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Not the best review of Richard Greene's biography (I have a Google news alert on “Graham Greene” so I've read them all) in that it tends more to summary than evaluation, but it’s not the worst either, perhaps for the same reason. I have the bio on pre-order (it’s been out in the UK for a few months but the American edition, with a different title, The Unquiet Englishman: A Life of Graham Greene, doesn't come out until 12 January). I found Boyd's comments on The Heart of the Matter especially interesting as this is the novel by Greene that’s by far the most incomprehensible to non-Catholics.
(btw, feel free to ask me anything about Graham Greene—he’s been a decades-long obsession of mine and I’ve read nearly everything by/about him)
And another question: is there a cheap and easy way of getting access to the text of "Rumour at nightfall", particularly during a COVID lockdown when reading it in the British Library would be even less convenient than it usually would be?
UPDATE: I can answer my own question: https://archive.org/details/RumourAtNightfall1931GrahamGreen... ; I couldn't find it anywhere the last time I tried!
Since you asked ... do you know anything about Graham Greene's contact with Esperanto and perhaps some other constructed language?
"Stamboul train" has some Esperanto expressions standing in for Hungarian, and "The confidential agent" has a constructed language called Entrenationo, which the Wikipedia article claims is "obviously modelled on Esperanto" but which sounds a look more like Interlingua to me, though there could be other candidates from around that time. It would be nice to know who the Dr Bellows character is based on. (There's almost no resemblance to Dr Zamenhof.)
Not the OP, but there is also a brief mention of Esperanto in "The Power and The Glory". As to why, I'm not sure of any direct connection of Greene to Esperanto or other constructed languages, but he was a friend of George Orwell, whose aunt was the girlfriend of Eugene Lanti, an Esperantist who was one of the creators of the standard Esperanto dictionary (PIV). Lanti (whom Orwell didn't care for) may also be the reason Orwell had 1984's "Newspeak" use terms like "ungood" which model Esperanto usages.
Orwell's take on language was at once frustrated and nuanced. He mentions Esperanto, as a made-up language, in his essay New Words" [1] - but not as an absolute negative. The essay, in fact, argues for deliberate invention of language/words - but to improve understanding between people, rather than to diminish meaning and so kill concepts, as happens in his Newspeak.
The essay is long, and he expresses his dissatisfaction at his inability to say what he wanted to in it, before finishing with:
To most people in any case the whole idea of reforming language would seem either dilettantish or crankish. Yet it is worth considering what utter incomprehension exists between human beings — at least between those who are not deeply intimate. At present, as Samuel Butler said, the best art (i.e. the most perfect thought-transference) must be ‘lived’ from one person to another. It need not be so if our language were more adequate. It is curious that when our knowledge, the complication of our lives and therefore (I think it must follow) our minds, develop so fast, language, the chief means of communication, should scarcely stir. For this reason I think that the idea of the deliberate invention of words is at least worth thinking over.
[1] https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/words/english/e_words
As someone who has only tried reading The End of the Affair and given up half-way, please excuse my ignorance but what is the source of your fascination with Graham Greene?
Knowing so many people who love his books gives me a bit of FOMO, especially after giving up on that book. Would you recommend a different one to start with?
They can be quite difficult to get into, particularly for those who haven't had similar experiences, but I think they are worth the effort. They are also stylistically brilliant and contain some great character sketches so they are worth approaching from that angle too.
They will give you great insight into the sense of unease felt by functionaries in a dying empire who can sense the end, and react in various ways to this (disillusion, cynicism, outrage, despair). He's also big on doomed or failed relationships which never quite seem to end (in particular catholic marriages), and of course the books shed light on the relationship of a lapsed catholic to God, who pops up when you least expect him. As you may be able to tell from that summary, they are not often light reading, though he does spice the stories with little jokes. A sense of doom and unease just comes with his world view I think and you can never escape that in his novels.
Our man in Havana is quite fun without being too heavy, so that might be a good place to start. The Quiet American is also good and concerned with the end of another empire (the French colony in Vietnam), and the sharp end of the US intervention there.
Just to add to the recommendation of The Quiet American: my edition includes a collection of Greene’s screenplay treatments, which is basically a master class in plot development.
Oh wow. What edition is that?
I’ll see if I can find it, but it’s an old mass paperback, like with the old pulp novel style binding. Keep your eye peeled in the used book store.
I’ll reply again with the publisher info if I find it.
I'm a fan of "The Comedians" (1966) which is about Haiti under the regime of the populist dictator "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his feared secret police the "Tontons Macoutes". Despite the grim subject, it is an enjoyable read.
Based on an Aug 11, 2016 comment of yours, maybe you would like to start with The Captain and the Enemy, which also happens to be where I started. After that I started reading everything GG although I'm not quite done. I currently have The Ministry of Fear waiting to be loved. Myself I love the Penguin editions, perfect format and the smell ... the ones from the 70's I mean.
Brighton Rock is one that can read a lot like a noir gangster thriller.
I do think that to really 'get' Greene's writing, you should have experienced the cognitive dissonance that comes from religion.
I was introduced to his writing by an English teacher who saw that in me. Truly a teacher who influenced my life's trajectory.
I am a big fan of GG but some of his books I find just too dry, almost literally in some senses, where the arid African climate seems to just pour out of the pages onto you, and also permeates the contents ; The Heart of the Matter, A Burnt-Out Case, are examples that come to mind. Don't let your first impressions turn you off from this genius. Some of his other books are quite different. Had I started with one of these ^ I might not be able to recommend those ->
I have loved ; The Human Factor, The Captain and the Enemy, The Honorary Consul, Our man in Havana, The Tenth Man ...
Many people have a book they read in their teens that changed their outlook. For some it's 1984. For me it was Greene's "The Power and the Glory". It, and the questions it raised, are still with me.
Monsignor Quixote I can also recommend. The others I read I have forgotten, except for Brighton Rock which I didn't like.
As a sibling commenter has said, if you have any form of religious background or have seen that world, his books speak with a depth I think it would be difficult to grasp without that.
Much in the way that I would recommend to anyone struggling with "Moby-Dick" to try starting with Melville's much shorter novella "Bartleby, the Scrivener" to get a taste for the authors' style, wit, and use of language; I would suggest a volume of Greene's short stories. In a few or a few dozen pages it is easier to see how he draws a character, uses dialogue, employs irony and humor to make a point or cause the reader to reflect. Once you have a feel for what Greene finds funny (or distasteful) it is easier to see how his commentary takes shape over the course of a longer novel.
A few stories that come to mind that might make good examples are "When Greek Meets Greek" and "The Destructors."
"A drive in the country" is one of the best short stories I've ever read. Structurally perfect. (Warning: includes suicide.)
Graham Greene is also my favorite writer. Many of his books fantastically explain moral dillemas of people in extreme situations, and force you to think how you would behave under extreme circumstances. I see the value in his books not in the stories he tells, but in the soul searching that he provokes.
I first came to Greene via his novel, Monsignor Quixote. It was billed to me as, “Don Quixote is a Catholic priest and Sancho Panza is a communist.” As a 14-year-old fascinated by Catholicism and Marxism, that was enough to hook me. What catches my interest is the narratives of people on the margins of belonging/belief (which is something which has carried through into my own writing).
Publisher's link for The Unquiet Englishman: A Life of Graham Greene by Richard Greene (unrelated):
By the nonpareil author William Boyd: can't wait to read this. THANK YOU FOR POSTING IT!