Between Form and Faith
Graham Greene and the Catholic Novel

Martyn Sampson (Author)

9780823294664

Hardback, published 3 August 2021

304 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.582 kg

What is a "Catholic" novel? This book analyzes the fiction of Graham Greene in a radically new manner, considering in depth its form and content, which rest on the oppositions between secularism and religion. Sampson challenges these distinctions, arguing that Greene has a dramatic contribution to add to their methodological premises. Chapters on Greene's four "Catholic" novels and two of his "post-Catholic" novels are complemented by fresh insight into the critical importance of his nonfiction. The study paints an image of an inviting yet beguilingly complex literary figure.

Introduction: The Uninstructed Catholic 1
1 The Ache of Modernism: Theological Aesthetics in Greene's Nonfiction 15
2 Catholic Novels: Religious Anxieties in Brighton Rock and The Heart of the Matter 38
3 Creator of Heaven and Earth:
Catholicism and the "Catholic" in The Power and the Glory and The End of the Affair 80
4 Entertaining the Second Vatican Council:
Creative Theologies in The Honorary Consul and Monsignor Quixote 119
5 Theory and Theology: Graham Greene's Remapping of Common Ground 161
Conclusion: Where Now? 195
Acknowledgments 201
Notes 205
Bibliography 233
Index 261