The Heart of the Matter, by Graham Greene

An audio book.

Ah, Graham Greene again. What a pool of calm and good sense one enters into when reading one of his books.

This is the story of Major Scoby, a policeman in West Africa during World War II. The vicissitudes of war, the clash of cultures, the threats of disease and violence, are ever present, yet Scoby presents himself as a model of reason and rectitude.

Scoby is a Catholic, which is of course the heart of many of Greene's matters, but in the course of this novel he finds himself grimly at odds with his religion, and in danger of losing his soul. In the end, we are presented with an intensely sad and difficult paradox, which left me wondering how, exactly, Greene felt about his religion.

This is such a beautifully written piece of work that I hope to acquire it on paper and read it again.

Dark Age Ahead, by Jane Jacobs

Loss of memory equates to loss of culture. Culture transferred by word of mouth, by demonstration, rather than by writing or recordings.

The automobile as an agent of cultural destruction, loneliness, sprawl. The demise of the trollies at the hands of GM.

p.17:
Cultural xenophobia is a frequent sequel to a society's decline from cultural vigor.

shift from faith in logos to mythos

...conservatism that looks backward to fundamentalist beliefs for guidance and a worldview...

p. 31  "The miracle of money growing on houses operates even more potently in the [US]..."

p. 34 "The most serious and widespread increase was the need for an automobile"

p. 35 ...probably the most important: speaking relationships among neighbors and acquaintances...

p. 37  automobile -- chief destroyer of American communities

p. 38-39

destruction of elec. street car systems GM, Robert Moses, Fiorello La Guardia
interesting notes on this topic p. 186-188  see also www.almankoff.com

p.98  Americans...don't ... think that any place outside the United States is totally real; their curiosity about Canada seems almost nonexistent