A Burnt-Out Case by Greene
A Burnt-Out Case (1960)
by Graham Greene
199 pages
Penguin

A man shows up at a Catholic leproserie in an obscure part of Africa, where roads and riverboats do not go any farther. He is willing to help if they have menial work for him, but he is not interested in going back to Europe to learn how to do anything. He says he has stopped believing, stopped suffering, stopped loving. Eventually it emerges that he is the world-famous architect Querry, best known for designing new Catholic churches and cathedrals. The doctor, the only other atheist at the location, often refers to Querry as a burnt-out case; a comparison to people suffering from leprosy who are put on medication, but yet the disease still needs to burn itself out, consuming fingers and toes and scarring in other ways.

The priests and nuns are organizing the building of a permanent hospital on the site, and Querry eventually decides to lend his assistance on the project. However, word gets out, and soon people, especially ones that don't deal with him day-to-day, are insisting he is some sort of modern saint, a rich man who has come to Africa to selflessly help the lepers. He tries to tell them he is just an empty man who believes in nothing, who has only stopped here because this is the farthest he could run, but few believe him. Finally, he gets into a jam with a blowhard rhetoric-spouting Catholic, Rycker, who runs a nut-oil factory and has a young wife he mistreats. Ryker first idolizes Querry, then turns to demonizing him.

This book is stunningly good. There are some very deep themes here, such as vocation, love towards God and other people, faith, and a whole basket of others. At it's core it's about a man who is poisoned by success, and slowly, unexpectedly, finds a cure. Or, if not a cure, than a way for the disease to burn itself out. I would have liked to have seen a little more from the time when he goes from refusing to do any work, to taking up his architectural work to help others. That change was a bit sudden, mostly seeming to do with a dream the character has. But it's a really great, gripping novel. The only other thing I've read by Greene so far has been Travels with my Aunt. and this blows that out of the water. I'm also impressed how deeply steeped the book is in Catholicism, without glossing anything over. Indeed, the two most intelligent and compassionate figures are both stringent atheists, though Querry still struggles with the loss of his faith, so the implication is that there is still the possibility that he found grace at the end. As one of the characters remarks, 'I wish it wasn't always the wrong people who believed'(pg 172).


pg.110 - Men with vocations are different from others. They always have more to lose. Behind all of us in various ways lies a spoilt priest.
pg.122 - Sometimes I think that the search for suffering and the remembrance of suffering are the only means we have to put ourselves in touch with the whole human condition. With suffering we become part of the Christian myth.
pg.172 - You can brainwash yourself into anything you want - even into marriage or a vocation. Then the years pass and the marriage or the vocation fails and it's better to get out. It's the same with belief. People hang on to a marriage for fear of a lonely old age or to a vocation for fear of poverty. It's not a good reason. And it's not a good reason to hang on to the Church for the sake of some mumbo-jumbo when you come to die.