Talk:Graham Greene/Archive 1

Most important Graham Greene
Isn't the writer important enough that he should have the main page? This seems to be excessive disambiguation to me. Even in the damned internet movie database the author Graham Greene shows up first. john k 07:47, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * This was moved to just Graham Greene a while ago.

The Tenth Man
What about The Tenth Man (1985)? Why is it not included in his list of novels? I have to read it for english class AND write a paper on it. It would be helpful if there were SOME information!
 * The Tenth Man novel is now in the list, and has its own page.

Expand article
I have to admit alot more could be said about Graham Greene than provided. I mean, he's was one of the 20th century's most prolific writers. No other writer also wrote over such a long period of time. He wrote of the 30th century and its moral and political dilemmas, and he even foreshadowed the Vietnam war to a certain extent with The Quiet American. Someone must add to this article.

Yes, i agree with what you say but not everyone is happy with his wrtings and not everyone sees him like you do.! -User: turkish Historian
 * This is an old comment (2004) and the article has become much more detailed since then.

Finishing touches?
I should like to draw attention to the ending of the "Final Years" section, and its lack of a final sentence. As of February 9, 2006, it reads thus:

"One of his final works, J'Accuse - The Dark Side of Nice, (1982), concerns a legal matter that he and Insert non-formatted text here"

I would make the necessary changes but I am unqualified to write about Greene.


 * It seems like there this paragraph got lost in an anonymous edit; I've put it back. Arg 18:56, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Trivia?
Graham Greene's work is cited in the movie Donnie Darko http://imdb.com/title/tt0246578/

Error re: The Quiet American
The Author is incorrect in the assertion that the book The Quiet American was a critique of US policy in Vietnam. The Quiet American was published in 1955, and is set several years earlier, long before significant U.S. involvement in that country. The novel is set during the hopeless attempts of the French to hang onto Viet Nam while fighting the Viet Minh forces led by Ho Chi Minh. The American character in the novel probably represents the 'typically American' attitude that every problem has a solution, and that a third way can be found between the colonialism of the French and the totalitarianism of Ho Chi Minh. The novel seems to conclude that no third way exists, and that one must make a choice rather between two pretty awful choices. The American's crime (and it is understood that he has the best intentions) is really to try to find a way out of the awful dillemma.

Subsequent events make the novel look pretty prescient and the recent movie version changed the plotline to make the American culpable rather than naive. But it is wrong to state (after all that later happened) that the novel was written as a critique of US policy.

Ken Harvey203.47.220.10 23:42, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

-This completely depends upon your 'reading' of Greene and his subsequent novels' protagonists, and indeed subsidiary characters. Greene's preoccupation with                                   Englishness does give us Fowler under the Byronic model, and to that end is he not the lead in this novel? His process of engagement with Pyle is a very 'English' way of approaching things - whereas Pyle's is very hands-on, very 'American'. This suggests, what with the quintessentially English Fowler in tow, that Pyle is his ostensibly American counterpart. The 'reading' that would follow [be it post-colonial, or post-modern, or even queer theory] would point out that there is an obvious political element to this novel, be it a power struggle (post-colonial) [American vs English vs Vietnamese], an political identity struggle (post-modern) [Fowler as 'engagé', no more] or even a question of sexual politics (queer theory)[who is more of a 'man', Fowler or Pyle?] - and to suggest that it is a critique of American foreign policy now is entirely in line with a post-modern interpretation of fiction at that time.

And after all, wasn't Greene a forerunner to post-modern writing? DaveofDundee 14:44, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

No, he wasn't really postmodern (though I love both postmodern fiction and Greene's work). Forget postmodernism, he was in fact pretty hostile to much of modernist fiction, particularly Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, yet he also had high praise for Marcel Proust and even Vladimir Nabokov (who is often considered an important early "postmodern" writer). And I have to disagree with the person above. US involvement in Vietnam began in the late 40's, well before Green wrote The Quiet American and his novel was written during the time the CIA was funding alternative forces against the communists led by Ho Chi Minh, in fact not long before Dien Bien Phu. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.255.203.224 (talk) 14:04, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Bipolar disorder
I've mentioned Greene's bipolar disorder in the intro: it's as crucial to understanding the man and his work as his Catholicism. His editor described hime as "[...] a man of strong appetites; often made utterly unmanageable by bipolar illness." As Greene himself wrote in a letter to Vivien, "Unfortunately, the disease is also one's material." -- 80.168.224.244 02:17, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I've not encountered this particular description of Greene's mental health. Of course, it makes sense in light of his own comments in Sort of Life, but I'm curious where you got this from. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bdiemert (talk • contribs) 20:36, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Is it a good idea to describe a psychological disorder as a fact in an encyclopedia? Such diagnoses change names (bipolar used to be called Manic Depression), and sometimes disappear. I think it would be best to describe the things he suffered from in his own words, if possible. I am going to delete this, though feel free to write it up again without the psychological terminology unless he used such terminology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tbbarnard (talk • contribs) 16:12, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * And who exactly, if ever, diagnosed him with bipolar disorder? Any reliable source about that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.17.52.26 (talk) 15:07, 25 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It's hardly a secret. Nick Cooper (talk) 16:03, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Picture
It was a little jarring to see a photograph of the American actor Graham Greene on the English author's page, so I remove it. Anyone have a real picture? 151.196.137.62 (talk) 03:03, 14 August 2008 (UTC)Clair

