Description
Classic Literature. Fiction. HTML: Originally published in 1938, Graham Greene's chilling exposé of violence and gang warfare is a masterpiece of psychological realism and often considered Graham Greene's best novel. It is a fascinating study of evil, sin, and the "appalling strangeness of the mercy of God," a classic of its kind. Set in Brighton, England, among the criminal rabble, the book depicts the tragic career of a seventeen-year-old boy named Pinkie whose primary ambition is to lead a gang to rival that of the wealthy and established Colleoni. Pinkie is devoid of compassion or human feeling, despising weakness of the spirit or of the flesh. Responsible for the razor slashes that killed Kite and also for the death of Hale, he is the embodiment of calculated evil. As a Catholic, however, he is convinced that his retribution does not lie in human hands. He is therefore not prepared for Ida Arnold, Hale's avenging angel. Ida, whose allegiance is with life, the here and now, has her own ideas about the circumstances surrounding Hale's death. For the sheer joy of it she takes up the challenge of bringing the infernal Pinkie to an earthly kind of justice. When finished, the listener is sure to ponder some lofty moral issues to which Greene, a Catholic writer, withholds easy judgments.… (more)
Genres
Collection
Publication
Penguin, 1966.
Pages
246
Media reviews
This is no book for those who would turn delicate noses away from the gutters and sewers of life; but there is nothing that could give the faintest gratification to snickerers. If it is as downright as surgery, it is, also, as clean as a clinic. There is not an entirely admirable character in it;
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but there is not one that can, by any chance, be forgotten nor one that could be set aside as untrue to life. Show Less
Why does this bleak, seething and anarchic novel still resonate? Its energy and power is that of the rebellious adolescent, foreshadowing the rise of the cult of youth in the latter part of the 20th century. And while Catholicism may have given way to secularism, Pinkie ultimately realises that
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hell isn't located in some distant realm: it's right here, present on earth, all around us.
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Greene's entertainments look better now than most of his pretentious and overpraised 'serious novels'. One of the few British crime novels of the time which matched the modernist tone of the Americans, while remaining completely authentic.
User reviews
LibraryThing member richardderus
Rating: 4.25* of five
The Book Report: Charles "Fred" Hale, aka newspaper columnist "Kolley Kibber," is in Brighton to hand out paper-chase prizes to loyal readers of his paper. He's also running as fast as he can from someone who means to kill him. Why? We aren't told. Who? That's made very plain
In a vain effort to live to fight another day, Hale hooks up with Ida, a blowsy pub-crawling broad with a heart of gold and a steely sense of right and wrong. Her trip to the public convenience to wash up a bit before her bit of fun with Hale allows the killer time enough to deal with Hale...permanently.
Ida, once she figures out the gentleman (!) who stood her up (and after she washed and everything!) in Brighton is the murder victim in her next morning's paper, determines that Hale will be avenged despite his lack of family, his murder being ruled a natural death, and her own complete lack of detective experience. The fun of the book, the bulk of the story, is in Ida circling closer and closer to the party we know to be the killer, and the multiple characters trailing in his wake slowly falling to his amoral, sociopathic self-preservation response. In the end, triumph changes Ida. The consequences of her victory over the forces of evil are such that she undergoes a sea change of feeling and desire. Justice never comes without a price. Never. Everyone involved in the story pays. Some with their lives.
My Review: Moralistic, yes; marvelously written, oh my yes! Greene's characters are, as in others of his work that I've read, mouthpieces for a worldview. He elevates them from the dreary, tiresome leadenness of Message Characters by imbuing them with a sense of humor as black as the world they inhabit, the world of carneys and racing touts and waitresses trapped forever in second-rate diners and gangsters whose souls are so dead to beauty that they can't see anything but violence as a solution to any and every problem.
It surprised me how often I laughed as I read on in this grisly, blood-soaked bagatelle. And yes, I meant "bagatelle" -- light, airy, almost inconsequential read that "Birghton Rock" is. I was completely delighted by the tone of the book, I was half in love with Ida, I was even sad for the killer and his parched, wounded soul.
A marvelous entertainment, then, and one whose substantial moral manages to keep itself underneath the story being told, supporting it. As it should be. Well made, worthwhile fiction. One expects nothing less from Graham Greene, no?
The Book Report: Charles "Fred" Hale, aka newspaper columnist "Kolley Kibber," is in Brighton to hand out paper-chase prizes to loyal readers of his paper. He's also running as fast as he can from someone who means to kill him. Why? We aren't told. Who? That's made very plain
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within the first thirty pages. Well, there goes the suspense, right? Not right.In a vain effort to live to fight another day, Hale hooks up with Ida, a blowsy pub-crawling broad with a heart of gold and a steely sense of right and wrong. Her trip to the public convenience to wash up a bit before her bit of fun with Hale allows the killer time enough to deal with Hale...permanently.
