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Article: How did Hale die? A footnote to Brighton Rock.(Graha, Greene)
- Article from:
- Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature
- Article date:
- September 22, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Marquette University Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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GRAHAM Greene thought that Brighton Rock may have been the best book he ever wrote, and even his hostile critics like John Carey and Michael Shelden describe it as a "masterpiece." I agree; it seems to me by far Greene's finest novel, though it is not easy to define what kind of novel it is. It has many dimensions: a tough, realistic story of Brighton criminal life, a revenge tragedy, a mass-observing cross-section of the seaside resort in the mid-30s, a Catholic fable about damnation. Greene originally planned it as a detective novel and that aspect is evident in the arresting opening sentence: "Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to ...