REVIEW COMMENT ON HEART OF THE MATTER-GRAHAM GREENE

The Novel “Heart of the matter” is to me an Allegory that requires a reader to be focused and detailed in understanding. Graham Greene shyly opens up a flamboyant tale of a policeman’s dilemma with the truth, facts and self-conceit.

Scobie the deputy commissioner pertains the character of the antagonist and protagonist; throughout the novel, we see him struggling in a fight against himself and his person, he depicts a vivid illustration of the circumstance that many catholic- Christians find themselves in, in contemporary times, whether to fore the faith or the fate.

His (Scobie) gullible belief that his suicide and subsequent death for the joy and happiness of his wife Louise) and Lover (Helen) and the surprise of all, “GOD” is a brain teaser that any reader would find debatable. To even imagine the possibility of sympathizing with God is but something for novels indeed, though not solely. That Scobie sympathized with God for the misery he caused Him by his sins and wrong ways and yet at the same time condemn himself to damnation; one is left to wonder! Does the writer not leave us a leaf off his life along these lines?

Then there is the notion that Scobie’s love for his Wife and lover is only inspired by pity and sympathy for them. This demonstration of pity as a bridge for the structuring of the tale relays a vivid perception given to love in the story, as an object of pity rather than sheer admiration or infallibility to the hearts desires. Wilson the character who is sent to the colony to spy on Scobie, for example, attests to being in love with Louise, yet one may think he too may be bound by pity for her state of affairs of boredom, a pitiful husband and a frocked society of gossipers.

And the bang f it all, all along the novel it is not known what Louise really feels towards Scobie, but at the end we find that only three days after Scobies’ demise, she feels nothing as far a loss of a loved one is concerned and was actually aware of Scobies’ lover. She already offers herself to Wilson.

One thick lesson from this novel is that: “Not all, always seems what it is, a keen view matters.”

And finally, Heart of the matter is a masterpiece of literature!