Ida, once she figures out the gentleman (!) who stood her up (and after she washed and everything!) in Brighton is the murder victim in her next morning's paper, determines that Hale will be avenged despite his lack of family, his murder being ruled a natural death, and her own complete lack of detective experience. The fun of the book, the bulk of the story, is in Ida circling closer and closer to the party we know to be the killer, and the multiple characters trailing in his wake slowly falling to his amoral, sociopathic self-preservation response. In the end, triumph changes Ida. The consequences of her victory over the forces of evil are such that she undergoes a sea change of feeling and desire. Justice never comes without a price. Never. Everyone involved in the story pays. Some with their lives.
My Review: Moralistic, yes; marvelously written, oh my yes! Greene's characters are, as in others of his work that I've read, mouthpieces for a worldview. He elevates them from the dreary, tiresome leadenness of Message Characters by imbuing them with a sense of humor as black as the world they inhabit, the world of carneys and racing touts and waitresses trapped forever in second-rate diners and gangsters whose souls are so dead to beauty that they can't see anything but violence as a solution to any and every problem.
It surprised me how often I laughed as I read on in this grisly, blood-soaked bagatelle. And yes, I meant "bagatelle" -- light, airy, almost inconsequential read that "Birghton Rock" is. I was completely delighted by the tone of the book, I was half in love with Ida, I was even sad for the killer and his parched, wounded soul.
A marvelous entertainment, then, and one whose substantial moral manages to keep itself underneath the story being told, supporting it. As it should be. Well made, worthwhile fiction. One expects nothing less from Graham Greene, no?
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LibraryThing member JollyContrarian
Graham Greene writes crisply, and the colours and textures with which he paints an inter-war Brighton are vivid, if uniformly gray and brutal. The story is simple enough: I don't think it's what the characters do as much as what they stand for which interests Greene - for this reason the
For all the solemnity of Greene's main object, at times he pulls some surprises: just when the going begins to get truly rough, there is a delightfully comic scene involving a lecherous but repressed lawyer that had me laugh out loud. I haven't seen the film version, but the lawyer, Prewitt would be a peach of a part for some hammy old Shakespearean actor fancying a break into the big time.
The narrative didn't really rivet me; Greene's writing is a bit too artful to be truly exciting, and in places I found Brighton Rock rather too easy to put down. Having said that, what I really admired were the backlights and figurative plays with which Greene makes his point - they exist alongside the plot, so that Greene can say his piece without having to shoehorn it into the story as bluntly as a lesser author might.
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protagonists are not especially lifelike: Pinky is all brooding, anti-social and violent; absent even a hint of redemption (Greene uses the word 'poisoned' a lot in relation to Pinky), whereas Ida is drawn as a libertine Dickensian harlot whose only motivating moral is the pursuit of fun ' and, somewhat incongruously, really ' justice, for the forsaken Hale. The opposing forces or good and evil are far too contrary to have been meant to be taken at face value. For all the solemnity of Greene's main object, at times he pulls some surprises: just when the going begins to get truly rough, there is a delightfully comic scene involving a lecherous but repressed lawyer that had me laugh out loud. I haven't seen the film version, but the lawyer, Prewitt would be a peach of a part for some hammy old Shakespearean actor fancying a break into the big time.
The narrative didn't really rivet me; Greene's writing is a bit too artful to be truly exciting, and in places I found Brighton Rock rather too easy to put down. Having said that, what I really admired were the backlights and figurative plays with which Greene makes his point - they exist alongside the plot, so that Greene can say his piece without having to shoehorn it into the story as bluntly as a lesser author might.
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LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene takes you on a trip to the seedy, underside of Britain’s premier seaside resort town in the 1930’s. Here we meet such characters as the rising gangster Pinkie Brown, a 17 year old, ruthless sociopath. Fred Hale, knowing he is targeted as Pinkie’s next victim but
On the surface this is a book about Pinkie trying to cover his tracks and having everything escalate out of his control. But just like the glitz and glamour of the resort town, there is a lot going on underneath the surface. A superb character study, as we delve into the mind of Pinkie Brown and see a young boy who never had a chance, a product of poverty and neglect, he was destined to end up as he did. His relationship with Rose is both dark and twisted, yet gives a glimpse of tenderness now and again as well. Graham Greene also touches on religion, contrasting how Catholicism influenced both Rose and Pinkie, yet non-religious Ida appears to have the stronger moral core.
