12/02/2012
“Brighton Rock” by Graham Green
Published in 1938, Brighton Rock by the Nobel Prize winning writer Graham Green is one of the most important novels in the history of 20th century English literature. In its stylistic and thematic structure, the book comprises the elements that are characteristic of all Graham Green’ literary work. In order to entirely grasp the specificity of Brighton Rock, it is certainly noteworthy to take under consideration some facts related to the life of the author.
Often referred to as Catholic writer (in the manner of François Mauriac in France), Green is indeed obsessed with this faith that he adopted only at the age of 24, in the name of love, to marry his fiancée, Vivien Daryell-Browning. This important lifetime event results in his ambiguous attitude towards this religion (NB akin to many of his fictional characters): admiration and doubt.
In our analysis, one other detail needs to be considered: even though Brighton Rock constitutes the seventh book written by Graham Green, only two of his previous publications (Stamboul Train and A Gun for Sale) were noticed by a relatively large range of readers. Green is determined to become a successful bestselling writer without abandoning his literary aspirations easily perceptible in his anterior novels. Desirous to maintain the stylistic quality of his work and, on the other hand, to appeal to a wider audience, Green writes Brighton Rock, which reconciles these two preoccupations. The book is, in fact, rich in plot and has perfectly written psychological portraits of the characters.
The protagonist, Pinkie, is a seductive and mischievous 17-years-old boy who, after the unsuspected death of Kite, struggles to assure his position as a leader of a gang amongst his older fellows. Despite his troubled life, the young gangster and former altar boy continues to be a deeply religious Roman Catholic. Based on antithetical components, this character construction undoubtedly constitutes one of the most interesting particularities of the novel. Because it is impossible to reconcile a crime with religiousness, Pinkie will always feel guilty, deeply unhappy and lost. He will never become a fearless miscreant, a ruthless gangster that his comrades expect him to be. The opposition between faith and felony is not incidentally the only discrepancy, which characterises Pinkie. As a dauntless criminal, he tries to embody manhood and yet he is disgusted by physical contact with women. This psychological problem is caused by a traumatising childhood experience that has a lasting effect on him. As a very young boy, Pinkie sees by accident his parents copulating: this recollection haunts him till the present day and makes him unable to have sexual intercourse.
The reader will certainly appreciate the psychological construction of secondary characters: the naive and unattractive Pinkie’s girlfriend and wife Rose, the shrewd and implacable Ida Arnold or elderly gangster dreaming of a peaceful life far away from the mob, Spicer.
As any other worldwide bestsellers, Brighton Rock was adapted for the screen; the first cinematographic adaptation comes from 1947 and the second one from 2010. As in the case of many others encounters between cinema and literature, both films do not manage to render the psychological complexity of the characters and fail to measure up to the literary masterpiece.