Graham Greene - great novelist, spy, Catholic, traveller, depressive.

Norman Sherry's biography, 

1996

Graham Greene  (1904-1991) was one of 6 children born to Charles Greene, head­master of classy Berkham­sted School in Herts, and Marion. He had a large, influent­ial family who were brewers, bankers and busin­ess­men. He was a sensitive, shy child who often skipped classes to avoid class­mates’ bullying. His only pleasure came from be­ing an avid reader, finding solitude in reading. But these escap­es from classes provoked his father’s anger and made the young lad suicidal.

Greene hated Berkhamsted Boarding School and ran away, leaving a letter for his parents. Eventually they had to send him to intense th­er­apy for 6 months in London. Greene actually found psych­o­analysis to be very helpful with his depression, and remained fascinated by dreams for ever. So it was appropriate that the psychoanalyst encouraged Greene to write, introd­ucing him to his own literary friends. Greene began to write poetry, mentored by Ezra Pound (1885–1972) and Gertrude Stein (1874–1946).

He studied at Balliol College Oxford where he published stories, art­icles, reviews & poems in the student magazine, Ox­ford Out­look. Greene spent a short time in the University Communist Party and though he abandoned the tough­er Communist beliefs, Greene later wrote symp­at­h­etic profiles of Communist leaders.

After he graduated from Oxford in 1925, Greene worked as a journ­alist in Nottingham and in 1926, he con­verted to Catholicism. While working there, he received a letter from Vivien Dayrell-Browning who had written to him and corrected him about Cath­olic doctrine. Greene was int­rigued and they began corresponding. He moved to London that same year, working as a film critic and a literary editor in both The London Times and The Spect­at­or. 

In 1927, Greene and Vivien were both married but Greene always acknow­ledged that he was not a family man. Nonetheless the couple had Lucy (1933) and Francis (1936). Greene continued having affairs for the rest of his life, with married women in dif­ferent countries. The couple separated in 1948 but never divorced.

Greene’s exper­ience on newspapers was successful, and he held his position as an assistant editor until the publication of his first novel, The Man Within (1929). Only then did he begin to devote more time to his own writ­ing, and did freelance jobs on the side.

Greene then wrote the first book he classed as “enter­tainment”. Stam­boul Train (1932) was a thrill­ing and popular spy novel that examined travellers on a train, a mysterious setting that allowed the author to develop his characters with suspense. Al­though somewhat dis­missed by critics, the book’s real success was seen when it was adapted into the film, Orient Express, in 1934.

Green travelled to Liberia in 1935, which had a large impact on his world­view and inspired him to write his famous travel­ogues. On go­ing home again in 1936, Greene returned to the Spectator as a film critic. His characters faced rampant cynicism, tackling harsh and squalid lives in hot, humid count­ries eg Vietnam, Haiti.

In 1938 Brighton Rock was published, becoming one of Greene's best loved murder thrillers. Long after Greene converted to Cath­ol­icism, this novel was a suspenseful plot full of sexual and violent imag­ery that ex­plored the moral­ity-immorality connection.

In 1938 the Catholic Church funded Greene's trip to Mexico, asking him to record the effects of a forced anti-Catholic campaign ag­ainst secularis­ation. The author documented wide­spread pers­ecut­ion of Catholic priests in his journal, including a priest's execut­ion. The incident made such an impres­sion on Greene that the victim became the hero of The Power and the Glory (1940), his best novel, yet condemned by the Vatican.

In 1939 Greene wanted to enlist in WW2 but was too old. So he went to West Africa as a secret British intelligence officer ins­tead. Double agent Kim Philby recruited Greene to work for MI6; he joined the Secret Serv­ice and worked for the Min­is­try of Information. This stint in espionage fueled Greene's desire to tr­avel again to the wild, remote places of the world, and prov­id­ed him with mem­orable characters. Post-war, he continued to trav­el as a free-lance journalist, spending a long period on the French Riviera. 

 1939

 1940

1950

Biographer Norman Sherry discovered Greene had continued to submit reports to British intelligence for decades. When Philby defected to Moscow, Greene supported him. He wrote an intro­d­uction to Phil­by’s memoirs in which he depicted Philby’s treason with sym­pathy, sugg­esting that his devot­ion to Communism showed a high­er mor­ality than loyal­ty to his country. This led Greene's close friend, Evelyn Waugh, to write a letter support­ing Greene as a secret agent for Britain! And it led scholars to ask: Was Greene a novelist who was also a spy, or was his lifelong literary car­eer the perfect cover? Did Greene have the evidence he needed to make a solid judg­ment? Or was Greene being played by Philby? Read Sherry’s The Life of Graham Greene.

Greene travelled to Sierra Leone which inspired The Power and the Glory. Along with The Heart of the Matter (1948) and The End of the Affair (1951), Power and Glory comprised Greene's Catholic Trilogy.

Next he became director at Eyre and Spottis­woode Publishing House. During his time there, he wrote several screen­plays, the most fam­ous being The Third Man (1949). In the early 1950s, Greene took long trips to Malaya and Vietnam, setting perhaps his most notable work, The Quiet American (1955), in Vietnam.

Greene's political views were different from other Catholic writers eg Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Burgess. While they maintained a very right-winged agenda, Greene was always leftish and moral. Greene pursued anti-American analyses during his travels, opening doors to Com­munist leaders like Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh. Mor­al issues, pol­it­ics and religion, suspense and adven­t­­ure, be­came his trademark eg Our Man in Havana (1960)

In 1990 Greene was weakened by a blood disease so he moved from the South of France, to Vevey in Switz­erland, near his daught­er. In Apr 1991 he pass­ed away, at 86, and was buried at in Corseaux. 

What a talented family! Graham was a thrilling English novelist and literary critic. Brother Hugh was Director-General of the BBC, brother Raymond was an eminent physician and his cousin was author Robert Louis Stevenson.