Graham Greene: 1904-1991

He did not plan on a long life. As a boy, he toyed with suicide, employing, among other means, a dull knife, hay-fever drops and a mild overdose of aspirin; he also survived several sessions of Russian roulette. Grown older, evidently in spite of himself, he left his native England as often as possible to court danger and disease, wherever and whenever they might prove most virulent: Africa, Mexico, Indochina, Cuba, Haiti, Central America. None of these places killed him; instead they furnished material for many of his more than fifty books, including novels, short story collections, travel writings, plays, essays, autobiography, biography, children's tales. So Graham Greene's death last week, at 86, prompts not only sadness and tributes, but also a question: What would the contemporary world look like if he had got his wish and not lived to describe it?

For no serious writer of this century has more thoroughly invaded and shaped the public imagination than did Graham Greene. Millions who have never read him are nonetheless familiar with his vision. Versions of Greene scenes can be found in daily headlines or wherever entertainment flickers: the dubious quest, undertaken by a flawed agent with divided loyalties against an uncertain enemy; the wrench of fear or of violence that confronts an otherwise ordinary person with a vision of eternal damnation or inexplicable grace.

Greene did not dream up this terrain of momentous border crossings and casual betrayals, and he could be peevish with those who praised his inventiveness: "Some critics have referred to a strange violent 'seedy' region of the mind (why did I ever popularize that last adjective?) which they call Greeneland, and I have sometimes wondered whether they go round the world blinkered. This is Indochina,' I want to exclaim, 'this is Mexico, this Sierra Leone carefully and accurately described.'" But on his journeys the author carried a transforming talent and temperament that rendered all the places, no mat-

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ter how meticulously portrayed, not only seedy but unmistakably Greeneland.

Birth and circumstances drove Greene to a life on the edge. Congenially unhappy with what he later called his maniac-depressive self, he found himself a double agent at a tender age, a student at the Berkhamsted School, where his classmates made his life miserable, and Greene sought retreat in voracious reading. But the drama served up by his favorite authors (among them John Buchan and Joseph Conrad) reminded Greene that he had been born at an unpropitious time. "We were," he wrote, "a generation brought up on adventure stories who had missed the enormous disillusionment of the First World War." At Oxford, he dabbled in writing and later drifted into newspaper work, eventually becoming a subeditor at the London Times.

Greene's first published novel The Man Within (1929) enjoyed a modest success and was made into a film. This pattern was to be repeated throughout his career, for Greene and the movies virtually grew up together. He learned the economies of filmed narration — the quick cuts, the disembodied perspective, the interpolated conversations — used them in his books and then saw them re-employed in adaptations of his own work on the screen.

His greatest fiction spanned the years 1938 to 1951: Brighton Rock (1938), The Heart of the Matter (1948), The End of the Affair (1951) and, most hauntingly, The Power and the Glory (1940). The pilgrimage of the nameless "whiskey priest", on the run in a Mexican state from a sectarian tyranny, remains a thrilling adventure of despair and irrational redemption.

For all his worldly success, Greene retained the attitudes dictated by his childhood: a dislike for the strong — hence his increasing postwar opposition to the U.S. — and a sympathy for the underdog, a category that came to include everyone from Fidel Castro to Kim Philby, a onetime friend and also a British intelligence officer who famously spied for and then defected to the Soviet Union. The last 30 or so years of his life were spent in a modest apartment in an undistinguished building in Antibes, on the French Mediterranean. Long separated (but never divorced) from his wife, Greene wrote conscientiously some 300 words every day, among them the opening sentence of the second volume of his autobiography: "What a long road it has been."

(From Times, 1991, No. 15, abridged)

