Brighton Rock

Recently I watched the 2010 film version and was a tad disappointed, preferring the 1947 film with Richard Attenborough. It did get me thinking about what the novel itself might be like though.

I read Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory when I was at school but didn't really get it. The complexities of a plot interweaving faith, anti-clericalism, Marxism and personal failing was beyond this particular 14 year old. I suspect that, subconsciously, I was put off reading any of his other works, despite having a fondness for the film version of The Third Man.

Perhaps it's because I find Greene's themes much more interesting these days (it's an occupational hazard) I ordered a used copy of Brighton Rock by post. A bargain at 63p plus postage.

On the back cover there's a quote from John Le Carre: 'Greene had.....a transcendent universal compassion that places him for all time in the ranks of world literature.'

I'm already on page 146.