Transcription
Hello everyone. This is a video on a late modernist, Graham Greene. All of us know Graham Greene; always in exams, Graham Greene is a sure short question. Graham Greene was born in 1904 and he lived up to 1991. Wow, so near our time, isn't it? Until now, we were talking about writers who passed away long before us, but Graham Greene passed away only in 1991. We nearly met him.
Hannah Graham Greene was a novelist, short story writer, playwright, and very severe critic. Did you know he attacked, in his criticism, Shirley Temple? Shirley Temple, the beautiful little child actress. Shirley Temple is alluded to in *Bluest*. I remember, actually, Temple. He attacked her because she is, uh, you know, coquettish—it seems, you know, at attracting men. He attacked her very severely.
Anyway, Graham Greene's most famous novel, as you might know, is *The Power and the Glory*. It is one of his Catholic novels, but he has written a lot of other novels. Many of his novels are spying novels—international espionage, etc. I will tell you. Don't worry. Graham Greene traveled—okay, he traveled to Liberia and wrought and wrote the book *Journey Without Maps*. Then he traveled to Mexico; he wrote the book *Lawless Rhodes*, and this book, *Lawless Rhodes*, became the model for his novel *The Power and the Glory*. Graham Greene was baptized Anglican, but he became an atheist, and then he converted to Roman Catholicism. That is when he wrote his Catholic novels towards the end of his career. All right. Catholicism and philosophy is one kind of novels that he wrote; another kind of novels is international politics and espionage. He was a late modernist. There are many modernist elements in D.H. Lawrence. High modernism stressed formal experimentation. Formal experimentation. Graham Greene was not, in exactly, a high modernist. Some of the high modernist techniques and tendencies he rejected.
Okay, are you ready to talk about Graham Greene's novels? *The Man Within*, a 1929 novel, is his first novel. *The Man Within* is a historical thriller. I told you now he wrote many historical thriller kind of novels, international novels set in other countries. Then there is a 1932 novel, same here as *Brave New World*, uh, called *Tumble Train*. *Istanbul Train* is where he caricatured J.B. Priestley, and he got into trouble because J.B. Priestley, I think, went to, um, court against him or something. Then it is *A Battlefield*. It is one of the political novels dealing with political issues. *England Made Me*, a 1935 novel, *England Made Me* is subtitled *The Shipwrecked*. I'm going to bring out a new edition of the third volume of the encyclopedia. All these books that I have given briefly here, I'm going to expand, because Graham Greene is a very great major writer. But in case you have got the first edition, don't worry, because already there is a lot of detail here. So many things are here; you just have to do a little bit of extra reading. Otherwise, wait for the second edition. So *England Made Me*. Did you know it is set in Stockholm, Sweden? Stockholm, that is where it is set. Protagonist Anthony is an anti-hero. Okay. And then other thrillers came. *A Gun for Sale* is about the anti-hero Raven. The protagonist is the anti-hero Raven. *The Confidential Agent* is about a man who is going on a secret mission to buy something from another country. His name—even his name is not revealed. His name is D, secret real name. We won't tell you. And it's a thriller. He is going on a secret political mission; that is the theme. *Loser Takes All*. Another novel, *The Quiet American*. *The Quiet American*, did you know, is set in Vietnam. So international novel, set in many different countries, political thrillers. *Our Man in Havana* is set in Cuba, and that is another thriller. These thrillers are not always prescribed in universities, but protagonist name, etc., you might be required to know. Okay. And then came his Catholic novels. Traditionally, the Catholic novels are prescribed in universities. All four of them: *Brighton Rock*, *The Power and the Glory*, *The Heart of the Matter*, *The End of the Affair*. These are the four Catholic novels.
*Brighton Rock* is an explicitly Catholic novel where a gangster's life is represented and how the gangster's life, you know, connects with his Catholicism. Pinky Brown is a gangster, and Pinky Brown, his friends, do some crime; they kill a man, and he wants to cover it up. There is one waitress, Rose, who is the witness. He tries to seduce her; she becomes his girlfriend so that he will be able to silence her, and he wants to kill her, but he doesn't get to; he finally, he dies. He himself dies. That is the story of *Brighton Rock*. The title *Brighton Rock* refers to a confectionery, a sweet.
