The events of this love story take place in London during German air raids in the Second World War.
This novel of Greene is considered his best of his “Christian books” — what’s striking is the combination of deep sadness and direct, childlike, almost fairy-tale faith in miracles. It was precisely this writer, often considered something close to a heretic, who managed to portray a two-layer world: the kingdom of selfishness and bustle, and the kingdom of mercy and truth, where evil is defeated.
One of those piercing books you read in an instant, devouring it. Books that are not really books at all, because there’s no paper and ink in them — only pain, suffering, struggle. Such books leave you with more questions than answers — silent questions, living in deeply hidden recesses of the soul, and therefore unanswerable, because to try to master them can become unbearable and fatal.