Graham Greene was born on October 2nd,
1904 in England. He graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with a degree in
history. While at college, Greene suffered from depression and bipolar disorder and had several
suicide attempts by playing Russian roulette. He later got into journalism
where he met his future wife, Vivien Dayrell-Browning. Vivien was a Catholic
convert and she had written in to correct him on a point of Catholic doctrine. At
this time, he was an agnostic, but having fallen for Vivien, he decided to
explore the Catholic faith. He converted to Catholicism in 1926. His conversion
was guided by a priest, Father Trollope. It was noted in Greene’s memoir, A
Sort of Life, that he had thoughts of joining the priesthood himself. His
conversion, however, was motivated by a potential marriage to Vivien, so
obviously this did not pan out. Consequently, many of his novels have priests
in them (The Power and the Glory).
Graham describes his pull to conversion
to Catholicism in his memoir as coming about when he was walking his dog past a
church that
“’possessed for me a certain gloomy
power because it represented the inconceivable and the incredible. Inside,
there was a wooden box for inquiries and I dropped into it a note asking for
instruction.[…] I had no intention of being received into the church. For such
a thing to happen I would need to be convinced of its truth and that was not
even a remote possibility.’”
Clearly, at this time his agnostic
beliefs did not coincide with the Catholic faith. After arguing with Father
Trollope about the existence of God, he came to a conclusion coinciding with
the Catholic faith. He said,
“'I can only remember that in
January1926 I became convinced of the probable existence of something we call
God, though I now dislike the word with all its anthropomorphic associations.'”
After being baptized for the first
time, he reports,"'I remember very clearly the nature of my emotion as I walked
away from the Cathedral: there was no joy in it at all, only a somber apprehension.'”
Despite his conversion to
Catholicism and marriage to Vivien shortly after, in 1948, he and Vivien
separated. By the 1950’s he was no longer practicing Catholicism, but as he
continued to get older, he started practicing the faith again. He died in 1991
from leukemia.
Graham
gained popularity with the release of his 4th book, Stamboul Train,
in 1932. After his conversion to
Catholicism, he traveled to Mexico and documented/observed religious
persecution there, which served as inspiration for The Power and The Glory.
Introduction by John Updike in the Penguin Classics version of The Power and the Glory
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ReplyDeleteI really liked Graham Greene as an author. He was definitely hard to follow at times since he was such a minimalist when it came to writing, but his writing was enjoyable to read. I personally love reading non-fiction and tend to like fiction significantly less because it seems too unrealistic. But because Greene based the story off of an actual event, and his own personal experiences as a journalist, he held my attention quite well.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading a few more novels, I think Graham Green has been my favorite so far. I also think his reading is very enjoyable. I often judge books by how many interesting quotes I can pull out that still make sense/hold meaning out of context and there were plenty in "The Power and The Glory." A few of my favorites: It is one of the strange discoveries a man can make that life, however you lead it, contains moments of exhilaration; there are always comparisons which can be made with worse times: even in danger and misery the pendulum swings.", "The argument of danger only applies to those who live in relative safety.", and "When you visualized a man or woman carefully, you could always begin to feel pity-that was a quality God's image carried with it. When you saw the lines at the corners of the eyes, the shape of the mouth, how the hair grew, it was impossible to hate. Hate was a failure of imagination."
ReplyDeleteI don't know if anybody found this in their research, but I think it's hilarious that he was exiled to Mexico because of his thoughts on Shirley Temple movie. He wrote that she was attracted to by priests and older gentlemen alike. Something that I find ridiculous to be exiled for, but funny that it was because of Shirley Temple.
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