The Human Factor

Published 1978

This is the final of Greene’s novels this year that I have read before. I liked it when I read it in 2014 and I liked it even more this time. Similar to Travels with My Aunt, The Honorary Consul, and The Comedians, this novel moves at a slower pace than his earlier novels. (In fact, this is his longest novel, with 335 pages in the Everyman’s edition that I read. As that shows, Greene did not write long books.) Perhaps this is a pattern of his later novels, allowing more time for the characters to evolve, focusing on who the characters are rather than what they do. I have three of his novels left to read, so we shall see.

This novel is remarkable because none of the characters ever understand what the hell is going on or why the hell what happened happened. I suppose that is due to the human factor. The reader can see the train crash coming, but cannot predict the final contortions of the wreckage or who the casualties will be.

Maurice Castle is a spy. Greene makes it clear in a note at the beginning of the book that he wrote this book as a counterbalance to the popular spy novel. Castle does not skulk about casinos and embassies in a tuxedo. Nor does he flirt with beautifully dangerous women. He has a gun, but he’s never fired it. It contains one charge and he has saved it for the final emergency. But Castle is a spy, with the nerve-wrecking deceptions that that entails. He commutes into London every day, sits at his desk, processes reports from agents in southern Africa, and writes his own reports based on field reports. (I am not a spy, but Castle’s job sounds depressingly similar to my own.) When he returns home, however, his wife awaits him with the three fingers of whisky he needs to calm his nerves.

Years ago Castle operated in South Africa, but he had to flee when he fell in love with Sarah, who is black –  illegal in apartheid South Africa. The local Communists helped secrete Sarah out and now they are happily married and live in Berkhamsted with their seven-year-old son, Sam. Castle was immensely grateful for the Communists’ help in saving Sarah. Castle’s focus is still southern Africa, but now he works in the London office with one other person at his desk, Davis.

Davis is a younger man and is not happy at his job. His only interests are drinking port and Cynthia, their secretary. He and Castle get along well and he comes to dinner often, and Sam loves when Davis plays hide-and-seek with him. But  Davis is dying to get out of London and go out in the field. Either Cynthia will follow him to Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) or he will bury himself in work there, forgetting Europe and his past life.

When Colonel Daintry begins inspecting their little division as part of a “routine inspection” Castle is sure that they have detected a leak. Suspicion could only fall on him or Davis. Suddenly Castle and, especially, Davis find themselves receiving attention from higher ups, including Doctor Percival, who, against the will of Daintry, takes an interest in how best to dispose of the leaker. Davis is clearly a malcontent whereas Castle is the steady old hand. Castle and Daintry get along well and Daintry finds himself making a friend, something he hasn’t had in a long time. But the evil Doctor Percival will precipitate a solution to their problem, whether he is right or wrong.

*

Spies are supposed to think through what the other side would think and counter their actions. Yet, even if we deduce what the other side knows and is thinking, we can never be sure how they will act. In this novel, as each side tries to grasp what the other’s next move will be, they often forget that the other side’s thinking is never a mirror of their own thinking. Each side has its own motivations that drive them. And motivations are compound and actions, in the end, are contingent until the last moment.

This novel provides us with several distinct points of view that allow us to see the farce as it forms. However, even with this extended knowledge, the reader cannot be certain what will happen next. The destiny of humans is only clear afterward.

*

The plot of this book is more important and more engaging than in Travels with My Aunt, but the characters are where the strength of the novel rests. I want to mention two of the minor characters, both of whom I believe demonstrate Greene’s brilliance. Sarah Castle is, in my opinion, the most realistic portrait of a woman that Greene has managed to produce. In his autobiography, however, he lists Sarah from The End of the Affair as the female character that he thought he brought off best. Considering that he based the Sarah from the latter book on his mistress at the time, it’s not surprising that she is a portrait of the ideal woman to Greene: beautiful, engaged with the world, religious, and sexually available. Sarah Castle, on the other hand, resembles a real woman.

While Daintry is a second tier character in this book, he is arguably the most sympathetic. He is the only character tied up in this espionage business to be conscious of the falseness of his ideals, and at the end of the book, the question of whether he will betray his ideals and save the man is a climax for him and for the reader. Although, the reader knows that the die has already been cast and what Daintry does will not matter.