New Left Review I/8, March-April 1961
Mervyn Jones
The Greene Affair
A Burnt-Out Case, by Graham Greene:
Heinemann. 15s.
“Can you cure me?”
“Perhaps your mutilations haven’t gone far enough yet. When a man comes here too late the disease has to burn itself out.”
The idea, even the terminology, must have been irresistible to Graham Greene. When leprosy has run its course, the “burnt-out case” has no fingers and toes, no human feelings or desires, no wish to leave the leprosery. He is no longer a leper, but this merely means that he has lost his last title to individuality. Now, he is nothing.
|
Subscribe for just £36 and get free access to the archive Please login on the left to read more or buy the article for £3 |
’My institution subscribes to NLR, why can't I access this article?’