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Politics in the Novels of Graham GreeneAuthor(s): Anthony BurgessSource: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 2, No. 2, Literature and Society (Apr., 1967),pp. 93-99Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/259952

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P o l i t i c s i n t h N o v e l s o

r a h a m r e e n e

Anthony Burgess

I hadbetterbegin by makingmy ownpositionclear.I comeof an

old though not particularlydistinguished Lancashire Catholicfamily,one thatheldto the faiththrough he Reformation ndhadits quotaof undistinguishedmartyrs,wasRoyalistduringthe CivilWarandhid its quotaof undistinguishedRoyalist eaders n hutsin Lancashirecloughs,and supportedthe Pretendersafter i688.There are several such families in England, particularly n the

north-west, and they have made less mark in modem Catholicliteraturethan have the converts. There is a tendency in old

Catholic amiliesto recorda numberof apostasieswith the comingof the daysof toleration, hough- as Evelyn Waughdemonstrates

romanticallyn BridesheadRevisited deathbedreconciliations re

very common; with the intellectual scions of the old Catholicfamilies the faith rarelyfires the imaginationas it does with new

converts,even wherethe faith burns at all. The EnglishCatholicnovel in ourown ageis almostentirelya productof conversion.

Of the EnglishCatholicnovelists,GrahamGreeneis by farthemost interesting, since he is probablythe least orthodox. The

implied doctrines of his novels approachJansenism,which hasbeen repeatedlycondemnedby Rome. CorneliusJansen,founderof the theological choolwhosemostfamousand brilliantadherentwas Pascal,came too nearto Calvinism o be orthodox:he foundtoo muchsemi-Pelagianismn the laxist Jesuits;he affirmedandre-affirmedthe more rigorist doctrines of St Augustine. InJansen,originalsin was not mere imputation : t expressed tselfin the depravation f nature(whoseorderwas, contrary o official

teaching,distinctfromthe supernatural rder), n appetiteand inconcupiscence.The horrorof the naturalworld is one of the most

fascinating spectsof Greene s iction.Sin is notcoolandintellect-ual matter for theologicaldissertations:sin is expressedin the

joylesssex of BrightonRock,with its broken oenails n thebed; the

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CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

curious andscapeof The PowerandtheGlory;the hell of Haiti inThe Comedians.

A religiousfaith should beget its own politics. To adhereto a

politicalsystem that denies God is not possible to the Christian,though some Christianshave used doublethinkto reconcilethecontradictions.Thus, both ItalyandFrancehave theircommunist

Catholics,and Englandhad a distinguishedAnglicandean who

clung to Marxism against all official remonstrances.In suchinstancesone does not have to lookbeyondthe expediencyof thenominal: one cannot hold opposed beliefs and maintain total

orthodoxy in both. The political positions of most English

Catholicshave been dictated as much by the instinct for survivalas by matters of doctrinal compatibility. They were Royalistalmost to a man in the Great Rebellion, and, with the Parlia-

mentary victory, they suffered for two kinds of faith. Theynaturally upported he Jacobitecause,andthey hadno economicstake in Whiggism, though they had good grounds for beingfavourable to nineteenth-centuryLiberalism. Many Catholics

todayfind it possibleto be socialists,since Britishsocialism with

its slogan pragmatism does not insist, as does pure Marxistdoctrine,on a materialisticnterpretation f history.And yet any

political ideology that rejects originalsin and believes in moral

progressought strictlyto be viewedwithsuspicionby Catholics.

Deeper than party politics lies the whole questionof national

allegiance.The British State toleratesthe CatholicChurch,but

the CatholicChurch,being a supra-national ody, has no repre-sentation in the establishment:there are no Catholic bishopsin the Houseof Lords,thoughit wasfoundpossibleto put Donald

