Henry Graham Greene, OM (October 2, 1904- April 3, 1991) was a prolific English novelist, playwright, short story writer and critic whose works explore the ambiguities of modern man and ambivalent moral or political issues in a contemporary setting. Greene was born in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, the fourth of six children. He went to Balliol College, Oxford, and his first work (a volume of poetry) was published in 1925. After graduation, Greene took up a career in journalism, firstly in Nottingham (a city which recurs in his novels as an epitome of mean provincial life), and then as a subeditor on The Times.
Greene's first published novel was Stamboul Train in 1932- as with several of his subsequent books, this was also adapted as a film (Orient Express, 1934).
His income from novels was supplemented by freelance journalism, including book and film reviews for The Spectator, and co-editing the magazine Night and Day.
His fiction was originally divided into two genres: thrillers or mystery/suspense books, such as The Power and The Glory, on which his reputation was thought to be based.
Greene's novels are written in a contemporary, realistic style, often featuring characters troubled by self-doubt and living in seedy or rootless circumstances. The doubts were often of a religious nature, echoing the author's ambiguous attitude to Catholicism.
Throughout his life, Greene was obsessed with travelling far from his native England, to what he called the "wild and remote" places of the world. His travels provided him with opportunities to engage in espionage on behalf of the United Kingdom (in Sierra Leone during the Second World War, for example). Greene had been recruited to MI6 by the notorious double agent Kim Philby. He reworked the colorful and exciting characters and places he encountered into the fabric of his novels. A 1938 trip to Mexico to see the effects of a campaign of forced anti-Catholic secularisation was funded by the Roman Catholic Church. This resulted in the factual Power and the Glory, often considered to be Greene's finest novel. Ironically, the novel was condemned by the Vatican in 1953.
In the last years of his life, Greene lived in the small resort city of Vevey, on Lake Geneva in Switzerland. In 1981 he was awarded the Jerusalem Prize, given to writers concerned with 'the freedom of the individual in society'. One of his final works, J'Accuse-The Dark Side of Nice, (1982), concerns a legal matter that he and his family were embroiled in while he lived in Nice. This led to a libel case in France, which he lost. On his death in 1991 at the age of 86, he was interred in the nearby cemetery in Corsier-sur-Vevey.
A Sense of Reality by Graham Greene
A Sense of Reality is a collection of short stories by Graham Greene, first published in 1963. The book is composed of three short stories and a novella, Under the Garden. These stories share a marked change of style from Greene’s usual format, with the author talking about dreams, false memories and imagination. There are some elements of fantasy and some larger-than-life matters.
Under the Garden
A man afflicted with cancer returns to his old country home to relive a fantasy involving treasure he had experienced in his childhood. WW has been told by his doctor of the cancer that has afflicted him. WW was not one for easy settlement – a vagabond bachelor who wandered all over the world and has only his elder brother as family. He decides to visit the family estate that has now passed on to his brother and revisit his childhood memories.
WW remarks about how his brother had a very different and rather material temperament which they never mutually met in character. It still seems that the visit will explore the relation more in the context of WW imminent death. Instead the visit is a failure as WW’s brother never seems to come out of his material and worldly worries.
WW remembers a childhood episode when he had escaped from the house to spend some time in his secret getaway – an island on the pond that was part of the estate. WW was impacted by the incident and he writes about it in his school magazine. Revisiting the story and the reality is jarring as he still feels its impact but reacts differently to it compared to how he felt about it then.
As a child, WW had conjured up an imaginary world below the island with a ruling King and his consort. The tale ends with a promise by WW that he will go searching for the King’s daughter all over the world. WW thinks that possibly this childhood imagination is the Freudian explanation for his never quite ‘settling down’ and always giving into wanderlust.
A Visit to Morin
This is a story where a man meets an old author, Morin whose books had impressed him in his young age. In the present moment, it turns out that the author has none of those earlier beliefs and the two debate about it over drinks. This schoolboy was very influenced by Morin, who inspired him a lot during his youth and gets to meet the writer, now past his prime, only to discover his feet of clay and shifting beliefs. Maybe the past is not always relieved even by the loudest of speakers?
Many reviewers have suggested that this story is semi-autobiographical as one can think of Morin as Greene, since they have written rather similarly about religion and faith. Towards the end of his life Greene had been disillusioned, but still believed in God.
Dream of a Strange Land
A skilled doctor who is now retired is confronted with the need to follow the law of the land. In characteristic irony he lays it down thick and fast to a hapless clerk who is weak and craven. However the doctor finds him acquiescing when he has to deal with an unlawful entertainment request from the ‘power-that-be’. The meek shall not inherit the Earth at least not in this strange land. With very Biblical themes in the story, there is a sense of morality and the fight between the powerful and the meek ones.
A Discovery in The Woods
In an idyllic village that is in the valley by the sea, the protagonist is playing the leader of a gang of some kids including a spirited girl. The search for blackberries allows them to venture beyond the known limits of their village to discover an extraordinary world. They come across something fantastic – a gigantic ship pierced by a rock cliff with some of its secret treasures and the pure skeleton of what appears to be a giant to them – at 6 feet too. The girl seems to be most affected by it as she laments the lost world as the other kids ,not much affected ,start their arduous journey towards their home.
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