If you
want to know something about
writing, study Graham Greene and
everything about him
John Jenkins, Publisher
IT WAS about three o’clock on a humid morning and once more insomnia had
won. Idly flicking the remote control I saw there was a showing of The
Comedians starring Richard Burton, Alec Guinness and Elizabeth Taylor.
Occasionally I am pleased to be an insomniac.
A student at my creative writing class had asked: If you could advise one
novelist and one novelist alone for would be authors to read, who would it
be. There was only one answer: Graham Greene.
Without descending into hyperbole Greene combines entertainment, theme and
literary ability in a way which few others can achieve.
If you think I am overstating the case stand by for an avalanche of
articles, radio and television programmes as the great man’s centenary is
celebrated next month.
Green was born on October 2nd 1904 and died in 1991. He was one of six
children, loathed school and sport and spent his time reading, particularly
enjoying the novels of Rider Haggard and R M Ballantyne.
He was only 15 when he was sent to a therapist. His analyst, Kenneth
Richmond, suggested he should write and introduced him to a circle of
literary friends, including the poet Walter de la Mare.
Greene went up to Balliol where he read modern history and in his own words
spent his Oxford years drunk and debt-ridden; essential experience for his
future role as a sub editor, first on the Nottingham Journal and then
The Times.
He had several abortive attempts at getting published until The Man
Within became a critical success, persuading him to give up the job on
the Times. But the next two novels failed and he was once more in
despair.
Fortunately his publisher kept faith and he moonlighted as a film critic for
the Spectator.
He wrote Stamboul Train as a crowd pleaser and from then on combined
his skill as a social commentator and entertainer. He even became involved
in screenwriting despite being sued by Twentieth Century Fox for savaging
Shirley Temple. (A man clearly after my own heart.) He wrote screen plays
and adaptations, shooting to fame with the success of The Third Man.
His travels around the world took him to many trouble spots and he exposed
corruption and dictators. He certainly worked for a time with British
Intelligence using his experiences in Sierra Leone as background for The
Heart of the Matter.
Critics argue about which of his books is the best and a majority seem to
favour The Power and the Glory about Catholicism in Mexico. It won
the Hawthornden Prize and was condemned by the Vatican.
Not content with upsetting the Vatican, he found unpopularity in the United
States with The Quiet American. Don’t miss Michael Caine in the
recent film. Greene was generous and to the point with his advice to other
writers. He had, after all, tasted rejection.
In Ways of Escape
he writes: The main characters in a novel must necessarily have some
kinship to the author, they come out of his body as a child comes from the
womb, then the umbilical cord is cut, and they grow into independence. The
more an author knows of his own character the more he can distance himself
from the invented characters and the more room they have to grow.
And in A Sort of Life he wrote: Excitement is simple: excitement
is a situation, a single event. It mustn’t be wrapped up in thoughts,
similes, metaphors. A simile is a form of reflection, but excitement is of
the moment when there is no time to reflect. Action can only be expressed by
a subject, a verb and an object, perhaps a rhythm – little else. Even an
adjective slows the pace or tranquillises the nerve.
But back to The Comedians. Greene wrote about the book: The
Comedians, I am glad to say, touched Papa Doc on the raw. He attacked me
personally in Le Matin, the paper he owned in Port au Prince – the only
review I have ever received from a head of state. ‘Le livre n’est pas bien
ecrit. Comme l’oeuvre d’un ecrivain et d’un journaliste, le livre n’a aucune
valeur.’
When people tell me that journalism is the wrong profession for a would-be
writer I mention that one or two didn’t do too badly: Greene, Hemingway,
Steinbeck, Forsyth. . .
A fitting tribute to a BBC legend
ALONG my bookshelves are three long rows on sport: mostly, but not all,
about cricket, golf and boxing. At one time it was fashionable to look down
on scribes who covered the antics of flannelled fools and muddied oafs, but
the best stand comparison with anything written in the English language.
The latest addition to my shelves will be Jim – The Life of E.W.
Swanton by David Rayvern Allen. For years Jim was known to millions
through his cricket reports in the Daily Telegraph and to viewers and
listeners to the BBC with his Test match summaries. He had two great
qualities: a clear mind and an ability to express himself fluently (and
forcibly if necessary) on any given subject.
He was, according to his detractors, a snob, arrogant, pompous and even a
coward. To others he was a Christian, a good friend in bad weather and very
good company.
One of his detractors was John Arlott who, upon being told that Swanton had
published some eight million words on cricket replied: “and not a memorable
sentence among them.”
Arlott was later to modify his opinion and they found themselves on the same
side in opposing apartheid and supporting the cause of Basil D’Oliveira as
an England cricketer.
Allen’s biography is an excellent book and I was close enough to many of the
people mentioned to vouch for its accuracy. Pity about the spelling of bone
fide (sic). That would have sent Jim beresk, as they say in the Guardian.
Now look heah, he would have trumpeted. If you had a proof reader who
knew any basic Latin . . . quite right Jim.
Quite right.
Jim - The Life of E. W. Swanton
by David Rayvern Allen is published by Aurum Press at £20. ISBN
1-854-10-900-6.
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