My Year With Graham Greene - A Few Quick Thoughts
For the last few years I’ve set myself the goal of reading a single author’s entire work in chronological order across the year. I think I was possibly a bit deluded after completing Agatha Christie in a single year, but I lost the run of myself last December and though I could manage two authors in 2022. I had intended to read all of Graham Greene AND all of Virginia Woolf. I have to confess I gave up on Woolf five books in. For me, this was a massive learning experience. I’m a completist. I tend to finish everything I start, even if I’m really not enjoying it. Just admitting that Woolf was boring the back teeth off me was hard enough, actually abandoning a reading project half way through felt like admitting my own ineptitude. I actually felt guilty for about a week afterwards. I’m really glad I abandoned Woolf. It made me think about why I read. Yes, there’s an element of learning which happens when you read. You’re also stretching yourself as both a reader and a writer. But reading shouldn’t be a punishment. It’s ok not to like the books you’re supposed to like. I don’t like Woolf. I don’t like Dickens. I don’t like most of the Russians either. Maybe I’ll grown into them at some later point. But for now, i’m fine with putting some books on the back shelf.
Once I was over Virginia Woolf, I was free to focus on my year with Graham Greene. Again, I have to say, it was a pretty mediocre reading experience to begin with. The first five books, (and I didn’t even bother with the two novels, he later disowned), were pretty humdrum and repetitive. But number six is “Brighton Rock” and, oh my goodness, it’s a cracking read. This was my third time reading this novel -once as a teenager, once in my twenties, now at forty two- and I was incredibly relieved to discover Pinkie is still one of the oddest and most malevolent characters I’ve ever come across. You can see Greene’s genius on every page. I couldn’t help thinking, as I read, how different his career would’ve been if he’d begun writing nowadays. In the current climate of dazzling debuts, i can’t believe any publisher would’ve hung around for eight books waiting for him to hit his stride.
Once Greene’s on form, there’s a run of exceptionally good novels, mostly circling around the twin themes of Catholic guilt and the Englishman abroad. On the former theme “The End of the Affair” and “The Power and the Glory” remain stand outs for me. I’m not so much a fan of the ex-pat novels. There’s a few good examples but they tend to be quite repetitive and mostly explore ideas of Englishness set against a thin backdrop of the exotic, which is always viewed through a Western lens. “A Burnt Out Case” straddles both themes and has always been one of my favourite Greenes. It definitely stands up to repeated readings. I’ve always thought it was an underrated novel on a par with the big Catholic guilt tomes.
Whilst younger me, was big into the melodrama of faith and doubt, this time round I thoroughly enjoyed the funnier, more satirical Greenes. “Our Man in Havana” is an absolute hoot and two slim novels I’d never heard of before -”Loser Takes All” and, a late career book called, “The Bomb Party”- are both an absolute joy to read and chortle at. There, of course, were a couple of duds in the mix. I remain unimpressed by “The Quiet American”, (which feels very much like old hat to me) and “Travels With My Aunt” is just daft, not in an enjoyable way. Unlike most of the writers I’ve read in chronological order Greene’s writing doesn’t peak mid-career and then diminish in later life. There are some absolute clunkers published mid-career and a few really brilliant novels right at the end of his life.
Like Agatha Christie. Greene’s career spanned a huge period of time and witnessed huge societal change. His first novel was published in 1929, his last in 1988, (which, much as it pains me to point out, actually gives him the edge on Agatha, whose career spans the 20s to the 70s). I could most clearly see how contemporary mores impacted Greene’s writing in the way he talks about sex. Much of his work centres around relationships, and particularly adulterous ones, and. yet in the early novels,. the sexual act can only be alluded to in the vaguest terms. By the 70s and 80s the language Greene uses is much bolder and explicit (in every sense). I found myself repeatedly measuring him against his literary peers. It’s a huge leap to arrive at Salman Rushdie having begun with F Scott Fitzgerald as a peer. I do think, for the most part, Greene’s books managed to keep apace with the zeitgeist for the better part of sixty years. It’s only in the very last stages of his publishing career that you begin to sense a feeling of nostalgia creeping into most everything he writes. It’s also fair to say that some of the language and attitudes in his novels falls far short of contemporary ideas of political correctness. He’s very much a writer of his time.
I finished my reading year with the “Collected Short Stories of Graham Greene.” Here, I encountered for the first time, a Greene who wasn’t just prepared to dabble with the absurd (as in “The Bomb Party” and “Monsignor Quixote”), but was actually happy to dive right into the supernatural. There are a couple of really creepy and very good pieces of speculative fiction included amongst the more recognisable realistic short stories collected here. I thoroughly enjoyed Greene’s shorter work. “The Destructors” and “The Innocent” are both stand outs.
I have a few months left of 2022 before I begin my (sensibly thought through) reading project for 2023. I’m hoping to read the big three part Greene biography, (I’ve read his little autobiography which I found wonderfully droll and quite bitchy). I’d also like to watch a few more film adaptations of his books. Everything I’ve seen so far has been great.
As soon as I post this blog someone will inevitably ask, “where should I start with Greene?” so I’ll just go ahead and offer you my mini guide.
If you like romantic books/melodrama definitely start with “The End of the Affair”
If you like funny/satirical books “Our Man in Havana’s” a good place to start.
If you want something a bit dark and violent “Brighton Rock”
If you want the full on Catholic guilt thing “The Power and the Glory’s” all about a shameful priest.
For anything else, buy yourself a good anthology of the short stories and start by reading “The Innocent”