A Glimpse of Evil?

#37 - Brighton Rock, by Graham Greene
Finished 7/15/07
Rating: 5/5
Total Pages: 247
Reason for Reading: Recommended by a friend
REVIEW: I’ve been too distracted lately to properly take in the contents of such a deeply moving novel, but the further I read the more I was sucked into the world of gang warfare in 1930’s Brighton and the lives of Pinkie and his cohorts. The ending was surprising and horrific, and I’m left with a numbing sense of children playing at dangerous games. Pinkie, at age 17, lives in an agony of evil, murder, and the fear of discovery, which he covers up behind a façade of arrogance and aggression. I really must re-read this to pick up all the atmosphere and nuance that I missed in the beginning.

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W A R N I N G - - - S P O I L E R S

Wow! The ending of this book was more powerful than any other I've read in a very long time. The last twenty pages were utterly gripping.

Right from the midpoint of the story, where Pinkie decides to marry Rose to prevent her from being able to testify against him, the romantic in me REALLY wanted him to truly fall in love and reform his evil ways. But of course, that was not to be. Pinkie wasn't able to love. He was so filled with a vile, horrific determination that nothing could cause him to stray from his self-destructive path.

Throughout the novel is an underlying subtext about Christianity and the fight between God and Satan. As the plot reaches a feverish apex, Pinkie convinces Rose that they will commit suicide together. He hands her a revolver. "Put it in your ear -- that'll hold it steady," he tells her. And he walks away, waiting for her to keep her part of the bargain.

Rose is torn between her love for Pinkie and her Christian morals and ethics. She struggles over what to do:

“If it was a guardian angel speaking to her now, he spoke like a devil – he tempted her to virtue like a sin.” [p. 241]

Rose, however, lives, and Pinkie is the one who dies:

“ ‘Stop him,’ Dallow cried: it wasn’t any good: he was at the edge, he was over: they couldn’t even hear a splash. It was as if he’d been withdrawn suddenly by a hand out of any existence – past or present, whipped away into zero – nothing.” [p. 243]

And neither of these events are as awful as the reader's realization of what Rose will discover not long after you have finished the last page and put the book away. A highly recommended read.

[An aside -- An interesting choice of names, don't you think? Pinkie and Rose? Why has Greene chose these shades of red? Blood? Hmmm.....]

Listening to: Something much much lighter.... Rock-Cha-Rhumba (Ray Anthony & His Orchestra), on iTunes Ill Street Lounge.... and trying to break free of the horror that I know awaits Rose.