SOURCE: "A Strong Smell of Fish," in The New Republic, Vol. 149, August 31, 1963, pp. 31-3.

In the following mixed review of A Sense of Reality, Corke comments on the four stories in the volume, praising Greene's professionalism and faulting his use of paradox.

Although the blurb describes it as his "main occupation" during the past two years, Mr. Greene's new collection (his first since 1949) contains only [A Sense of Reality] 119 smallish pages and only four stories—half of which the first occupies more than half the book, so that we may not unfairly concentrate our attention upon it. "Under The Garden" begins with a doctor explaining to William Wilditch, in a more or less breezy impersonal way, that he has cancer of the lung. The scene is in Mr. Greene's best flat sad manner, especially appropriate for the conveying of quiet horror. Before deciding whether or not to accept...