Brighton Rock by Graham Greene (spoilers)

This was the first Greene novel I’ve read and certainly won’t be the last. I loved the lyricism of the writing, the plot was gripping and the characters were really well written.  The story is about Pinkie, a young gang leader who tires to seduce and marry a young girl whom he fears will give away his alibi, pursued by Ida, who investigates him and tries to prevent him from marrying Rose.  It’s one of those books I would like to re-read or even study in a bit more depth, but at the same time I found it quite hard writing this review, even though I felt so enthusiastic about it. 

Love this image (link)

 Pinkie is a disturbing anti-hero, yet it is still possible for the reader to feel some sort of sympathy for him given his background and experiences and the fact that everything he tries to do fails. He can be completely cold and feels only repulsion for Rose because of witnessing his parent’s sexual intercourse. He has some twisted ideas about Roman Catholicism, believing that it doesn’t matter how evil he behaves in life, he can still be saved if he repents at the point of death ‘betwixt the stirrup and the ground’. He sees his marriage as a mortal sin, and although he is completely horrified by the idea of sex, he refuses to get married in church as he feels that it will not be a proper wedding if they get married in a registry office. 

Rose could be described as a passive, innocent character in the way that she falls under Pinkie’s attempt to seduce her, but in other ways she seems to realise that she has some power over him and wilfully ignores the signs that he is disgusted by her. There is a sense that she is trying to get away from her parents and takes the only way out that she can find, by marrying the first man who asks her. There is quite a disturbing passage in the book where Pinkie, who needs her parent’s consent because they are both underage, buys her off her parents who don’t seem to care very much about her. He believes that he is taking her in, but she seems to know very well what is happening and why he suddenly pays her attention. She forces him to make a recording for her of his voice so that she can keep it for later, one of the tragic elements of the novel is that she doesn’t realise that although he tells her that he has recorded a loving message, he has really recorded a horrible message for her which she will presumably listen to after his death. 

Ida, is an appealing investigator and almost the complete opposite of Pinkie. Whereas Rose and Pinkie are Roam Catholic, Ida has no real faith, just a belief in the power of ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ and a belief in life after death in that she perform séances. She is a sensual woman who enjoys sex, likes a drink and enjoys her food, whereas Pinkie has few pleasures.  

Brighton is vividly described, acting as an appropriately sleazy backdrop to the story, representing heaven and hell.

Pinkie falls over the cliff in the course of trying to escape the police, having failed to convince Rose to commit suicide. It is a bleak ending; Rose seeks absolution from a priest and convinces herself that she has salvaged something from her love for Pinkie through her pregnancy and the love she believes he has confessed on the recording, the reader knows that she has deluded herself. It is left to the reader to fill in the blanks –Is Rose really pregnant? What will happen to her when she listens to the recording?