The unique vision of Graham Greene has resulted in a book that is both complex yet thrilling. Timeless, entertaining and thoughtful, I highly recommend Brighton Rock.
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unable to escape his fate. Rose, young, innocent and naïve, as a witness that could incriminate Pinkie, he must shut her up either by marriage or murder. And the big-hearted Ida Arnold, generous, motherly and a stickler for the truth. She lives large and makes no apologies. Wanting to find out the truth behind Fred’s death, she becomes obsessed with saving Rose.On the surface this is a book about Pinkie trying to cover his tracks and having everything escalate out of his control. But just like the glitz and glamour of the resort town, there is a lot going on underneath the surface. A superb character study, as we delve into the mind of Pinkie Brown and see a young boy who never had a chance, a product of poverty and neglect, he was destined to end up as he did. His relationship with Rose is both dark and twisted, yet gives a glimpse of tenderness now and again as well. Graham Greene also touches on religion, contrasting how Catholicism influenced both Rose and Pinkie, yet non-religious Ida appears to have the stronger moral core.
The unique vision of Graham Greene has resulted in a book that is both complex yet thrilling. Timeless, entertaining and thoughtful, I highly recommend Brighton Rock.
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LibraryThing member celephicus
Here's a little snippet: the many times that I have read this review, I assumed that Pinkie's gang's use of the words "buer" and "poloney" (referring to a woman) were simply some obscure English slang word for a prostitute (I had to think how to spell that one!). However, they are really obscure:
How clever is that, to invent slang that sounds authentic? Greene is a master! Has anyone also noticed that he is a master of the sweeping cinematic technique of describing something mundane (a walk around low-class Brighton) from the viewpoints of multiple characters, and turning the lead of our common experience into literary gold, just like Joyce's Ulysses.
I pity the reviewer who gave this one sta
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Greene _invented_them. They prefigure the private language used by the hoodlums in Burgess' "Clockwork Orange".How clever is that, to invent slang that sounds authentic? Greene is a master! Has anyone also noticed that he is a master of the sweeping cinematic technique of describing something mundane (a walk around low-class Brighton) from the viewpoints of multiple characters, and turning the lead of our common experience into literary gold, just like Joyce's Ulysses.
I pity the reviewer who gave this one sta
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LibraryThing member whirled
I count myself fortunate that Brighton Rock was not the first Graham Greene novel I read because I really didn't like the story or the characters. I'd rate it even lower if it wasn't for the quality of the writing itself. For me, the biggest flaw was that Rose's unquestioning devotion to
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cruel-hearted Pinkie is never really explained. Also, as a former Anglican turned atheist, I found Greene's focus on the perils of Catholic morality tiresome. I guess I just like Greene's 'stranger in a strange land' stories better. Show Less
LibraryThing member PilgrimJess
"A brain was only capable of what it could conceive, and it couldn't conceive what it had never experienced."
Brighton Rock was written in 1938 and is one of Graham Greene’s most famous works. It opens with a newspaper man who has fallen in with the wrong crowd visiting Brighton for work and where
Ida initially believes that she has simply been stood up but learns about Hale's death a few days later from a local news report, supposedly from a heart condition. Knowing in her gut that something is not right she sets out to uncover the truth. This spells trouble for the gang led by seventeen-year-old socio-path Pinkie. To cover his tracks Pinkie, is forced into marrying a timid, trusting, sixteen-year-old waitress Rose to stop her testifying against him and to spill yet more blood."He was a child with haemophilia: every contact drew blood." When the police refuse to look into the case Ida continues to hound the pair as she struggles to make Rose see sense and ‘save’ her becoming an unlikely detective in the process.
The 1930's were a time of depression and austerity in Britain. Both Pinkie and Rose have had difficult childhoods, having been raised in slums, both had also come late arrivals at the initiation into love and affection, so it is hardly surprising that Pinkie turned to violence and crime. However, religion is the biggest mover here. Both Pinkie and Rose are Catholics who believe in mortal sin but whereas Pinkie believes in Hell but not Heaven Rose puts her faith in Pinkie with an almost religious fervour. Pinkie is sexually frustrated, riddled with guilt and disgust with the act. He is a cold and calculating socio-path, but Rose believes that he is not beyond redemption. Her blind love for him creates a struggle within Pinkie, he is unfamiliar with such unswerving affection. In contrast Rose's problem is that she does value herself. She is drawn to Pinkie's nihilism simply because she doesn't believe that she deserves anything better, that cruelty and disappointment is her allotted dues. In contrast Ida is superstitious and has loose sexual morals, she puts her faith in Hale, a man whom she has only just met, but her greatest belief is in the sanctity of life. Meanwhile, Hale employs three different names trying to find anonymity in an effort to protect himself from a harsh world. All are struggling in their own way. Paradoxes and dualities therefore seem to represent what was happening in the wider community. Certainly like Greene’s Brighton, where beyond the gaudy attractions and bright lights of the front, everything appears depressed and decaying. Ida seems to embody a world turning from religion to man-made materialism.
