Graham Greene - a fascinating man of contradictions - a converted Catholic, scrupulous in observing Catholic ritual, yet a great womanizer and drinker - and a man with atheistic beliefs of which he said, "I doubt my doubt." Could it become more complex?
The last book I read by him was "The Power and the Glory," perhaps his most lauded novel, and it showed his complexity. The story of a whiskey priest hiding from the despotic anti-Catholic regime of the governor of Tabasco State in Mexico during the Cristero conflict in the 1930's, it leads us to no conclusion. The priest, afraid of being shot, still is compelled to do his duty as he moves from one hovel of a town to another, drenched in all the stench and heat of old Mexico. The government forces would hack to death those unwilling to renounce Christ and feed their remains to the pigs - the priest had something to worry about - and yet. He is shot in the end, confused, dedicated, redeemed and yet still doubtful - the picture of Graham Greene himself.
In a way, it felt good to read this biography, for here was a man worse in actions and more conflicted than I could ever be. Yet one priest friend confided to him that he was closer to God than he - in that his struggle forced an eternal preoccupation with God. Greene himself recognized this, although not in a self- congratulatory way. For him, "one who is awakened to good also is awakened to evil." This is not a novel idea, and Greene was familiar with the lives of the Saints, including Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross - the latter the first in recent times to coin the phrase "the dark night of the soul." And in this, I think that he is right: for in the acknowledgment of the good, one tires to BE the good. In so doing, one becomes aware of his shortcomings and is hounded by his own evil. Such are many of Greene's characters - forlorn of becoming good, they practice evil with intent, as if it were a religion. The two, to him, touch each other in the circle of life and are, to mix metaphors, two sides of the same coin. There is ample precedent to this in the Bible, the one most apparent to me being the Gospel where Jesus is tempted by the devil after a 40 day fast in the desert. He is offered the world, if only he would forsake God. His answer is well known: "Get thee behind me, Satan!" So we see that the man (or Son of Man) of the greatest good is offered the greatest reward for evil - that is, the higher up one may aspire, the louder are the calls from below.
Most of us are not so good and are offered no great reward for evil. Greene apparently lived both - as a fearless man of conviction and as a whore monger who abused his wealth and fame. For me, this conflict is not a distant abstraction. About 20 years ago, shortly before the birth of our son, I became involved (for the first time in almost 20 years) with meditation and prayer after many years of playing with the abstractions of academia, or simply working. I found almost immediately that, as enlightenment seemed at times to descend - or almost descend - so did thoughts that could act to the contrary. In linguistic or computer terms, such negatives are necessary to evoke meaning. But it is a different thing in moral terms. While resolving to do good, we already know of evil. And yet we are confounded, or tempted constantly from our goal as if by an inward genius - some would say demon - who wishes to confront us. For me, the meaning and distinction between the two have been clear since early adolescence - and yet, the confrontation grows as we decide to work towards its opposite. Again, this is not a logically necessary condition of prevailing goodness, and yet it is so. As in the metaphor that life is, every thing that is lit must have its shadow, and it does not go away once we recognize the thing. It is a part of its condition.
The saints and gurus have talked for centuries of this conflict. Some modern saints, like Bede Griffith, were not cured of this until the last days of death (or so it seemed). Others, most notably the Indian gurus, talk of overcoming this dark side permanently, much as Christ did - but not before years and decades of asceticism, far more than I and most are willing to do.
And so we have Greene as our martyr - the man who went far in both directions, granting us a sense of self-relief, but also of inadequacy, for he DID go far - further than most of us into the obscene and the horrible to find the good. That, I believe, is what the priest acquaintance was referring to.
