RELIGION and the ARTS Religion and the Arts 15 (2011) 687–696 brill.nl/rart

Book Reviews

Brennan, Michael G. : Fictions, Faith, and Authorship. Lon- don and New York: Continuum, 2010. Pp. xiv + 173. $29.95 paper.

great deal of scholarship has been generated in recent years on the Atheory that a distinctively Catholic literature exists. Graham Greene: Fictions, Faith, and Authorship does not set out to argue the question of whether Greene is a Catholic novelist. Its author Michael Brennan rejects this emphatic label, in part because it could reduce Greene’s novels to orthodox and conformist promulgators of dogma, and perhaps too, because it might divert readers from an understanding and appreciation of this novelist’s uniqueness in favor of a theoretical exploration of an ideal form. Another possible factor is the fact that Greene himself insisted that he should not be considered a Catholic writer. At the same time, however, Brennan’s study is, in fact, centered on the influence of Catholicism in Greene’s development as a writer, and more particularly on Greene’s inter- rogation of the intellectual, spiritual, and imaginative demands of Cathol- icism. Though he does not thus theorize Catholic literature, Brennan’s book is a more gratifying and successful accomplishment than many other recent studies of Catholic fiction. His exploration of how Catholic tradi- tions of theology, liturgy, iconography, and psychology infuse Greene’s lit- erary imagination results in a fine work of traditional literary criticism. While avoiding the temptation to define Catholic fiction or the idea of a Catholic novelist, Brennan nonetheless succeeds in portraying a writer whose novels are best understood by way of his Catholic imagination. Although this is not a spiritual or critical biography, Brennan constructs the eight chapters of his study of Greene chronologically, which allows his book to serve as a critical introduction to the author. The opening chapter, comprising a useful account of Greene’s religious awakening in the 1920s, establishes Brennan’s method of biographical criticism. Here he provides a short analysis of The Man Within (1929), the first work by this young Catholic convert to reveal a lifelong religious veneration of idealized and saintly females. What Brennan says about this novel, however, speaks

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011 DOI: 10.1163/156852911X596291 688 Book Reviews / Religion and the Arts 15 (2011) 687–696 more to Greene’s commitment to his new faith and to the influence of his wife, Vivien. A lucid analysis of Manichaeism in Greene’s imagination reveals a potentially unorthodox faith, but Brennan shows how his posi- tive treatment of female characters denies the Manichaean label, despite Greene’s early dalliance with the heresy. One strength of Brennan’s work is his delving into non-canonical and archival materials: poetry, university publications, and early novels suppressed by Greene that remain out of print. In two such novels from the early 1930s, Brennan explores Greene’s growing fascination with the vital role of skepticism within Catholic faith and culture. Even as Brennan turns to more familiar novels (e.g., [1932]), however, he weaves efficient and accurate summaries into his analysis of Greene’s Catholic effects. Indeed, Brennan’s analyses of the novels often commence with or are controlled by plot summary. The result is that this book serves best the needs of readers relatively new to Graham Greene, and in this respect Brennan is effective and consistent. Despite the recent scholarly attention to Greene and other English Catholic novelists, Brennan has carefully positioned his approach so that there is very little overlap with previous critical works, including Mark Bosco S. J.’s Graham Greene’s Catholic Imagination (Oxford Univer- sity Press, 2005) [reviewed Religion and the Arts 13 (2009): 271–273]. Grounded in the idea of a distinctively Catholic kind of novel, Bosco expends considerable critical energies in theorizing the idea of a Catholic imagination and in meticulous analysis of the theological and philosophi- cal underpinnings of Greene’s particular Catholic vision. At the same time, his approach is less driven by the idea of a writer’s development or by other concerns of biographical criticism, and he chooses fewer novels to discuss and analyze. Brennan, by contrast, addresses every one of Greene’s novels (as well as numerous short stories, works of nonfiction, and screenplays); his analyses of (1948) and The End of the Affair (1951) prove to be particularly original and convincing interpretations of the novels themselves as well as thresholds for an appreciation of the life and imagination of the author. For readers new to Greene, Brennan will be an ideal introductory source, and those who then require a more thorough understanding of Greene’s Catholicism will be well prepared for Bosco’s more thorough analysis of Greene’s influences. Like Bosco before him, Brennan suggests that one of the most signifi- cant novelistic influences on Greene was that of François Mauriac. Yet there is surprisingly little here about other literary relationships, influ- ences, and exchanges. In particular, though he takes pains not to label