The Heart of the Matter

By: Graham Greene

Narrated by: Michael Kitchen

Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

Scobie, a police officer in a West African colony, is a good and honest man. But when he falls in love, he is forced into a betrayal of everything that he has ever believed in, and his struggle to maintain the happiness of two women destroys him.

©1971 Graham Greene (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

A Novel on Sin and Damnation

I listened to 'The Heart of the Matter' because: 1) I wanted to get acquainted with Graham Greene's writing; 2) it had won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for 1948; and 3) it was also included in both Modern Library and TIME lists.

It is a straightforward enough story about the unravelling of an honest and upright colonial police officer, Scobie. It revolves around events taking place in wartime Western Africa; in truth, however, it is more about Scobie's struggles with his own demons, his perceptions and fears, and his, ultimately futile, quest for happiness. Strangely, it seemed to me, Scobie the good hardly ever thinks about his work, except in relation to his own piety and damnation. It was as if the natives didn't have any agency at all, as if they existed merely to serve or to corrupt the White colonists.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed listening to the book for the most part. The narration, by Michael Kitchen, was also good. (It may not, however, be suitable for listening while driving -- Kitchen whispers too often.)

Graham Greene: The master of religious misery

Greene was himself a man trapped between the person he was and the one his religion taught he should be. Scobie's conversations with himself and his God, to me, are Greene wrestling with his own nature. This is a tragic story, beautifully written and narrated.

The fall of man

One of Greene's so-called "Catholic novels", this is a deeply engrossing story about one man's fall from grace, if not the fall of man himself. It must have seemed to Greene's readers that Catholics were a species apart, the only people with a truly moral vision of life, while everyone else simply lived by expedience. This is the sort of publicity that gave the Church a bad name in the West, and may even have contributed to the establishment of the Second Vatican Council a few years later. I doubt this was Greene's intention, but this is not an inspiring tale of martyrdom. It shares the tropical setting of The Power and the Glory - those damn vultures again - and with it the sense of a hostile world pressing inexorably on man's fragile attempts to live a righteous life. Michael Kitchen's idiosyncratic reading perhaps intends to reinforce the dislocation of the moral man in this milieu, being chopped and strangled in odd places, tending to disorient the listener just as the main character loses his own bearings. I found the central love story a bit unconvincing as the woman failed to take on any independent life, but the exchanges between Scobie and the corrupt Muslim trader Yusuf rang with imagined truth.

Taken back in time

Exceptionally well read by Mr. Kitchen. The performance places the listener both in war time coastal Africa as well as in the deepest struggle suffered by a man. Well done.

Michael Kitchen is beautiful for Greene

Graham Greene speaks to the human condition with simple sympathy.

Kitchen helps the reader/listener to feel it keenly and genuinely.

Moving.

Sublime!

An oft overlooked classic; please read this Graham Greene beauty. You will thank me later.

Deeply moving!

This author is new to me, bit the depth of his insight into the morally troubled human soul was both beautiful and sad. One of the best performances by a narrator I've ever heard!

A beautifully expressed journey of despair

In The Heart of the Matter, Graham Greene continues to demonstrate his mastery of writing and of expressing the inner turmoil of human consciousness. This book is about the slow and careful internal corruption of an upright assistant police commissioner somewhere in West Africa during WWII. The reader experiences the vicious spiral and inner voice of Major Scobie, as his despair (experiencing an absence of God and of grace) corrupts his spirit and ultimately his soul. His pity for others is driven by his own desperate need for empathy. It’s alluring to project one’s deepest needs and insecurities onto others. The main character’s existential crisis is a beautiful expression of how great writing can lead readers to self awareness, empathy, deeper faith, and inner growth, even as the story has us in the grip of difficult circumstances.

Best narrator

Greene is so very good he deserves the best and Michael Kitchen is just that.

What is the heart of the matter?

Beautifully written but too steeped in religion! It would have been just as good without all that!