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Tim O'Brien

154. Graham Greene - A Burnt-out Case


This is a very strange book.

It is about a successful Western Architect who appears to have had enough of everything and gives it all up to travel down a river in darkest Africa to help some priests who are trying to help lepers.

It is unclear why he is doing this and whether it is him or one of the lepers who are the burned-out case.

He meets a young European woman who fantasises about an affair with him to escape her fairly bleak home life and the husband kills him.

It is one of those books where you can’t see what the author is trying to achieve, does Greene admire the man; there is none of the pathos you often get in Greene, although a lot of theology/philosophy.

I have just googled it. It seems to be regarded as something of an enigma, but it is good and odd enough to re-read.


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