Greene, Graham. Graham Greene. A Life in Letters. Editor Greene, Richard, Alfred A. Knopf, 2007.
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Graham Greene
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Standard Name: Greene, Graham
Birth Name: Henry Graham Greene
An English novelist of exceptional energy, Graham Greene
built a career spanning a dozen genres—most notably more than twenty novels or thrillers, as well as short stories, film reviews, travel books, plays, screenplays, and autobiography. Many of his novels wrestle with issues of belief. His personal correspondence included thousands of letters, and for much of his life he reported as a spy to the British Secret Intelligence Service
. His restlessness drew him to dangerous places, adulterous relationships, self-harm, and a belief, infusing his pages, that a focus on squalor makes for an honest portrayal of the world.
Connections
| Connections Sort descending | Author name | Excerpt |
|---|---|---|
| Literary responses | Muriel Spark | This novel was chosen a Book Society
recommendation (of which between six and ten were selected per month); it was not the choice of the month, since the panel felt it was too morbid—deeply... |
| Literary responses | Patricia Highsmith | Reviews were mixed. Both the New Statesman and the Times Literary Supplement were highly critical, the latter going so far as to call the book a depressingly . . . mechanical exercise in self-pastiche, employing... |
| Literary responses | Muriel Spark | Graham Greene
wrote to tell Spark that this was her best book since Memento Mori (as he was to do with several later titles as well). |
| Literary responses | Patricia Highsmith | Graham Greene
's foreword observes that this story is hard to beat for pure physical horror, an effect rare in PH
's work. qtd. in Wilson, Andrew Norman. Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith. Bloomsbury, 2003. 267 |
| Literary responses | Muriel Spark | Graham Greene
offered the same accolade as for her previous novel, recognizing its disappointing reception with: What fools the reviewers have been. Greene, Graham. Graham Greene. A Life in Letters. Editor Greene, Richard, Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. 317 |
| Literary responses | Patricia Highsmith | She has been better appreciated in Britain than her native USA, and perhaps better in Europe than in Britain. Frank Richards
wrote that she made a life's work of her ostracisation from the American... |
| Literary responses | Muriel Spark | Frank Kermode
, reviewing this novel in The Listener, commented that the great pleasures offered by this writer are contingent upon our being willing to work harder than usual. qtd. in Page, Norman. Muriel Spark. Macmillan, 1990. 119 |
| Literary responses | Elizabeth Jane Howard | Arthur Koestler
described this, before publication, as a cross between Nancy Mitford
and Evelyn Waugh
. When EJH
told him she was having trouble finishing it, he said she had finished it, and written beyond... |
| Literary responses | Muriel Spark | Her friend Graham Greene
hastened to offer his usual compliment of best-since-Memento Mori—this time after reading only the first three pages. Greene, Graham. Graham Greene. A Life in Letters. Editor Greene, Richard, Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. 399 |
| Literary responses | Pat Barker | Reviewer Lara Feigel
found that PB
's allusions to actual, historical people (Paul sharing sentiments, his place of work, the circumstances of his falling in love, with Graham Greene
; Elinor owing something to Elizabeth Bowen |
| Literary responses | Violet Trefusis | Graham Greene
observed that this novel's style was rather consciously spangled with felicities. qtd. in Holroyd, Michael. “A Tale of Three Novels”. London Review of Books, Vol. 32 , No. 3, 11 Feb. 2010, pp. 31-2. 31 Holroyd, Michael. “A Tale of Three Novels”. London Review of Books, Vol. 32 , No. 3, 11 Feb. 2010, pp. 31-2. 31 |
| Literary responses | Dorothy L. Sayers | Within Sayers's lifetime she had become a figure of controversy on account of the element of Christian partisanship in her non-fictional works. In The Emperor's Clothes, 1953, Kathleen Nott
bracketed Sayers with T. S. Eliot |
| Literary responses | Kathleen Raine | Graham Greene
responded to this book with what he called an enthusiastic if ignorant howl. Though he had already seen and admired some of her poems, he wrote, he had not realised the quantity of... |
| Literary responses | Marjorie Bowen | MB
was admired in her own day by others who prided themselves on the popular touch in their writing: Mark Twain
, Walter de la Mare
, Compton Mackenzie
, and Hugh Walpole
, who... |
| Literary responses | Shelagh Delaney | The play provoked controversy for its matter-of-fact treatment of illegitimate pregnancy, miscegenation, and (male) homosexuality. Some critics admired its freshness and grit, while others found it disgusting and self-indulgent. All agreed that it would have... |
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