However, all the characters are only very loosely and seem to lack any real substance and it is for that reason that I felt that there was something lacking. Whilst I found the chapter set at the racecourse with its dodgy bookies and gangs gratuitously slashing each other with knives entertaining, I found Pinkie’s angst with society at times interminable. In contrast Rose and Ida felt seriously underdeveloped. Certainly Ida is far from the typical detective.
Pinkie and Ida each try to impress their world view upon the Rose but in a world when we have seen such magnificent literary characters as Hannibal Lecter and Annie Wilkes (in Misery) he seemed lost rather than having any real menace or be frighteningly coercive. He just seems to have a very dim view of the world. Meanwhile in our hopefully more enlightened times it is hard to comprehend Rose's pig-headed devotion to him.
Overall I found this book still to be a powerful read and one that deserves to be continued to be widely read despite what I regard as its flaws.
Brighton Rock was written in 1938 and is one of Graham Greene’s most famous works. It opens with a newspaper man who has fallen in with the wrong crowd visiting Brighton for work and where
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he is pursued by a local gang, "Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him.", turning a day at the seaside into a race to survive. In an attempt to escape his pursuers he latches on to a buxom, good-time girl down from London for the day. But to no avail, Hale is grabbed when his companion,Ida Arnold, goes to the toilets to wash up.Ida initially believes that she has simply been stood up but learns about Hale's death a few days later from a local news report, supposedly from a heart condition. Knowing in her gut that something is not right she sets out to uncover the truth. This spells trouble for the gang led by seventeen-year-old socio-path Pinkie. To cover his tracks Pinkie, is forced into marrying a timid, trusting, sixteen-year-old waitress Rose to stop her testifying against him and to spill yet more blood."He was a child with haemophilia: every contact drew blood." When the police refuse to look into the case Ida continues to hound the pair as she struggles to make Rose see sense and ‘save’ her becoming an unlikely detective in the process.
The 1930's were a time of depression and austerity in Britain. Both Pinkie and Rose have had difficult childhoods, having been raised in slums, both had also come late arrivals at the initiation into love and affection, so it is hardly surprising that Pinkie turned to violence and crime. However, religion is the biggest mover here. Both Pinkie and Rose are Catholics who believe in mortal sin but whereas Pinkie believes in Hell but not Heaven Rose puts her faith in Pinkie with an almost religious fervour. Pinkie is sexually frustrated, riddled with guilt and disgust with the act. He is a cold and calculating socio-path, but Rose believes that he is not beyond redemption. Her blind love for him creates a struggle within Pinkie, he is unfamiliar with such unswerving affection. In contrast Rose's problem is that she does value herself. She is drawn to Pinkie's nihilism simply because she doesn't believe that she deserves anything better, that cruelty and disappointment is her allotted dues. In contrast Ida is superstitious and has loose sexual morals, she puts her faith in Hale, a man whom she has only just met, but her greatest belief is in the sanctity of life. Meanwhile, Hale employs three different names trying to find anonymity in an effort to protect himself from a harsh world. All are struggling in their own way. Paradoxes and dualities therefore seem to represent what was happening in the wider community. Certainly like Greene’s Brighton, where beyond the gaudy attractions and bright lights of the front, everything appears depressed and decaying. Ida seems to embody a world turning from religion to man-made materialism.
However, all the characters are only very loosely and seem to lack any real substance and it is for that reason that I felt that there was something lacking. Whilst I found the chapter set at the racecourse with its dodgy bookies and gangs gratuitously slashing each other with knives entertaining, I found Pinkie’s angst with society at times interminable. In contrast Rose and Ida felt seriously underdeveloped. Certainly Ida is far from the typical detective.
Pinkie and Ida each try to impress their world view upon the Rose but in a world when we have seen such magnificent literary characters as Hannibal Lecter and Annie Wilkes (in Misery) he seemed lost rather than having any real menace or be frighteningly coercive. He just seems to have a very dim view of the world. Meanwhile in our hopefully more enlightened times it is hard to comprehend Rose's pig-headed devotion to him.
