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General informationContents I. About Graham Greene 4 Biography .4 Writing style . .. ..5
II. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene .. .8 Comprehension quiz . 8 Assignments for Further Analysis 10
III. The End of the Affair, the director Neil Jordan (1999) ... 12 Pre-watching Tasks ... ...12 Comprehension quiz . 13 Assignments for Further Analysis 14 Keys to Comprehension Quiz
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14 BIOGRAPHY General information 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. Although Greene objected strongly to being described as a mere "Catholic novelist", his religion informs most of his novels, and many of his best works (e.g. Brighton Rock, The Heart of the Matter, The Power and the Glory) are explicitly Roman Catholic in content and preoccupations. 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 (by the end of his life he seems to have lost his faith, but still considered himself a Catholic). Unlike other "Catholic writers" such as Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Burgess, Greene's politics were essentially left-leaning, though some biographers believe politics mattered little to him. In his later years he was a strong critic of what he saw as American imperialism, and he supported the Cuban leader Fidel Castro, whom he had met. Travel "There is so much weariness and disappointment in travel that people have to open up in railway trains, over a fire, on the decks of steamers, and in the palm courts of hotels on a rainy day. They have to pass the time somehow, and they can pass it only with themselves. Like the characters in Chekhov they have no reserves you learn the most intimate secrets. You get an impression of a world peopled by eccentrics, of odd professions, almost incredible stupidities, and, to balance them, amazing endurances" (Graham Greene, The Lawless Roads, 1939). Biography task 1: Find some interesting facts about Greene, exposing his personality. If you dont find any, comment on the following information: 1. J.B. Priestley, at the time, when Greenes novel Stamboul Train was published was a much bigger fish than Greene, alleged that one of the characters, a writer called Q. C. Savory in this book, was a defamatory representation of himself and sued Greene for that matter. By the way, later on in Going Solo, the second volume of his highly entertaining autobiography, published in 1986, Roald Dahl drolly recounts the tale of a journey to Africa by ship in which a fellow passenger was so sensitive about his baldness that he carried a secret selection of wigs of different lengths, to simulate the effects of normal hair growth, while he sprinkled epsom salts on his jacket to look like dandruff. The funniest part of the anecdote is that this person's name was UN Savory (unsavory means distasteful, disgusting), according to Dahl, who adds: "I could hardly believe those initials when I first saw them on his trunk." Some claim Dahl had borrowed this name from Greene. 2. Graham Greene said about his writing habit: I write five hundred words a day after my breakfast... You see I have a daemon where others have a talent. Mind you I envy them their talent... You cannot conceive how much I suffer when I write. I have to force myself day after day to sit down pen in hand and I struggle for expression... Such a daily agony and the result five hundred words a day. A very small catch. Date: 2015-02-03; view: 769
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