Dhanaraj Rajan's Reviews> Brighton Rock

Superb Ending. I just cannot come out of it.

The novel begins with a murder, moves in the detective novel mode and ends as a spiritual moral story (Catholic moral story).

Heaven and Hell - Eternal Bliss and Eternal Damnation. Can man/evil man escape damnation? What happens when you love the 'evil person' and you fear God? Do you want to be on the side of God or to be with the person you love? Can you never hope for his salvation? Or is it easy to be damned along with him than to be separated from him enjoying the Bliss? Is there a limit to the mercy of God?

The whole novel poses these questions all along the chapters. The answers are in the last chapter (barely 2 and half pages). The whole novel is worth for that chapter alone. But you need the full story to get the impact of the last chapter. Graham Greene emerges a great theologian. The ending reminded me of the ending of Gerorges Bernanos'The Diary of a Country Priest.Both are different genres. But they had the similar reflections at the end of the novel.

Consider these two statements. They both appear in the last pages of these novels:

"Grace is everywhere."-The Diary of a Country Priest.

"You can't conceive, my child, nor can I or anyone the... appalling... strangeness of the mercy of God."-Brighton Rock.