Greene on Greene

Abstract

If we begin by letting Greene speak for himself, we must contend with his taste for Romantic and paradoxical roles. He offers as ‘an epigraph for all the novels’ these lines from Browning:

• Our interest’s on the dangerous edge of things.

• The honest thief, the tender murderer,

• The superstitious atheist, demi-rep

• That loves and saves her soul in new French books —

• We watch while these in equilibrium keep

• The giddy line midway.¹