Bookpossum, I am relieved to hear you say "Of course Maurice is despicable". Some of the reviews I had read describe this as "Heart rending love story", and similar, and I was starting to think I must have picked up the wrong book by mistake*. We differ in that I don't think Greene was especially brilliant at this; it felt ham-handed to me, so far over the top as to be, as
Victoria suggested, a caricature.
Even poor, much mistreated, Henry seemed like a caricature of the jilted lover. There was almost nothing about either of the men that felt real to me. Sarah was a bit more ambiguous, but her struggle was with God rather than with Maurice or Henry, and while her diary says things that seemed to indicate she loved Maurice, it was - to me - like being told that in a very flat tone; never did any of her interactions with either of the men convince me there was any real affection. This is, perhaps, the problem of first-person in this narrative, there was no way for Greene to show that affection when everything had to be reflected back against the self-obsessed Maurice.
Victoria, yes, it feels like we read the same book.
This did feel like an argument with Greene, with the topic as religion. And I think this might be why the narrative is so self-obsessed, because it's not really about a human love affair. That is used as an analogy, and perhaps this is why it is so unconvincing as love.
... Even days later I am having a hard time coming up with anything nice to say about this book.
* Just a day or two ago, Kobo had the wrong blurb up against a book cover, so it's not completely unrealistic.