Soperthere.To honourthe monarch s to acknowledgehe hege-

mony of the Churchof England.Catholicpatriotismmust neces-

sarilybe of a qualifiedkind,sincenot only is the present nvolvedbut alsothe past, the rememberedwrongsof history.These latter

are, to the really embittered, incarnated or lapidified in the

cathedrals nd churcheswhich,onceCatholic,are now Protestant.No Catholicnovelistis able to resist the temptationof underliningthe architecturalsqualor of the churches where his heroes or

heroineshearmass. But the real historicalwrongsare not easilyforgotten.There is a significantpassage n Greene s The Heartofthe Matter. When the Colonial Secretaryof the West African

colonysays, The Roman CatholicSyriansareclaiming hey area

persecuted minority and that the police are in the pay of the

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POLITICS IN THE NOVELSOF GRAHAMGREENE

Moslem Syrians ,the CatholicconvertScobiereplies: The same

thing would havehappenedthe otherwayround- only it wouldhavebeen worse.Parliamenthas moreaffection or MoslemsthanCatholics.

GrahamGreene sself-expatriation onceintermittentbutnow,it seems, permanent could neverbe interpretedas a failureofdevotion to England.The Jansenistin him is led to the placeswherethe squalorof sin is exposed n its rawest orms.But,unlike

EvelynWaugh,whofictionallydentifiedhimself with the fortunesof English Catholicstied, by land or family bonds, to England,Greeneis concernedwith the Catholicsoul workingout its salva-

tion or damnation n isolation: the furnitureof England s a dis-tractionandan irrelevance.Admittedly,two of his finestnovels -BrightonRockand The Endof theAffair- have Englishsettings,but they are not the English settings of the ordinarybourgeoisEnglishnovel: we have the jungleof gangwarfare n the firstandthe jungleof the Blitz in the second. A parochialEngland,one inwhichparty politicscanbe animportantconcern,hardlyseemstoGreene a suitable stage for the enactment of spiritualdrama.

Moreover,his Catholicismreveals,witheverynew book,its inter-nationalcharacter.The enemies of the truebelief walk the greatworld,not the parish.The politics of Greene areworldpolitics.

In ThePowerand the Glorywe observe a local revolution n asmallandremotestate,but the lineamentsof the new dispensationarefamiliarand international: he cult of the spiritualholds backthe people, whose true enemiesare the priests; the great goal ismaterial prosperity; the leader knows best. The progressiveslogansare,as always,accompanied

by retrogressive nactments,best symbolized n prohibition.The imperfectpriest on the runfromthe statepolicesearchesdesperately ora bottleof wine withwhich to say mass. He procuresone, only to have it drainedbycorruptand hypocriticalrepresentativesof the new order,whotoast human progress in it. It is human progress that is theshibbolethof the antichrist,andit doesnot matterwhichpoliticalideology is committedto it. Americandemocracyand Russiancommunismalike profess the same goal, but at least one knows

where one stands with a materialisticphilosophy that openlyavows its materialism. In Our Man in Havana the AmericanConsul-Generalspeaks at the Traders luncheon:

He spokeof thespiritualinksbetweenhedemocraciesheseemedtonumberCubaamonghedemocracies.radewas mportantecause

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without rade herewouldbe no spiritualinks,orperhapst wastheotherway round.He spokeof American id to distressed ountrieswhich wouldenablethem to buy moregoodsand by buyingmoregoods strengthenthe spirituallinks ... It had been a great pleasureforthe AmericanConsul-Generalo be invited o thislunch odayandto meet heleading epresentativesfEuropeanradeandsostrengthenstillfurtherhespiritualinks...

This is harmless nough.Greene sreputationoranti-Americanismdid not begin here. It startedwith that still verytopicalnovel setin Saigon.

The Quiet American s a work of fiction told in first-personnarrative,and it waswrongof some commentators o identifythenarratorwith the author- a most implausible dentification,any-way. With a first-personnarrative here is no obligationon theauthor spartto be fair,just,dispassionate; ndthe anti-American-ism of the bookspringsfromthe natural ealousyandvindictive-ness of the narrator.On the otherhand,there is no doubt that the

image of the Americancampaign n Vietnamaccordspretty well

withGreene sown Americanphilosophy: heAmericansmaymeanwell, but theyarenaive,and in anycase benevolence s dangerousif it is anexpressionof a twistedview of the desirable ife. Greene,

beinga writer,hates semantic yrannies,andhe considers hat too

many Americansrespond adverselyto the term communismwithoutgivingthemselvesa chanceto examinethe referentof theterm.Evidently,someaspectsof communismcannotrationallybe

rejected,but it is the very irrationality f officialAmericanpolicythat earnsGreene sscorn. Dubbed anti-American, e is assumed

by pro-Americanso be anti-democratic ndpro-communist,butthe issue is not as simple as that. The issue essentially nvolves

religion and, in the endless cold war, mattersof spiritualfaithseem to haveno role.