Overall I found this book still to be a powerful read and one that deserves to be continued to be widely read despite what I regard as its flaws.
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LibraryThing member TimFootman
Good, obviously. But (and this may annoy a few people) not as good as the film.
LibraryThing member john257hopper
This is a re-read, after rewatching the superb 1947 film version starring Richard Attenborough as Pinkie and William Hartnell as Dallow. I must say that I think this is one of the relatively few cases where the film is better than the book, or at least more dramatic and absorbing as a cultural
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product. While it contains the same basic plot, the book digresses a fair bit into Pinkie and Rose's Catholic upbringing and how they relate the concepts of Hell and redemption to their lives, reflecting no doubt the author's own thought processes as a Catholic convert. This gives Pinkie more of a human dimension than is displayed in Attenborough's brilliantly chilling film portrayal. Some of the most dramatically shot and shocking scenes in the film, such as the murders of Hale and Spicer, take place "off stage" in the book. The book, however, does end in a very downbeat way with Rose seemingly about to discover Pinkie's real attitude towards her, which is neatly avoided in the film. Still a very good book, and in my view Greene's best. Show Less
LibraryThing member henrybalzac
I am a great fan of Greene's, and as always this is a very enjoyable read with great pace and atmosphere. However, despite it's fame I do not think this is one of his best. Maybe too much has changed in our society since those pre-war days, but I found it difficult to relate to any of the
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characters. Whether it's the motivation of Ida, the charisma of Pinkie and above all the infatuation of Rose, I struggled to understand the relationships. As a consequence I found the ending weak - sacrilege, I know. Show Less
LibraryThing member wunderkind
When I first read this, I thought it was good but not great, that it would be forgettable and not one of my favorite Greene novels. Now, about a year later, I realize that it really made an impression on me--the book is very atmospheric and has a particular mood that really imprints on your memory
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(or at least it did on mine). Thinking back on it, I feel like I really knew that characters, almost like I was actually there. I don't know that it's my favorite of Greene's works, but it was definitely the most powerful. Show Less
LibraryThing member brakketh
The story of Pinkie's attempts to establish an alibi and increasing sense of pressure from the crimes committed in this attempt made this a very claustrophobic feeling novel. Thoroughly enjoyed though as usual for Greene, bleak.
LibraryThing member charlie68
Two memorable characters and understated humour delight, and the narrator does a great job portraying both.
LibraryThing member ffortsa
I feel a little off assigning this to the mystery category - it's so much deeper than that. A 17-year-old gunsel, favored by a gang-leader recently gunned down, takes leadership of a small gang competing to control the Brighton racecourse betting. When the gang kills an informant, they have the bad
Pinkie, the gunsel, a Catholic from the slums, has good and evil on his mind, which is a very different thing entirely. Although the murdered man is judged to have died of natural causes, Ida's nosing around upsets the gang, and Pinkie in particular, who commits another murder to keep one of his gang quiet, and forces himself to marry a young waitress who can provide evidence against them. Not that she would. 16 years old and another Catholic, she doesn't see Pinkie's sexual disgust, takes his lies and silence as love, and feels she would go to the ends of earth and heaven for him.
The writing is marvelous, never more than needs to be said, but atmospheric all the same, viscerally communicating the grimy lower-class hopelessness of Brighton and the people in it. The bigger question - which is true, good and evil or right and wrong - is left to the reader at the end.
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luck to awaken the interest of ida, a woman looking for a little excitement in life, and one with a pragmatic sense of right and wrong.Pinkie, the gunsel, a Catholic from the slums, has good and evil on his mind, which is a very different thing entirely. Although the murdered man is judged to have died of natural causes, Ida's nosing around upsets the gang, and Pinkie in particular, who commits another murder to keep one of his gang quiet, and forces himself to marry a young waitress who can provide evidence against them. Not that she would. 16 years old and another Catholic, she doesn't see Pinkie's sexual disgust, takes his lies and silence as love, and feels she would go to the ends of earth and heaven for him.
The writing is marvelous, never more than needs to be said, but atmospheric all the same, viscerally communicating the grimy lower-class hopelessness of Brighton and the people in it. The bigger question - which is true, good and evil or right and wrong - is left to the reader at the end.
