What Is and What Should Never Be

Well, I thought I had Graham Green on the bucket list this year, but alas not.  Should have taken that as a hint not to read The Heart of the Matter. It reminded me of the awful Kingsley Amis book I read last year:  too Brit, too mid-century, too no-action.  Scobie the protagonist is a police detective in an unnamed African British colony during World War II.  He is a staunch Catholic who only seems to love his wife as a joint corporeal and spiritual work of mercy.  He sees his role as a protector, a shelterer, a road smoother.  Not much different from his look the other way attitude towards dealing with suspected diamond smugglers.  When Scobie's wife deserts him for South Africa, he has an affair with a young widow who survived being torpedoed.  The affair again smacks of protectionism not lust.  The story is really one of Catholic guilt ... how his wife rather than angrily confronting him of her suspicions triangulates him into having to go receive communion publicly as proof of his being without adulterous sin.  That's what drives him baffy ... the Catholic trappings.  Nonetheless, he decides suicide, the most mortal of sins, is the only way out.  Who cares?  Get over it.

In stark contrast and along a much more contemporary vein, Lionel Shriver explores adultery from the perspective of a thoroughly modern woman, of sorts.  Irina has lived with Lawrence without the commitment of holy matrimony for nigh on ten years.  He is a policy wonk and set in his ways as much as Scobie, providing for her, letting her explore her own talents, but never kissing her.  They are Americans living in London and Irina continues a bizarre tradition of entertaining Ramsey on his birthday even though R has divorced his wife, Irina's "friend" and Lawrence is in Sarajevo.  That dinner is her point of no return.  She wants to kiss Ramsey but does she or doesn't she is the entire premise of Shriver's novel.

Alternating chapters about what happened if Irina kissed Ramsey or ran away back home, the story is really about how much one's life and understanding is all a mental exercise.  Each option is equally valid and the reader can freely decide which is preferred.  Women readers can easily recognize the penultimate decision of choosing a stable but dull provider versus an exciting bad boy.  Ramsey is a high school drop out, a snooker player with a god-awful Adele like West End accent.  In his chapters, they verbally fight continuously and make up torridly.  Ramsey is a native free soul who speaks his mind without regard to social niceties.  Lawrence perpetually balks.

The theme of life being what you choose and somewhat malleable but predictable no matter which option one picks is echoed in the plots of the children's books Irina creates.  In one life scenario, she wins the top international illustrator award; in the other, she loses to Ramsey's ex-wife.  It all really doesn't matter is Shriver's point.

Despite her strong engaging theme and style, a couple of plot developments are banally predictable:  Lawrence has been cheating on her all along and Ramsey gets prostate cancer.  The point being, you can't orchestrate your life for perfection.  Yet should one give up delirium for comfort?