But to a Catholic here can be no realtakingof sides.American-ism is bad in that it is fundamentallyhypocritical.Talk of thefree world often means an obsession with Americansecurity,

American rade,the augmentation f anAmerican-led ommunity

dedicated o moreandmore feverishmaterial onsumption; t doesnot necessarilymean the spread of democraticrights. Greenefindsthis hypocrisybest, or worst,manifested n the Haitiof TheComedians.The tyrannyof PapaDoc and the terrorismof the

TontonMacoute are more hideous than anything that Soviet

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Russiacanprovide,but, since Haitidoes not invokethe forbiddenname of communism,Americawill be friendly.It is hardto find

worse evil than that represented n Haiti, but America- thoughshemay wraphermaterialistic octrines n thelanguageof spiritualaspiration is not in the least concernedwith evil. Rememberingthe Jansenistdichotomy,we canregardallpoliticsasbelongingtothe natural order which never touches the supernatural.But

America, ransmittingherpower through he world,pretends hatshe is crusading; his is the unforgivablehypocrisy.

Communism s hypocriticalwith its claims to free the enslaved,andits own aims areas materialistic s those of Americanism.But

the fact that spiritual values are actively resisted under com-munismsaves its adherents romthe biggerhypocrisy.Moreover,a political doctrine that is committed to improvementof thematerial ot of the people, yet signallyfails to do so, seemsto havebeen visited by an ironicalparaclete: t is not yet clogged withbutteranddrowning n Coca-Colavats; it is nearer he angels hanit wishes to be. The sordidmise-en-scenehat best expressesthesinfulness of the naturalorder is probablyeasier to find on the

other side of the Iron Curtain than on the other side of theAtlantic. A place that seems to breathe sin is, paradoxically,spirituallyhealthier han an asepticgardencity.

Almost the closing passage of The Comedians ums up the

relationshipbetweenthe Greene andthe Red so admirably hat itasks to be quotedat length. The martyrDoctor Magiot,who hashadthecourage oresisttheevil whichthat otherdoctorrepresents,leaves a letter to the narrator n whichhe attempts o reconcile heanomaliesof

his own position:... I havegrown o dislike heword Marxist .t is usedsooften o

describe nlyaparticularconomic lan incertain asesand ncertaintimes,here n Haiti, n Cuba, n Vietnam,n India.ButCommunism,myfriend,smore hanMarxism,ustasCatholicism rememberwasborna Catholic oo - is morethanthe RomanCuria.There is a mystiqueas well as a politique.We are humanists,you and I ... Communistshavecommittedreatcrimes,but atleast heyhavenot stoodaside, ikeanestablishedociety,and been ndifferent. wouldratherhavebloodonmyhands hanwaterikePilate .. I implore ou- a knockonthedoormaynot allowme to finishthis sentence, o take it as the lastrequestof a dyingman- if you haveabandoned ne faith,do notabandon ll faith.There s alwaysan alternativeo the faithwe lose.Or s it thesame aithunderanothermask?

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Doctor Magiotis committed ; he other maincharacters renot:

they are the comedians of the title, confusers of acting withaction.

