quixote, a local priest in the Spanish village of El Toboso who claims ancestry to the delusional, fictional knight, and who is elevated to the rank of monsignor via clerical error.
The Monsignor shares many traits with his supposed ancestor, including a fumbling naivety which gets him into all sorts of trouble as he journeys to Madrid to purchase the purple socks necessary for his new station. A highly accessible dive into religious morality and theological complexity, it’s a well-loved novel which follows a loss and regaining of faith within even the most staunchly religious.
Buy now £4.20, Amazon
The Ministry of Fear
In another Greene Novel which takes place in World War II against the backdrop of the Blitz, a depressive widower stumbles into an espionage conspiracy that leaves him floundering and framed for murder. It’s one of the writer’s most haunting novels and is aptly classes as a heart-racing thriller.
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The Quiet American
Ian McEwan’s “novel that [he] love[s] the most” and one of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World, The Quiet American follows a young, spritely and naïve CIA agent named Alden Pyle who is sent to promote democracy in 1950s Saigon through a cryptic ‘Third Force’. A brilliant way to learn about the First Indochina War, it’s a cautionary tale whereby Pyle and his foreign correspondent friend Fowler become symbols of doomed British and American involvement in the conflict.
Buy now £7.24, Amazon
The Comedians
Set in Haiti in the mid-1960s during the regime of bloody dictator François Duvalier, The Comedians is narrated by a man called Mr Brown, who inherits a dilapidated hotel which he fails to sell in the midst of escaping a doomed love affair. A largely character-driven novel filled with increasingly strange figures, Greene explores the depths of the human condition through dark comedy.
Buy now £9.19, Amazon
