Even now, almost a decade since his death, Greene remains a writer whose achievement is greater than even admiring critics seem prepared to admit. His aggressively left-wing preoccupation with themes of personal, religious and political moral dilemmas, as well as his preference for seedy settings, ensure that Greene's instantly recognisable, stylised world is almost a cliche. His variations of the thriller and detective genre are as inimitable as are his treatments of Catholic guilt. First published in 1951, this powerful melodrama resounds with an authentic anger, bitterness and pain few novelists would attempt to portray. It also says far more about the fragile nature of love than any soothing romance. Bendix, the narrator, tells the story of his relationship with Sarah - married to a man she doesn't love, but likes. Into their feeble arrangement strays the intense Bendix, a novelist, who soon realises he wants her but is suddenly dismissed. Two years later he is still obsessing. "When I began to realise how often we quarrelled, how often I picked on her with nervous irritation, I became aware that our love was doomed: love had turned into a love-affair with a beginning and an end. I could name the very moment when it had begun, and one day I knew I should be able to name the final hour." Readers who first read this novel as teenagers may well want to return to it. Greene, a life-writer, does suffer from being read at too early an age.
Mad Men and Medusas: Reclaiming Hysteria and the Effects of Sibling Relations on