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LibraryThing member NaggedMan
Greene's brilliance confuses the reader in this depiction of the introvert, lonely, psychopathic fantasist Pinkie. We're taken inside his mind: we don't like it there but do we really want to get out? On the side of the righteous is Ida, but here again we may admire her determination and
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fearlessness, but do we want to sit down and eat with her? And poor, pathetic, put-upon Rose - we may feel sorrow for her, but struggle to understand how she can be so easily led down the path to self-destruction. As for Brighton, I'll always be looking over my shoulder when there! Show Less
LibraryThing member AHS-Wolfy
Now that Kite's dead most of his mob don't seem to want to stick around when the teen-aged Pinkie picks up the reins. When Pinkie decides an example needs to be made of one of the deserters, so as to keep the others in line, events head inexorably on a downward spiral with tragic consequences for
This is a powerfully rendered book that really sets the atmosphere of a pre WWII Brighton and while the reader doesn't invest too much emotionally with the characters you will still find yourself reading avidly until the gripping conclusion.
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those involved. Pinkie's descent into paranoia as the relentless Ida tries to bring him to justice and rescue the innocent Rose from his evil clutches is extremely well written. The two sides to the story fascinate the reader until the end. With the gangster not trusting anyone around him will there be a monumental bloodbath? Or will the other theme of Good vs. Evil (Pinkie and Rose are both Catholic) and Right and Wrong (Ida's take on things) prevail?This is a powerfully rendered book that really sets the atmosphere of a pre WWII Brighton and while the reader doesn't invest too much emotionally with the characters you will still find yourself reading avidly until the gripping conclusion.
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LibraryThing member DubaiReader
Review for the audio version.
I read this book for GCSE (O Levels!), many years ago so I was excited to get the chance to listen to the unabridged audiobook. I'll confess I didn't enjoy this much when it was compulsory reading but as a listener I could really appreciate Graham Greene's use of the
It's a shame that audiobook ratings are collected in with the printed book ratings because this narrator committed the unforgivable sin of dropping his voice to inaudible levels at times, which meant I had to have the player volume on too high to hear those parts. I would have given 3 stars but that would have been unfair on Mr Greene who has written a fascinating depiction of a small time protction gang trying to hang on to their turf after the death of Kite, their leader.
The characterisations are strong and Samuel West's interpretation of these is good. Pinkie is a simply abominable teenager, yet it's hard not to feel at least some empathy with him as he struggles to hold his seventeen year old head above the onslaught of older, wiser or more powerful characters.
Written in 1938, it is very much a battle of good over evil, as were many books of that time. Although Pinkie is clearly evil, his Catholic upbringing haunts him, in spite of his attempts to slough it off. Rose, his girl, depicts good but is naiive and easily manipulated, while Ida is Good in all its glory, fighting for what she believes in.
I certainly enjoyed Brighton Rock more this time around. The audio version was excellent, with the exception of the problem mentioned earlier, and the story was gripping. It is a bit dated, but I think most readers are aware of that when they approach it.
Worth a listen.
I read this book for GCSE (O Levels!), many years ago so I was excited to get the chance to listen to the unabridged audiobook. I'll confess I didn't enjoy this much when it was compulsory reading but as a listener I could really appreciate Graham Greene's use of the
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language and his wonderful characters.It's a shame that audiobook ratings are collected in with the printed book ratings because this narrator committed the unforgivable sin of dropping his voice to inaudible levels at times, which meant I had to have the player volume on too high to hear those parts. I would have given 3 stars but that would have been unfair on Mr Greene who has written a fascinating depiction of a small time protction gang trying to hang on to their turf after the death of Kite, their leader.
The characterisations are strong and Samuel West's interpretation of these is good. Pinkie is a simply abominable teenager, yet it's hard not to feel at least some empathy with him as he struggles to hold his seventeen year old head above the onslaught of older, wiser or more powerful characters.
Written in 1938, it is very much a battle of good over evil, as were many books of that time. Although Pinkie is clearly evil, his Catholic upbringing haunts him, in spite of his attempts to slough it off. Rose, his girl, depicts good but is naiive and easily manipulated, while Ida is Good in all its glory, fighting for what she believes in.
I certainly enjoyed Brighton Rock more this time around. The audio version was excellent, with the exception of the problem mentioned earlier, and the story was gripping. It is a bit dated, but I think most readers are aware of that when they approach it.
Worth a listen.
