Graham Greene

Larry, I wish I could make a decent comment on Green and his work. As close as I can come is having seen the movie made from "The End Of The Affair" with Ralph Fiennies and Julianne Moore. What I liked about the story was the interplay of Catholic (Christian) sexual morality and passion or perhaps more correctly love. I recall a similar theme or sub-theme in Brideshead Revisited, and thought at the time that story illuminated my own attempt to understand a Catholic woman I was attempting to, as it were, understand. I can only imagine that Greene, in his novel, must explore the many nuances of such a relationship.

Hazlitt: you saw the movie, now you should read the book. It may be Greene's finest. I'm sure you won't be surprised when I tell you that the movie didn't do it justice. THE END OF THE AFFAIR is also relatively short and compact, so you can read it quickly--like a lot of Greene it is tautly plotted even though it is not a thriller. Don't miss it!

Larry, I'd put Graham Greene and Anthony Burguess together a
Larry, I'd put Graham Greene and Anthony Burguess together as the best English writers in the second half of the XX Century.


Greene's works are beautifully written, with a great sense of humor and a political-moral sense typical of his times, which I like very much

I have read only a few of his novels:

Travels With My Aunt
Our Man in Havana
The Honorary Consul
The Human Factor
The Quiet American
and a collection of his stories.

Used to be (haven't quite quit being) one of those readers who falls in love with a writer and reads everything he/she ever wrote. Graham Greene is one of those. I always found his writing lean and direct and absolutely gripping, even when I was a kid. I wonder if you've seen, Larry, his hilarious, skewed-vision and devastating (some said "bitchy") little essay (1935) about Shirley Temple ("An oddly precocious body as voluptuous in grey flannel trousers as Miss Dietrich's.")? It was really about American sexuality, but it made many really angry, caused a lawsuit. I have a copy somewhere but didn't succeed in finding the essay during a quick cruise through Google just now. Hoped to find a link for you. It's probably online somewhere...

larry r

I should have read a lot more Greene, but I haven't for some unknown reason. I'll keep a watch on this thread & see which titles I'm inspired by.

(Hi, Tartarin! )

Tartarin, Greene was a movie critic for a London magazine called NIGHT AND DAY when he wrote the Shirley Temple piece suggesting that she was a sex object for perverse grown men. It caused the movie studio to sue the mag, which promptly folded. The review is available in Greene's collected writings on film, which have recently been republished--I doubt it's on the Web.

Yes, Greene is lean and gripping, two good adjectives to describe him. There is no fat in a Greene sentence or a Greene novel. Fbaezer ranks him with Anthony Burgess. I wouldn't. I think Greene was far more profound, had a deeper grasp of psychology and character. Burgess could never have written THE END OF THE AFFAIR. He was good at verbal dazzle, but not much profundity.

What did you think of the Shirley Temple essay, Larry? I thought it was brilliant. Agree with your assessment re Burgess, though it's hard to compare the two. Burgess is part of another era -- a more self-congratulatory (and self-conscious) one for sure. Burgess' ego bangs around in his work; Greene's agonies and morality are much more interesting to me.

May I throw Elizabeth Bowen at you and ask where you'd place her?

Tartarin, I have to confess that I have never read Elizabeth Bowen. I know she is well-regarded as a novelist but I have just never gotten around to her. Which of her books would you recommend?

Her best known (I think) is Death of the Heart. I'd never thought about it before, but I think it might be interesting to compare her with Greene.

Footnote on Bowen and Greene: they knew each other in 30s literary London and were good friends.

In general, the Brits have not distinguished themselves in novel-writing over the past century. The quality dropped off sharply after the great Victorian age of Thackeray, Trollope, Dickens, and Eliot. Hardy and Conrad rounded off the great era of Brit fiction. After them, not too many first-class novelists appeared, and today I would say that Brit fiction is way below American in terms of ambition and inventiveness.

Footnote on Bowen and Greene: they knew each other in 30s literary London and were good friends.