1. a) Look for the answers to these questions:
1. Have you read any novels or stories by Graham Greene? What can you say about them? 2. In what literary genres did Graham Greene distinguish himself? 3. How was it that Graham Greene invaded and shaped the public imagination more than any other serious writer of the 20th century? 4. What were the future writer's school years like? 5. How did Graham Greene refer to his generation? 6. Is it accidental that many of his novels were filmed? 7. Graham Greene admitted he had popularized the adjective "seedy". What does it mean in reference to people and places? 8. How does the term "Greeneland" reflect the writer's dominant theme?
b) Find in the text the facts to illustrate the following:
1. Graham Greene often placed his characters in the environment of distant countries he himself had visited. 2. The notions of loyalty and betrayal were central to the writer's vision. 3. Childhood was a crucial period in the writer's life.
c) Summarize the text in three paragraphs.
2. In spite of the Russian proverb one can argue about taste: everybody does, and one result is that tastes change. If given a choice what would you rather read a novel or short stories in book form? Why? Try to substantiate your point of view. Use some of the ideas listed below.
"A novel appeals in the same way that a portrait does — through the richness of its human content."
"It is not only an author's characters that endear him to the public: it is also his ethical outlook that appears with greater or less distinctness in everything he writes."
"A volume of short stories contains more ideas, since each story is based on an idea; it has much greater variety of mood, scene, character and plot."
3. Use the thematic vocabulary in answering the following questions:
1. Which books are you reading now? 2. Where is your favorite place to read? 3. Who is your favorite novelist? 4. What is your favorite poem? 5. Who is your favorite character? 6. Which character
do you hate most? 7. Which contemporary author do you most admire? 8. Which is the first book you can remember reading? 9. Which school text did you most enjoy? 10. With which character would you most like to have an affair? 11. With which character do you most identify? 12. Who would be your ideal literary dining companion? 13. What is your favorite children's book? 14. Do you have a comfort book that you reread? 15. Which book would you like to see filmed? 16. What is the worst screen adaptation? 17. Which book changed your life? 18. Which book would you make compulsory reading? 19. What is the most difficult book you have ever read? 20. How do you select books to read? Do you listen to advice? 21. Do such characteristics as bulky size, dense print, being dog-eared and tatty matter?
4. "What is the best way to foster interest in reading?" This is a question that teachers and parents have been asking for a long time.
a) Read the texts below attentively for further discussion;
Once many years ago, in anticipation of the children we would one day have, a relative of my wife's gave us a box of Ladybird Books from the 1950s and 60s. They all had titles like Out in the Sun and Sunny Days at the Seaside, and contained meticulously drafted, richly coloured illustrations of a prosperous, contented, litter-free Britain in which the sun always shone, shopkeepers smiled, and children in freshly pressed clothes derived happiness and pleasure from innocent pastimes — riding a bus to the shops, floating a model boat on a park pond, chatting to a kindly policeman.
My favourite was a book called Adventure on the Island. There was, in fact, precious little adventure in the book — the high point, I recall, was finding a starfish suckered to a rock — but I loved it because of the illustrations (by the gifted and much-missed J.H. Wing-field). I was strangely influenced by this book and for some years agreed to take our family holidays at the British seaside on the assumption that one day we would find this magic place where summer days were forever sunny, the water as warm as a sitz-bath, and commercial blight unknown.
When at last we began to accumulate children, it turned out that they didn't like these books at all because the characters in them never did anything more lively than visit a pet shop or watch a fisherman paint his boat. I tried to explain that this was sound preparation for

life in Britain, but they wouldn't have it and instead, to my dismay, attached their affections to a pair of irksome little clots called Topsy and Tim.
(Bill Bryson "Notes From a Small Island", 1997)
Tony Blair believes children will increase their appetite for reading if parents read them "naughty" boob with mischievous characters.
Mr Blair will encourage more fathers to read with their sons in an effort to increase their literacy skills. The "Dads and Lads" initiative is part of the Government's National Year of Reading campaign.
He lists his 'literature for lads" which includes Tolkien's The Lord of The Rings, the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novels charting Sherlock Holmes.
The Prime Minister also stresses the importance of subversion evident in the works of Roald Dahl. Mr Blair said: "I think he was one of the first who would write in a slightly naughty way, which makes books intriguing and interesting."
Anne Barnes, general secretary of the National Association for the Teaching of English, said: " I think the answer to fostering interest in reading is to follow the interests of the child. Parents should also try to read something which interests them because a child will pick up on the adult's enthusiasm.
"I'm not sure how many fathers will start reading to their sons because Tony Blair says so but the fact remains that we should support any effort to increase reading among boys."
Research by the National Literacy Trust revealed that primary school boys view reading as wimpish and avoid it, a view often carried through life.
(Independent 31, Aug. 1998)
b) Speak about children's books. Consider the following:
1. What do children like to read about? Is the borderline between "an innocent pastime" and "an adventure" easy to define? Should the books offer young readers imaginary worlds ("magic places where summer days are forever sunny")? Should the books always have
happy endings? 2. A toddler of three, is sure to love flap-books, popup books and picture books. But what about comics and grafic books for older children? Can they become the stepping stones leading to adult literature? Should they be banned? 3. It's a fact that young parents don't read enough for their children. They know it's supposed to be a great joy, but sometimes it's the last thing they want to do. Is there any alternative? 4. Do you think that parents should read children "naughty" books with mischievous characters "to increase their appetite for reading"? What makes Roald Dahl's books {Matilda Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Magic Finger and others) hilarious and naughty? 5. They say it's very difficult to hit exactly the right age for a particular book. For what age group would you recommend the epic fantasy novel by J.R.R. Tolkien The Lord of The Rings? How early can a child be given books in a foreign language? Do children always see eye to eye with their parents about the choice of books? Should a 10-year-old be allowed to read adult's books like War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy? 6. Factual books are often dull and dreary. But isn't it possible for a young reader to get lost in a topic book if it happens to be Castles or Dinosaurs? What other topics may prove fascinating for children? Should girls and boys be given the same books to read?