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LibraryThing member Ayling
I had an old, old ropey book of Brighton Rock and I thought I better read it before it fell apart. Well, it was the 1970-something edition and it had a dead fly more or less imprinted into one of the yellowing pages. It must have been at least 30 years old... you certainly don't expect to find
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fossils in books now do you?Anyway, I loved Greene's style of writing. I really must get on and read The Quiet American (same year of publication, minus fly.)Unfortunately I had to throw the book out - as in the bin. It was falling to bits in my hand and with the dead fly I don't think anyone much would have wanted it. Show Less
LibraryThing member grheault
Brighton, perhaps the Jersey Shore of UK is the setting for a West Side Story, with murders, accidents, and marriages, and a psychological detail of an aspiring young gang leader who is not quite tough enough. I think Richard Price is less dramatic but more authentic in Clockers that takes place in
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NYC projects. Show Less
LibraryThing member Stevil2001
The story of a woman deciding to seek revenge for the death of a man she barely knew, it didn't affect me as much as The Third Man did. There's nothing wrong with it, but the characters here ever really grabbed me. (There's also nowhere near as much atmosphere as in The Third Man.) Ida had her
My Penguin twentieth-century classics edition has a "note to American readers" in the back, which is an unusual concept (and a bit belated if you do not flip around like I do). I found the one from the editor explaining what "Brighton rock" actually is very useful. The condescending one from the author explaining something any reader of the book should have been able to infer, less so.
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moments, but never really comes together as a human being, and the Boy was much the same. Hale was fascinating, but of course the whole point is that he dies in the first chapter, so there you go. The character I found most interesting was poor Rose, caught in the middle of it all; I always enjoyed her segments and wished there were more. There's a reason Greene closes with her, for the book is more her religious journey than anything else.My Penguin twentieth-century classics edition has a "note to American readers" in the back, which is an unusual concept (and a bit belated if you do not flip around like I do). I found the one from the editor explaining what "Brighton rock" actually is very useful. The condescending one from the author explaining something any reader of the book should have been able to infer, less so.
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LibraryThing member libraryhermit
When I was in Grade 12, 30 years ago, my English teacher introduced Graham Greene to our class. I was spellbound by this new author. There was an option for each student to choose from about 15 or 20 novelists for a book report. I ended up picking Joseph Conrad, but I was so intrigued by what I
Being a Canadian, we were already somewhat under the influence of English literature in general, and the foreignness of Graham Greene just that much more allure.
The world-view, attitudes and daily activities of the so-called low-lifes, and of the supposedly good characters, were nothing like I had ever encountered in my everyday life, or in any other literature I had read, up to this point. It was like going into another world.
Since that time, I have tended to shy away from any biography of Graham Greene on purpose, because I do not want my image of him to be tarnished by the actual details of his life. For the most part, I like to leave authors alone and let them have their privacy. If they wanted to write me a letter describing their petty failings and their cheating on their wives or husbands, they probably would have done so already.
Alright, I will admit I have read a couple of biographies, but really the ones that concentrate on literary analysis and criticism, rather than the daily life events.
I always wondered if this book represented a true slice-of-life of English society at the time it was written. Maybe that is the wrong question. I could not go to a city such as Brighton and suddenly discover all the characters of this book. But that was not the point. The point was to use imagination to say something about society in general, not predict the likelihood of a reader stumbling across identical characters should he or she conduct a fact-finding or character-finding mission. (Note to self: get a life; read the book and do something useful afterward; there is no point going to England to find similar characters, especially 40 or 50 years too late.)
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heard the other classmates saying about Graham Greene, that I ended up reading the book anyway, plus all of the other books that he had published up to that point, within the next couple of years.Being a Canadian, we were already somewhat under the influence of English literature in general, and the foreignness of Graham Greene just that much more allure.
The world-view, attitudes and daily activities of the so-called low-lifes, and of the supposedly good characters, were nothing like I had ever encountered in my everyday life, or in any other literature I had read, up to this point. It was like going into another world.
Since that time, I have tended to shy away from any biography of Graham Greene on purpose, because I do not want my image of him to be tarnished by the actual details of his life. For the most part, I like to leave authors alone and let them have their privacy. If they wanted to write me a letter describing their petty failings and their cheating on their wives or husbands, they probably would have done so already.
Alright, I will admit I have read a couple of biographies, but really the ones that concentrate on literary analysis and criticism, rather than the daily life events.
I always wondered if this book represented a true slice-of-life of English society at the time it was written. Maybe that is the wrong question. I could not go to a city such as Brighton and suddenly discover all the characters of this book. But that was not the point. The point was to use imagination to say something about society in general, not predict the likelihood of a reader stumbling across identical characters should he or she conduct a fact-finding or character-finding mission. (Note to self: get a life; read the book and do something useful afterward; there is no point going to England to find similar characters, especially 40 or 50 years too late.)
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LibraryThing member nigeyb
I have not read any Graham Greene for at least 10 years - it could be 20 years. I read a lot in my teens and early 20s. I know Brighton and Hove very well - and currently live in Hove. So for these reasons I was very interested to re-read Brighton Rock.
