Before I get on to reviewing my recently finished book I have to mention an absolutely fantastic exhibition at the British Library. On Saturday my best friend Becky and I went down to London for the day and apart from some Meanderthaling and eating some seriously scrumptious Greek food we also went to see an exhibition at the British Library. The exhibition is called: Out of this world. Science Fiction but not as you know it, and it is absolutely BRILLIANT!!! We spent about 4 hours in the Library and I am thinking of writing them a letter to see if they will let me live in their basement and cuddle some books.
The exhibition was about Science Fiction throughout the ages and dealt with various aspects of the genre: alien worlds, future worlds, parallel worlds, virtual worlds, the end of the world and if we can ever create the perfect world. It gave us examples of each genre and the god thing was that they had the books open in some cases so you could read a bit of what was on the pages. The little bits of text to accompany the books were good and for once I my life actually read 99% of them. Usually I like to skip some of the explanations but in this case I was so engrossed with the subject that I wanted to read it all.
The exhibition is on until the 25th of September so get yourself down there!!!!
If nothing else going to this exhibition has definitely given me some new ideas on what books I want to read in the future.. whatever that future looks like.
Not only is the exhibition brilliant the room with Treasures of the British Library is well worth a visit as well. They have some of the most beautiful manuscripts out on display and it is a joy to look at them. You end up marveling at the skill involved in making them and wondering how they managed to preserve them for all this time. In a way it is strange to see that we still have some of these old books when nowadays books are everywhere in great quantities and, in many cases are considered almost a disposable object (depending on the edition you buy). Nobody cares too much if they leave a book on the train. Books are relatively cheap (and yet at times still to dear for us mainly second hand book buyers) and readily available and you know you can just get a new one whenever you want. I am pretty sure the illuminated manuscripts on display in the British Library have never been left on a train. They would not even have left the monastery, palace or the lord of the manor's library and were probably locked away from prying eyes most of the time. Anyway.. on with the show.
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Graham Greene, A life in Letters - Richard Greene (Ed.)
I bought this one when I went to a lecture by David Crystal during the Graham Green Festival in Berkhamstead back in 2009. I had heard of the festival by some weird quirk of fate. I am a fan of the actor Vincent D'Onofrio. He has made a short movie called Five Minutes Mr Welles which is set during the shooting of The Third Man and deals with Orson Welles' fear to tackle his part, his struggle to do justice to the book and yet keep his creative freedom in interpreting what Greene had put down on the page. I read on a D'Onofrio fansite that the short was going to be shown at this festival in England, looked into it and found that it was in Berkhamstead (only 20 mins or so by train from where I live). So I decided to see if I could get a ticket go and see it. Turns out that The Third Man was the central theme of the festival in 2009 and there were a number of other interesting lectures and events as well. So, I went to see the movie and the next day went along to mr Crystal's lecture on the use of language and accents in Graham Greene (apparently having n accent does not bode well for your life span as a Graham Green character) and browsed round the various Graham Greene books on sale in the room. I had not read that much of Graham Greene at that time but remembered him from my Uni days and was interested in hat the man was like. Usually letters can tell you a good deal about a person as they are very.. well.. personal.
It is kind of hard to review a book of letters. You cannot really say that a particular letter was well written of good, or had a good plot. I guess I can really only judge it by the enjoyment factor and I really did enjoy reading this book! Once again I did not read the introduction to the book so if there was anything useful in it I'm sorry I missed it. I did not really know a lot about GG's private life to begin and that was probably a good thing. Sometimes the less you know, the more you will understand. I definitely understand more about the man behind the books now. I had to crack a smile when in I read the first letter in the book. It is one written by Graham at the age of sixteen going in a trip with his Aunt and visiting her husband who owned a coffee business in Brazil. Well that solves the problem of how Travels with My Aunt came about.
The image that I get from GG is one of a man who struggles with various things during his life. His passion for women, his love for more than one woman and his faith as a Catholic. He tries to come to terms with all of these with a varying degree of success. His marriage to Vivienne does not strike me as a particularly happy one (he seems almost happy to be separated from he due to the Second WW when she moves away from London but he stays behind). His earlier affairs seem to be a mix of lust and love and it is not until the end of his life that he finds his balance and a relationship (with a married woman) that gives him the anchor in the storm that he needs.
Greene also strikes me as a loyal friend and one who will give his honest opinion whenever he can. His letter to Evelyn Waugh are a joy to read and you can tell that he respected him immensely. It is also good to see that his sense of humour comes across the same way in his letters as it does in his books. He has a cynicism to him that you see reflected in the characters he paints in his books.
He also seems to be fond of an adventure or two and is eager to explore new worlds and new experiences. Perhaps because he knows it will enrich his world and imagination so he can use that in future books. It was great to read of how all his travels helped him find the inspiration for his books and how combinations of people he met helped create the characters we love in his books. He literally went all over the place to find his inspiration: Africa, South America, Cuba and even Brighton.
Some of the letters are to his fellow authors, some to his family and lovers some to regular, average Joe people who wrote to him telling him of their experiences reading his books or asking him questions on how to resolve their own dilemmas. He deals with them all in a very sincere way and never seems to put people down or get the better of them. He does some time put people in their place and is not afraid to let critics know what he thinks of them, or even his fellow authors. One letter in particular to Mervyn Peake about his manuscript for Titus Groan can be classified as harsh but fair and Peak seems to have taken Greene's comments to heart.
The book has given me more of an insight into who Graham Green was. I understand more of him and can see how he struggled with various issues in his life and how he used his novels as a way to explore how he felt about life as it went on. I look forward to reading more of his books and seeing if I can find some of the things he talks about in his letters in the story on the pages and between the lines of them.
Well worth the read if you want to know more about the man behind the books!!
Title: Graham Greene. A life in Letters.
Author: Richard Greene (Ed.)
432 pages
Little, Brown
ISBN nr 978-0-3167-2793-8
Books to be read: 69
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