On a last note to genius, Greene had said that once his characters were set up in his novels, his work was essentially done. Writing then was, to quote, "on autopilot," as the characters worked out their own inner progressions. This is how it happens. But further, and of this he did not speak, from where comes the formulation of the book in the first place? Not the idea of the good man and bad man and such, but the overall pattern that will emerge - for characters alone do not create this pattern but rather work within it. While writing the book may go on autopilot, the set-up, too (I would argue) also comes from without. Just as many would say that the set-up to our lives have come from without - or beyond - as well. FK
The last book I read by him was "The Power and the Glory," perhaps his most lauded novel, and it showed his complexity. The story of a whiskey priest hiding from the despotic anti-Catholic regime of the governor of Tabasco State in Mexico during the Cristero conflict in the 1930's, it leads us to no conclusion. The priest, afraid of being shot, still is compelled to do his duty as he moves from one hovel of a town to another, drenched in all the stench and heat of old Mexico. The government forces would hack to death those unwilling to renounce Christ and feed their remains to the pigs - the priest had something to worry about - and yet. He is shot in the end, confused, dedicated, redeemed and yet still doubtful - the picture of Graham Greene himself.
In a way, it felt good to read this biography, for here was a man worse in actions and more conflicted than I could ever be. Yet one priest friend confided to him that he was closer to God than he - in that his struggle forced an eternal preoccupation with God. Greene himself recognized this, although not in a self- congratulatory way. For him, "one who is awakened to good also is awakened to evil." This is not a novel idea, and Greene was familiar with the lives of the Saints, including Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross - the latter the first in recent times to coin the phrase "the dark night of the soul." And in this, I think that he is right: for in the acknowledgment of the good, one tires to BE the good. In so doing, one becomes aware of his shortcomings and is hounded by his own evil. Such are many of Greene's characters - forlorn of becoming good, they practice evil with intent, as if it were a religion. The two, to him, touch each other in the circle of life and are, to mix metaphors, two sides of the same coin. There is ample precedent to this in the Bible, the one most apparent to me being the Gospel where Jesus is tempted by the devil after a 40 day fast in the desert. He is offered the world, if only he would forsake God. His answer is well known: "Get thee behind me, Satan!" So we see that the man (or Son of Man) of the greatest good is offered the greatest reward for evil - that is, the higher up one may aspire, the louder are the calls from below.
Most of us are not so good and are offered no great reward for evil. Greene apparently lived both - as a fearless man of conviction and as a whore monger who abused his wealth and fame. For me, this conflict is not a distant abstraction. About 20 years ago, shortly before the birth of our son, I became involved (for the first time in almost 20 years) with meditation and prayer after many years of playing with the abstractions of academia, or simply working. I found almost immediately that, as enlightenment seemed at times to descend - or almost descend - so did thoughts that could act to the contrary. In linguistic or computer terms, such negatives are necessary to evoke meaning. But it is a different thing in moral terms. While resolving to do good, we already know of evil. And yet we are confounded, or tempted constantly from our goal as if by an inward genius - some would say demon - who wishes to confront us. For me, the meaning and distinction between the two have been clear since early adolescence - and yet, the confrontation grows as we decide to work towards its opposite. Again, this is not a logically necessary condition of prevailing goodness, and yet it is so. As in the metaphor that life is, every thing that is lit must have its shadow, and it does not go away once we recognize the thing. It is a part of its condition.
The saints and gurus have talked for centuries of this conflict. Some modern saints, like Bede Griffith, were not cured of this until the last days of death (or so it seemed). Others, most notably the Indian gurus, talk of overcoming this dark side permanently, much as Christ did - but not before years and decades of asceticism, far more than I and most are willing to do.
And so we have Greene as our martyr - the man who went far in both directions, granting us a sense of self-relief, but also of inadequacy, for he DID go far - further than most of us into the obscene and the horrible to find the good. That, I believe, is what the priest acquaintance was referring to.
On a last note to genius, Greene had said that once his characters were set up in his novels, his work was essentially done. Writing then was, to quote, "on autopilot," as the characters worked out their own inner progressions. This is how it happens. But further, and of this he did not speak, from where comes the formulation of the book in the first place? Not the idea of the good man and bad man and such, but the overall pattern that will emerge - for characters alone do not create this pattern but rather work within it. While writing the book may go on autopilot, the set-up, too (I would argue) also comes from without. Just as many would say that the set-up to our lives have come from without - or beyond - as well. FK
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