Books by R.L. Stivenson and Conan Doyle enjoy great popularity in this country. Make up a list of books (no less than ten) you'd like to suggest for National Year of Reading campaign if it were launched in Russia.
Are children insensitive to poetry and niceties of the language? Can they appreciate comic verse and comic stories, nursery rhymes, limerics and tongue twisters? Name at least three Russian writers who excelled at translating English nonsense poetry into Russian?
Reading should be a normal, easy thing. Children brought up on an early diet of television, video and computer games are reluctant readers. How to make reading a pleasure and not a chore for a boy who views reading as wimpish? Is it possible for television watching not only to discourage but actually to inspire reading?
Read the interview with Martin Amis (M.A.), one of the most successful writers in Britain today. He talks to a BBC English reporter (R) about his work.

R: As the son of a famous writer, how did your own writing style develop?

MA: People say, you know, "How do you go about getting your style?" and it's almost as if people imagine you kick off by writing a completely ordinary paragraph of straightforward, declarative sentences, then you reach for your style pen — your style highlighting pen — and jazz it all up. But in fact it comes in that form and I like to think that it's your talent doing that.
R: In your life and in your fiction you move between Britain and America and you have imported American English into your writing. Why? What does it help you do?
M.A.: I suppose what I'm looking for are new rhythms of thought. You know, I'm as responsive as many people are to street words and nicknames and new words. And when I use street language, I never put it down as it is, because it will look like a three-month-old newspaper when it comes out. Phrases like "No way, Jose" and "Free lunch" and things like that, they're dead in a few months. So what you've got to do is come up with an equivalent which isn't going to have its street life exhausted. I'm never going to duplicate these rhythms because I read and I studied English literature and that's all there too. But perhaps where the two things meet something original can be created. That's where originality, if it's there, would be, in my view.
R: You have said that it's no longer possible to write in a wide range of forms — that nowadays we can't really write tragedy, we can't write satire, we can't write romance, and that comedy is the only form left.
MA.: I think satire's still alive. Tragedy is about failed heroes and epic is, on the whole, about triumphant or redeemed heroes. So comedy, it seems to me, is the only thing left. As illusion after illusion has been cast aside, we no longer believe in these big figures — Macbeth, Hamlet, Tamburlaine — these big, struggling, tortured heroes. Where are they in the modern world? So comedy's having to do it all. And what you get, certainly in my case, is an odd kind of comedy, full of things that shouldn't be in comedy.
R: What is it that creates the comedy in your novels?
MA.: Well, I think the body, for instance, is screamingly funny as a subject. I mean, if you live in your mind, as everyone does but writers do particularly, the body is a sort of disgraceful joke. You can get everything sort of nice and crisp and clear in your mind, but the body is a chaotic slobber of disobedience and decrepitude. And I think that is hysterically funny myself because it undercuts us. It undercuts our pomposities and our ambitions.
R: Your latest book The Information is about two very different writers, one of whom, Gywn, has become enormously successful and the other one, Richard, who has had a tiny bit of success but is no longer popular. One of the theories which emerges is that it's very difficult to say precisely that someone's writing is better by so much than someone else's. It's not like running a race when somebody comes first and somebody comes second.
MA.: No, human beings have not evolved a way of separating the good from the bad when it comes to literature or art in general. All we have is history of taste. No one knows if they're any good — no worldly prize or advance or sales sheet is ever going to tell you whether you're any good. That's all going to be sorted out when you're gone.
R: Is this an increasing preoccupation of yours?
MA.: No, because there's nothing I can do about it. My father said. "That's no bloody use to me, is it, if I'm good, because I won't be around."
R: Have you thought about where you might go from here?
MA.: I've got a wait-and-see feeling about where I go next. One day a sentence or a situation appears in your head and you just recognise it as your next novel and you have no control over it. There's nothing you can do about it. That is your next novel and I'm waiting for that feeling.
(BBC English. August 1995)

Express briefly in your own words what the talk is about.
What does Martin Amis emphasise about his style of writing? What does he say about modern literary genres? Do you agree that "comedy is the only form left"? Is it really impossible to separate "the good from the bad when it comes to literature or art in general"? How do you understand the sentence "all we have is a history of taste"?

6.a) Read the following extract and observe the way literary criticism is written:
Jane Austen saw life in a clear, dry light. She was not without deep human sympathies, but she had a quick eye for vanity, selfishness, vulgarity, and she perceived the frequent incongruities between the way people talked and the realities of a situation. Her style is quiet and level. She never exaggerates, she never as it were, raises her voice to shout or scream. She is neither pompous, nor sentimental,

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