I think I have mentioned it before, but there are two books that I have been meaning to read for a long time and which always seem to come up in other books or articles I read.One is "The Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad, and I have so far never managed to make any headway with it even though I have tried reading it several times. I have even read the book written by the completely unknown cousin of Joseph Conrad who went with him on the trip who inspired the book...I can neither remember the name of the book nor the name of the author!
The other one is "The Heart of the Matter" by Graham Greene, and I recently just finish this one. I enjoyed it, in a quiet sort of a way. I've only read one other book by Graham Greene ("Travels with my Aunt") and I liked it too.
Even though I could not really relate to the main character, Scobie, who is a very religious police inspector living in a British colonial town on the west coast of Africa, I have to admit that at the end I was eager to find out how he would sort out his life. The book is really about the struggle a genuinely religious man goes through when his life becomes so far from what he believes in.
Apart from the religious aspect of it the struggle of a good man who becomes terribly entangled in corruptions and bribery due to the very fact that he is trying to be good, the story reminded me a lot of "No Longer at Ease" by Chinua Achebe. Both books take place in Africa (in fact both take place on the west coast of Africa) though I think it is a coincidence. I do not think that it is something which is related to Africa. I think it is related to human nature.
Does it not ring true to you that in some circumstances the more you try to be good the less you are likely to end up behaving the right way?
Again I do not think that it is an African problem. I think it is the problem of people who overthink how they should behave to ensure that they do what is right.
The brain cannot be trusted to make the right decision on what is good, is this true?
