I dislike very much the title 'best selling author,' which is more applicable to Harold Robbins
October 3, 2004 7:45 AM Subscribe
Forever Greene. One hundred years after
Graham Greene’s birth, the literary mosaic of books like
Our Man in Havana and
Brighton Rock is still riveting. But the author "carried anguish” with him: a moralist and, therefore, controversial, Greene’s clearly-worded works of suspenseful, or ethical ambivalence, border on a delicate balance — of both gloom and salvation. His novels are
replete with a sense of foreboding, and scrutinise self-deception, sin, failure. George Orwell sneered that Greene thinks "there is something rather distingué in being damned;
Hell is a sort of high-class nightclub, entry to which is reserved for Catholics only".
And what remains is also, of course, the --
de riguer --
problem of the
biographies:
caring father,
fervent brothelgoer,
helluva guy?
Anyway, among the institutions celebrating Greene's centenary: the
British Library, the
Barbican Centre (scroll down the page).
And the Guardian just re-printed "
The funeral of Graham Greene", reported in the Guardian, April 9 1991.
(more inside, with Shirley Temple)
posted by matteo (15 comments total)
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Since Graham was such a careful writer, he hardly needed editing in the conventional sense of the word. Most of my work consisted of placating him, and although we were friends, I was not spared an occasional sharp rap on the knuckles. A message complaining about flap copy read, "I hate the word 'stunning.' " He added, "I also dislike very much the title 'best selling author,' which is more applicable to Harold Robbins." When I made the mistake of informing him of grandiose plans the company had for a paperback advertising campaign, this was his comment: "They filled me with dismay. Thank God I don't live in the United States." On refusing a series of proposed interviews: "Sorry, but save me from Michiko Kakutani!" Sometimes an outburst was downright curmudgeonly. After we sent him a harmless list of questions from Simon & Schuster's libel lawyer, he had his secretary write me a note dismissing the questions as "complete nonsense," and he added a sharp warning that if we were afraid to publish his book we should let his agent know, so that she could find him a more courageous American publisher. No matter was too small to claim his attention, whether it was getting the exact shade of red for the English telephone booth (later removed altogether) on the dust jacket of "The Human Factor" or the need to respond to William F. Buckley, Jr.,'s allegation that Graham had said "America" was the word he hated most in the English language: "A complete lie," Graham wrote to me. He was outraged not only by misprints in his own books but also by misprints in other Simon & Schuster books.
_______________
Movie trivia:
Twentieth Century Fox sued him for his attacks on Shirley Temple
posted by matteo at 7:48 AM on October 3, 2004