God is a gentleman

So. Wading through the Graham Greene compilation, slowly-like; treated myself to a re-read of The Quiet American, read the Stamboul Train (that's one of his light books? Jesus, depressive fucker), and really enjoyed The Heart of the Matter. Well, enjoyed might be the wrong word. It struck a chord and locked me in, that's for damn sure - one of his Catholic books, and the most defensive, the most lapsed of them all . . . it seems he dedicated it to the very Catholic wife (and their children together) that he abandoned, the very same year as the abandonment. Charming fucker. Such a fucking selfish thing. How else is one supposed to see such a dedication as anything but 'I'm already under such mental and moral torment over my choices that I risk suicide, so don't try to make me feel any worse about leaving you for tail.'

Anyways, if artist's personalities mattered I wouldn't even want to make eye contact with a Michaelangelo, right? The heart of the matter is that it's a good book for Catholics, though not a good Catholic book. What's staying with me now in terms of the Catholicism of it all at this point is the George Orwell review I read soon afterwards. I found it very strange - very angry - very hostile, even offended. Full of little factual errors in his outline of the story, and so very literal in its sarcasm - 'he had gone to what he believed to be certain damnation out of pure gentlemanliness.' Ignoring the point that Scobie had not been a pure gentleman; that Greene had obviously not been trying to draw a portrait of a pure gentleman, but rather of a fatally weak man who could drive himself to suicide over a love affair. But then George Orwell was always so literal in his writing - sure, Animal Farm was an allegory, but have you ever read another allegory that was so laboured in making it clear who it was attacking?

Take this point: 'The central idea of the book is that it is better, spiritually higher, to be an erring Catholic than a virtuous pagan.' What an interesting reaction. As an ethnic Catholic reading the book, I have no idea how a non-Catholic could draw this conclusion. There's an idea that Scobie himself believed this perhaps - that Scobie believed his very Catholic pride and his pity for others distinguished him from the people around him. And yet Scobie, who hated the idea of suicide on an ideological level, drove himself to suicide through this pride and this pity. I couldn't think where you draw the idea of the book arguing a bad Catholic is better than a good non-Catholic unless a non-Catholic reader resents the degree of attention that Greene focuses on the process of a bad Catholic driving himself to destruction.

It seems like an offended review - Orwell suggests Greene is snobby, that he subscribes to the idea of hell being an exclusive nightclub; he sarcastically suggests that Greene's 'Catholics retain their superiority, since they alone know the meaning of good and evil.' (And he somehow maintains this defensiveness alongside an attack on Greene for making his underclass characters too thoughtful, too pre-occupied with notions of right and wrong!)

But what seems to offend Orwell is that which is the charm of the Catholic novel, and a sign not of the superiority of Catholicism (oh no, I won't way a word about their superiority, I did a runner to the Quakers and I'm glad) but a sign of what makes Catholics special: an obsession with guilt and redemption on a daily basis that other ethnic Christians have not managed (to their benefit no doubt) to hang on to. Catholics, if they're good Catholics, centre their faith around the notion of being imperfect and of apologizing adequately to God for their imperfection. The Catholic God is a forgiving and just God, but only if you can present your sins before Him, only if you can repent from the bottom of your heart for those sins; only if you want to be perfect.

And this is the tragedy of Catholics, and the tension at the heart of the Catholic novel: nobody is perfect. And believing you know what perfection is, or at least being faced with your own imperfections on a daily basis, becomes an intolerable burden. Because feeling guilty about knowing you're imperfect and pitying the victims of your imperfection isn't going to make you more noble - less tempted to lie, less tempted to fuck around, less tempted to accommodate the people you care about even if doing so is not quite kosher. It takes nobility and goodness to be a noble, good person - not guilt, not pity - and frankly I had thought it was obvious that was the point of the Heart of the Matter.

So it was interesting to read the Orwell review, which seemed to ignore that entirely. Is the tragedy of wanting to be perfect but usually managing no more than guilt and pity a particularly Catholic mental problem whose exploration would really be so offensive and alienating to other people? And how do other ethnic Christians manage to avoid this mental problem? Do all those American born-agains whose sins are washed away all of a sudden in a fucking fantastic baptism face this problem, or can such a powerful event when you're a grownup make you feel so close to God that you can ignore your imperfections in the glow of His glory? It would certainly explain the Bush presidency . . .