Drinking Whiskey at Midnight in a Room of My Own

So, I have found myself very busy as of late. Still, I make sure I get some pleasure reading in a few times a week. It's a hold over from working at the factory. I would make sure to read every night, because I could feel my brain going numb standing in front of those machines. I needed intellectual stimulation and I received it from a parade of novels I would read, all summer. Now, back in school, I am intellectually stimulated every day, but independent growth through art is still an important part of college experience. So, I listen to as much music as I can, watch movies often and read whenever I can find the time (if someone tells you they don't have the time, they are lying. They just don't like reading).

So that brings me to the topic of this post, Graham Greene's A Burnt-Out Case. This summer, I read Green's Brighton Rock because it was came highly suggestion from within the pages of Frank Portman's novel King Dork. I enjoyed it, but found it a little too convoluted (I found out later that this is because I haven't read the book that preceded Rock yet. It's on my list). A Burnt-Out Case has opened my eyes to what Greene is capable of. The biggest reoccuring theme in Greene's novels is Catholicism and it is in full force in Burnt-Out Case. It is like a theology lesson wrapped in a prose fiction, but it never leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The plot of the book is very convoluted, as is Greene's style, but basically, a tormented, famous Architect and atheist, Querry, travels to an African leper colony to live out the rest of his days in seclusion. There's more to the story than that, but anything else would only ruin what develops, however slowly. That is one of my big gripes with the book. Events are unfolding slowly in and in almost out of order. I'm nearly done with the book and the love interest is just now being introduced as a fully realized character in relation to Querry. If you can go that far, Graham Green, you can probably figure out a way to leave her out of the plot entirely.

Still, the book is full of inspiring, thought provoking moments and I would say it has legitimately changed my outlook on life. One of the greatest aspects of the book is all the people who insist that Querry is a great man (a saint even). Querry meets this praise with anger and strikes out at these people verbally, he insists that he is a godless, horrible man. These people are shown by Greene as dullards and through most of the novel, I found myself agreeing with Querry, but I am slowly realizing that these people may, in fact, be right about Querry. It's quite a lesson about self-image, I think.