Greene was drawn to causes to which he could never fully commit himself. He was a Catholic convert who took the baptismal name of Thomas, the apostle who doubted. He found his reputation as "a Catholic novelist" irksome and made of this discomfort and his doubts one of his best novels, "A Burnt-Out Case" (1960). He championed commitment against indifference, perhaps because indifference offered him the stronger temptation, and he accordingly felt deeply the evil that can stem from it. The narrators of both "The End of the Affair" (1951) and "The Quiet American" (1955) are men ravaged by an inability to believe who consequently harm others and also themselves.
A Burnt-Out Case was the first book I ever reviewed. I had a book review column in my college newspaper (of which I later became editor).
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