Chalk and Cheese: A Comparative study of A Kiss for the Leper and A Burnt-Out Case

Abstract

Morin is French and one immediately thinks of Mauriac, of his careerlong skirmishes with bien-pensant factions at home, of his international reputation, of the strain of Jansenism in his work which within the French Catholic fold is often considered a species of Protestant error, and of the imaginative daring of his novels which makes them of doubtful value to the orthodox moralist and educator. But the same general description could apply equally well to Greene. He, too, has constantly drawn the fire of conservative clements in his own country, of Evelyn Waugh, for one example, who wrote that The Heart ofthe Matter was "mad blasphemy." Greene has also enjoyed enormous popularity abroad, particularly in France, among common readers and liberal Catholic critics alike. It has become almost a cliché to speak of the individualistic, Protestant flavour of his Catholicism, and his influence has reached far beyond Catholic, or for that matter, Christian circles.