I have just finished this book and I was
There is another layer to this book. Pinkie is a Catholic (or "Roman" as he calls it) and he is pursued by an atheist avenging character called Ida. This contrast gives the book an added dimension. The Catholic view of sin and morality versus a non-religious moral sensibility.
What really stands out about this book is the quality of the writing. Graham Greene created a gripping tale; evokes the pre-WW 2 era beautifully; evokes a strong sense of pre-war Brighton; and overlays it all with philosophical musings. A classic.
I have just finished this book and I was
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gripped from the word go. On one level it's a good old fashioned gangster yarn which tells the story of the gradual disintegration of Pinkie - a teenage gangster - and his world. After killing a couple of people he becomes increasingly paranoid and destabilised. There is another layer to this book. Pinkie is a Catholic (or "Roman" as he calls it) and he is pursued by an atheist avenging character called Ida. This contrast gives the book an added dimension. The Catholic view of sin and morality versus a non-religious moral sensibility.
What really stands out about this book is the quality of the writing. Graham Greene created a gripping tale; evokes the pre-WW 2 era beautifully; evokes a strong sense of pre-war Brighton; and overlays it all with philosophical musings. A classic.
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LibraryThing member joshberg
A smart, gripping thriller about seaside thugs, Brighton Rock delivers intense character studies of evil and innocence and the energetic, exact language typical of Graham Greene. Though set in England, the novel seems just as exotic as Greene's stories set in Asia, West Africa, or Latin America;
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for me, at any rate, 1930s Brighton boardwalk life was a seedy revelation. Show Less
LibraryThing member hazelk
I hadn't read anything by Greene for years and then this, what he describes as an entertainment. Well, I certainly found it un-put-downable:talk about 'noir' - it was more noir than many a Hollywood film of the 30s and 40s.
Right and wrong have no meaning for Pinkie nor even for the 'good' Rose
Greene didn't write this as a moral tract and it works well as a story. Who will survive, who won't, will Ida succeed in her pursuit for justice for Fred's killers, and Pinkie? What of him. Indeed, what of him. Words fail me.
For me, excellent pacy writing, plus descriptive details that reinforce the seediness of the 'other' Brighton: even the beach is mucky. The blue skies and the invigorating atmosphere of the Bank Holiday crowd in the opening paragraph are but a tease.
Right and wrong have no meaning for Pinkie nor even for the 'good' Rose
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although the starker and stronger Good and Evil are supposed to leave some imprint (because of being Catholics?). Murder apparently for Pinkie does not have any connection with evil as compared to sex: until he almost forces himself to lose his virginity on his wedding night, it's the sexual act that arouses the most horror and distaste in his very disturbed psyche.Greene didn't write this as a moral tract and it works well as a story. Who will survive, who won't, will Ida succeed in her pursuit for justice for Fred's killers, and Pinkie? What of him. Indeed, what of him. Words fail me.
For me, excellent pacy writing, plus descriptive details that reinforce the seediness of the 'other' Brighton: even the beach is mucky. The blue skies and the invigorating atmosphere of the Bank Holiday crowd in the opening paragraph are but a tease.
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LibraryThing member theboylatham
Five out of ten.
Pinkie, the teenage gangster, is devoid of compassion or human feeling, despising weakness of the spirit or of the flesh. Responsible for the razor slashes that killed Kite and also for the death of Hale, he is the embodiment of calculated evil. As a Catholic, however, he is
He is therefore not prepared for Ida Arnold, Hale's avenging angel. Ida, whose allegiance is with life, the here and now, has her own ideas about the circumstances surrounding Hale's death. For the sheer joy of it she takes up the challenge of bringing the infernal Pinkie to an earthly kind of justice.
Pinkie, the teenage gangster, is devoid of compassion or human feeling, despising weakness of the spirit or of the flesh. Responsible for the razor slashes that killed Kite and also for the death of Hale, he is the embodiment of calculated evil. As a Catholic, however, he is
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convinced that his retribution does not lie in human hands.He is therefore not prepared for Ida Arnold, Hale's avenging angel. Ida, whose allegiance is with life, the here and now, has her own ideas about the circumstances surrounding Hale's death. For the sheer joy of it she takes up the challenge of bringing the infernal Pinkie to an earthly kind of justice.
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LibraryThing member jamguest
One of the best opening lines and closing lines in literature revealing the "worst horror of all".
Subjects
Awards
Haycraft Queen Cornerstones (1938)
Original publication date
1938