In general, the Brits have not distinguished themselves in novel-writing over the past century. The quality dropped off sharply after the great Victorian age of Thackeray, Trollope, Dickens, and Eliot. Hardy and Conrad rounded off the great era of Brit fiction. After them, not too many first-class novelists appeared, and today I would say that Brit fiction is way below American in terms of ambition and inventiveness.

Indeed. I knew her -- she was a close friend of my mother's -- and therefore don't have a clear perspective on her books. As for Thackeray, Dickens,Trollope et al., all my life I've had to tear myself away from them, rereading and rereading and rereading. Well -- Conrad doesn't do it for me. Contemporary American fiction is sometimes wonderful but I can't remember reading the work of a contemporary American novelist under 50 who doesn't need a much better editor! Franzen and Auster -- can you hear me banging my head against the wall? Still, I like Franzen a lot.

I don't share your enthusiasm for Franzen, at least not based on THE CORRECTIONS. His characters are one-note, superficially drawn, repetitious. He is unable to make them interact in any meaningful way, which is why the novel meanders for 600 pages to a non-ending. And his constant parading of his research about biotech and Lithuania got tiresome. I don't think Franzen knows anything much about people or about America. His book could have been cut by 300 pages with no loss. In fact, it would have gained in focus and intensity.
Paul Auster I have not read. But if Franzen is the Great White Hope of the American Novel, then the American Novel is on life support.

Truthfully, I was trying to be nicer than I felt about Franzen... because a piece of that novel (where he falls off the cruise ship) appeared in Atlantic or Harpers a few years ago as a short story and I was crazy about it. That piece was well-crafted and thoughtful. Also truthfully, I used Corrections as an aide-travail -- I had it on tape so's I'd have something to keep me on the job during a deep house cleaning!! (Fast-forwarded through Lithuania.) I've gone back to Bellow. And print. I'd be glad to send you the Auster tapes -- it's that or subject them to some sort of torture as they tortured me. No more tapes! A lot of current writing seems to be Garcia Marquez meets American utilitarianism.

If we're talking about the achievements of American novelists, as compared to their British counterparts, I don't think Franzen should even be part of the discussion. Admittedly, through savviness and luck, he's managed to become a major name over the past year, and I've even enjoyed some of his essays. But please...

Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo are our major contemporary writers. I have spoken!

"Crying of Lot 49" is one of my all-time favorites.

D'Artagnan -- it's like everything else. Quality is defined by marketing (he who shouts louder), not talent.

Agreed, Tartarin, re "Crying". I still have one Pynchonian mountain to climb: "Gravity's Rainbow". I have the book and a skeleton guide. Now it's up to me!

Interesting, D'Art. I read Gravity when it first came out -- ages ago -- and it hasn't stayed with me. Sitting in my bookcase, yet to be read, is Mason Dixon. Have you read it? It looks good.

A general, lowgrade comment on the experience of reading lately: I lived in nowheresville, Europe, for a long time, read voraciously. No TV, practically no radio. Came back to urban US, got sucked in by TV to some degree and noticed how it affected my reading -- negatively. TV watching feeds the short-attention-span problem, makes the kind of attention needed to read (say) Pynchon difficult to achieve... Now I'm back in rural nowheresville. Satellite antenna on roof but only a dozen non-commercial all-film channels coming in per arrangement with the provider (otherwise I would have cut it off completely). What a change in attention span, mood, attitude, etc. Granted it does make me less accepting of the average best seller!

We might want to start a thread on "chewy, demanding and rewarding reads"!

Tartarin: I did read "Mason and Dixon" when it was published, and I loved it. An intelligent entertainment that works on many levels. I highly recommend it!

As for distractions and how hard it is to read something challenging sometimes: Too true. I actually started "Gravity's Rainbow" during a train ride, about four hours in duration. When I got back home, there were distractions, and days passed without my opening the novel. By the time I was ready again, I knew, alas, that I'd lost the thread. Now I know I'll have to start over again, but I know I will. And it had better be soon, because life is short! (I mean that in a general sense; not a personal reflection...)