Then the next novel is very important: *The Power and the Glory*. *The Power and the Glory* is set in the state of Tabasco in Mexico, uh, in Mexico. There is some incident that is happening; the Catholics are all being hunted by the communist government. The communists are against the Catholics; they are trying to destroy the Catholics, and the main character is a nameless whiskey priest. He's a drunkard; he's not a good Catholic; he's not a good priest, but he won't leave his religion. Many other people in Catholic—Catholics in Tabasco at that time either converted to lame, you know, lay jobs; priests became ordinary men; they pretended to give up their religion. Our whiskey priest, even though he is not a great Catholic, he does not betray his religion, and he's pursued by a communist, uh, bureaucrat, the lieutenant, or the lieutenant. So the left hand is standing for communism; the whiskey priest is standing for Catholicism. Both are like, uh, controlled by their beliefs and finally betrayed by a mestizo. The whiskey priest is caught by the lieutenant, but by then, after this long pursuit, we feel like there is no enemy and there is no pursuer, and what can I say? There is no victim and victimizer; they are one and the same, uh, the lieutenant or lieutenant and whiskey priest are like the same person. They feel a sympathy for each other at the end; they become almost like friends, even though whiskey priest is going to die. And then, uh, this is a novel that shows socialism and, uh, modern—modern societies' believes—the flimsy foundations on which the modern society is built. It is a modernist novel. *The Power and the Glory*, 1940 year it was publication. The next is *The Heart of the Matter*, 1948. *The Heart of the Matter* is the story of Henry Scobie, a police officer. He is in a West Indian British colony. He is having a little problem in his relationship with his wife. He has a mistress; he is taking money on loan from some shady people, and he is doing some wrong things that Catholicism does not accept. Apparently, he is a bad Catholic, but it is suggested in the novel that there is no such thing as a bad Catholic. He is also a good Catholic, you know. It is human, uh, what matters is not the rules of Catholicism; what matters is the human being. So that kind of an unconventional approach to religion you can find in *The Heart of the Matter*.
Then came *The End of the Affair*. *The End of the Affair*, a 1951 novel, is the last of the Catholic novels. It is a very interesting novel. Henry Miles and Sarah Miles are husband and wife. Sarah Miles had a relationship with Maurice Bendricks, and for some unknown reason, suddenly Sarah left Maurice Bendricks. Maurice is heartbroken, and he is feeling cheated and indignant. And then Maurice is trying to find out why Sarah Miles left him, and the revelation is shocking. He never expected that. Do you want me to give you a spoiler and tell you the story? Maurice Bendricks and Sarah had once been in a house that was bombed in the war. In the bombing, Maurice Bendricks almost lost his life. You know what happened at that time? Sarah prayed to God and promised God that if he comes to life, I will leave him. And Maurice Bendricks comes back to life; Sarah leaves him because of that. And now Sarah is dying of a deadly disease. Maurice doesn't know that. Finally, in the last days of Sarah's life, Maurice and her husband, Henry, both take care of her. That is *The End of the Affair*. It is a very interesting novel, and there is a Hollywood movie, uh, based on this novel. Have you watched it? You can post the title of the movie in the chat box.
Okay, there are more novels I want to tell you about. Are you ready, guys? Like all the other novels that we talked about, these later novels I'm going to talk about are also about people committed to some cause, like Catholicism, against people who are not committed. So commitment to a cause, to a religion, to a belief—that is a theme in all these novels. Like I told you, I am going to expand this section in the encyclopedia. I have already made the draft. Let me give you some points from my draft. It's all here in my phone. *A Burnt-Out Case* came in 1961. It is set in Belgian Congo, in a leper colony. Query—Q-U-E-R-R-Y—*Query* is a famous architect who is not feeling any more pleasure in life. He is arriving in this leper colony, and when he is treating, or when he is being kind to the lepers in the colony, when he is helping them, the disease of his mind gets cured. So the disease of the body and the disease of the mind. How committed he is, isn't it? The committed versus the uncommitted—that is a major theme in Graham Greene: people committed to some cause or some ideology against those who are not committed. Then in 1966 came *The Comedians*. It is set in Haiti. Haiti is another place. I told you his novels are set in different, different places. *The Quiet American* is set in Vietnam; *The Heart of the Matter* is set in a West Indian colony; *A Burnt-Out Case* is set in Belgian Congo; and *The Comedians* is now set in Haiti. It is about the rule of Papa Doc, one man who rules Haiti. It is the ruler of Haiti, Papa Doc, and the secret police—all these are featured—featured in *The Comedians*. So political repression. The protagonist is a hotel owner called Brown. Okay. *The Honorary Consul* is set in the Argentina-Paraguay border. *The Honorary Consul* is set in Argentina-Paraguay border, and it is about a young boy. The protagonist is a young boy, uh, and, uh, *The Human Factor* is set in the London underworld of spies. Morris Castle, an aging bureaucrat, is the protagonist. *The Human Factor* came in 1978. Like all of the political novels of Greene, there is an interplay of international politics and the individual's life: international politics vis-à-vis individuals' life. Then, uh, Greene has also written two autobiographies: *A Sort of Life* and *Ways of Escape*. *A Sort of Life* covers the early part of his life. Here also he talks about Catholicism and also other themes like class, existential issues, etc. *Ways of Escape* is an unconventional autobiography, and it is about his life as well as his work—both his life and work; that distinction is blurred between the two. That is how he has written. Shirley Temple was attacked by Graham Greene, and, uh, you know, his books are very influential and very popular. It would be great if you do extra reading. There are many, uh, exams where his books are prescribed. So happy reading, guys. This is, uh, the late modernist Graham Greene, and I will be back with more videos. Until then, bye-bye.