But,in an evil

world,t behovesamanto defendor

promotethe good, even at the risk of makinga mistake: I would ratherhave blood on my hands than waterlike Pilate. It is the estab-lishedsociety thatis most likelyto talk aboutidealsandyet actas

though the consumptionof materialswere the end of life. Thecommunist state is still in the process of becoming ,as is the

kingdomof heaven, and - since in an evil communitygood canbe brought about only through revolution- its techniques are

apter for killing evil than are those of an affluentand settled

democracy. Communismis more than Marxism . In Vietnam,communismcan mean an agrarianreform sorely needed by abackward ndignorantpeople;Americanism the doctrineof thetowns - means teachingthat same people to develop the urban

appetitesof the consumer.Whetherone acceptsthese notions or not, they seemimpliedin

the laterfiction of GrahamGreene.A Catholicmust accept that

any kind of politicalcommitment s dangerous, ince no politique

can coincide exactly with the Christianmystique though a Jan-senistwill not worrytoo much about that kind of dichotomy).Yetif Christianity anno longerprovideappropriatemodesof politicalaction,wherecanthe committedCatholic ook? Onlyto a systemwith a faith,evenif that faith is heretical.If some Catholicnovel-

istshavebeenableto resistthebig troubling hemeofcommitment,that is because they have remained the products of English

parochialism.Evelyn Waugh sbroken reed of a Catholic, GuyCrouchback

broken,I

mean,as a man, not as a

believer),meets

the postwarworld in Yugoslaviaand does not likeit. Scott-King,who is not a Catholicbut maybe takenas speaking orhis creator,thinks t abadthingthatschoolboys houldbe madeto learnaboutModernEurope.All of Greene saterheroesenter,of theirownfree

will, a biggerand more terribleworld than ModernEurope.Britishpoliticsare too small for Greene,and, in A Burnt-Out

Case,one has the feelingthat Britishpeopleare alsobecomingtoosmallforanythingbut satiricalreatment.The journalistParkinson,

the one representative f bothhis races in the colonialCongo,is abloated joke whose opportunistand materialisticphilosophy- a

sort of parodicAmericanism is qualifiedby an inabilityto do

anything with the truth except manipulateit in the service of

news and, throughthis habit, instinctivelyget the truth wrong.

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And yet the mere presence of an Englishman sweating in the

tropics,wounded eyes looking out over his pink gin, is enough

to remindus that the Britishcolonist s a moreacceptable igure oGreene than the comfortablebourgeois stay-at-home. One is

impressed by Greene s own nostalgia for the Rider Haggard,ConanDoyle, John Buchanhero, pursuingthe cause of British

decency in some fever-ridden outpost. His most sympatheticcharacterremains Scobie, the colonial governmentofficerwho,likeAristidesthe Just, is traducedby the pettyminds of men andwomen who have brought lending-librarygossipy suburban

Englandwith them into the Africandarkness.EnglishCatholics,even converts,aretemptedby moreheresiesthan are the childrenof Mediterranean aroqueChristianity.The

greatest emptation s providedby the BritishheresiarchPelagius,a monk who deniedoriginalsin, doubtedthe need of divinegraceto achievesalvation,andthoughtthat man could attainsome sortof perfectionby his own efforts.His doctrines,which flourish nour mild air,areat the root of both the majorpolitical ideologiesof this country,though they are at their more conspicuousin

socialism.If an English Catholic does not wish to be taintedbyPelagianism,he hadbetter seek the exile eitherof EvelynWaugh sidiosyncraticToryism ,whichcanproperly lourishonlyin asmall

manorcut off from the traffic,or of one of the barbarous lacesofthe world.Surprisingly nough,such barbarous lacestakekindlyto the heresies that have come out of France, a most civilized

place:it is easyto be Albigensianor(which s not so bad)Jansenistin Cuba,Haiti,or the Heart of Darkness.Butonce a Catholic ays

openhis soul to the corruptions f thegreatworldof commitment,he must accept a kind of empiricism f he is not to be damned,drawing romthe naturalorderwhatmay conceivably urther heterrestrialends of the supernaturalorder. In Greene s fiction,however,thereis little flavourof empiricism which,afterall, has

somethingof Pelagianismabout it). There are insteadparadoxesandanomalies the sinnerwhois reallya saint,the philanthropistwho is reallya destroyer.And there are dangerousepigrams ikeThere is

alwaysan

alternative o the faith we lose . No signi-ficanceneed be attachedto the fact that GrahamGreeneis nowlivingnot too manykilometresawayfrom Port-Royal.His beliefsarehis own affair;we aremerelyconcernedwith his fiction.Andfiction,as we know,has to be stranger hantruth.

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