TO EVELYN WAUGH

C.6 Albany, | London, W. 1 | 6th January 1961

My dear Evelyn,

This is rapidly becoming a Claudel–Gide correspondence!²²I think you have carried your identification in this novel much too far. Must a Catholic be forbidden to paint the portrait of a lapsed Catholic? Undoubtedly if there is any realism in the character it must come from the author experiencing some of the same moods as Querry but surely, not necessarily, with the same intensity; I hope you don’t attribute to me Querry’s suicided mistress! I suppose, if one chose to draw the character of an atom-scientist traitor, there would be an element in one’s own character which would make the description of his motives plausible, but I’m sure that you wouldn’t accuse me, as Dame Rebecca West did both of us, of having a treasonable inclination.²³I suggest that if you read the book again you will find in the dialogue between the doctor and Querry at the end the suggestion that Querry’s lack of faith was a very superficial one – far more superficial than the doctor’s atheism. If people are so impetuous as to regard this book as a recantation of faith, I cannot help it. Perhaps they will be surprised to see me at Mass.

What I have disliked in some Catholic criticism of my work, particularly some of the books which have been written about it in France, is the confusion between the functions of a novelist and the functions of a moral teacher or theologian. I prefer the statement of Newman. ‘I say, from the nature of the case, if Literature is to be made a study of human nature, you cannot have a Christian Literature. It is a contradiction in terms to attempt a sinless Literature of sinful man. You may gather together something very great and high, something higher than any Literature ever was; and when you have done so, you will find that it is not Literature at all.’

I will match you quotations from Browning with Bishop Blougram:

All we have gained then by our unbelief

Is a life of doubt diversified by faith,

For one of faith diversified by doubt:

We called the chess board white – we call it black.

Ever affectionately,
Graham

The quotations from Newman and Browning take Greene back to his exchange with Bowen and Pritchett (see pp. 147–58). However, Waugh seems to have made a deep impression on Greene, who wondered if he had gone too far in the expression of doubt.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 640