There was such a picture until, well, yesterday, when someone uploaded the other picture on top of it. I've returned the original picture. The other Graham Greene will have to fend for himself for the moment. john k (talk) 04:56, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Cause of death
What did he die of? Nietzsche 2 (talk) 03:45, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Bi-polar fads
How can you call this biography of Graham Greene a neutral biography when you include the description of his emotional state as a bi-polar disorder? Justify this with evidence!

The person who wrote this somehow needs, for his or her own sake, to mention the issue of bi-polar. There is no hard science to prove such a disorder and there are many scientists and psychiatrists who don't accept the label. The label diminishes the person charged with it, in some cases. Or, in some cases, it presents an excuse for unconventional behavior.

Please remove the label of of you have any claim to neutrality.It seems you want to make the whole world bi-polar so you can normalize it. Is your motto, who is to say what's normal? The problem is that bi-polar is bandied about and seems to describe a myriad of personality types. Just because they can be clustered under one label does not make it a disease. All it means is that it great sales can be made with mind-altering drugs like prozac which are prescribed for life! This is a horrible shame and should not be promoted.

I don't think you have the right to diagnose Graham Greene posthumously. You can suggest that he may have had it, but not declare it as fact. Otherwise you are promoting your own values upon the readership, which cannot be called neutrality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gladysili (talk • contribs) 22:25, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Whoa, nellie! I can see one person who maybe should try Prozac! 03:58, 18 June 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spindlebeast (talk • contribs)

Copyright problem
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Graham Greene runner-up for Nobel prize in 1961
Every 50 years, the Nobel committee opens its decision archives. This year it is opened for 1961; it was revealed that Graham Greene was the runner-up to win the Nobel. It went instead to Ivo Andrić. Greene was that close to being a Nobel winner.Source in Swedish Green Cardamom (talk) 16:12, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Expansion?
I'd really welcome a section on Greene's work in literary criticism. I know he was the first prominent reviewer of Lolita and this had an impact on its future publication. Anyone have any knowledge of this part of his career? 63.143.233.12 (talk) 21:43, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Catholicism
His being Catholic is mentioned prominently in the introduction and his conversion is (somewhat sketchily) described in the first paragraph of "Early Career", but the second paragraph of "Marriage, Family and Dissolution" strongly implies that his conversion was specious, prompted solely to allow his marriage to Vivien. That isn't consistent with other statements in the article such as "Catholic religious themes are at the root of much of his writing, especially the four major Catholic novels ..." PerryGrind (talk) 13:27, 13 October 2013 (UTC)PerryGrind

Daily Mail article references
There are a number of passages in this page which reference a rather lurid article on Greene from the Daily Mail (which dubs him "The High Priest of Darkness"). Aside from the dubiously neutral tone of that article, most of the material which references it is inserted into the page in an awkward and disorganized way. For example, the section "Marriage, family and dissolution" relies entirely upon the Daily Mail piece, and is immediately followed by another accounting of Greene's marriage to Vivien Dayrell-Browning and other relationships at the beginning of the "Early Career" section. If the Daily Mail piece is to be used as a source at all (which I think is open to debate - better at least to directly reference Greene's letters which the Daily Mail article purports to get its facts from), then this material should at least be worked into the page in a way that makes sense, without being redundant and contradictory. 98.102.201.226 (talk) 17:22, 16 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Coincidentally (or perhaps not), I came here directly after reading the lurid article in question, which I found fairly disgusting. It's obviously a hatchet job (and it happens to misohomosexualist and bigoted in various other ways as well--generally repellent). After that unsavory bit of reading, this Wikipedia article proved to be to me fairly refreshing. I don't how much it might have changed since the above comment, but I did notice toward the end one particular quote from the Daily Mail article that I think should be expunged, and here it is: "Once he had achieved his object and his wife was pregnant, he broke his marriage vows and became a serial adulterer with at least 47 prostitutes whose identities are known and with dozens more who remain unknown". Does the writer really know for sure Greene's "object"? Who counted the "prostitutes", especially the "unknown" ones? However much literal truth there may be to the remainder of the quote, virtually all of it is phrased in a highly slanted manner. I'm removing the sentence for now. Before putting it back, please state your reasoning here. Thank you. TheScotch (talk) 11:51, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Relationship with Catherine Walston
"Greene had an affair between 1946 and 1957 with Catherine Walston, the wife of Harry Walston, a wealthy farmer and future life peer.[60] The relationship is understood to inform the writing of The End of the Affair, published in 1957, when the affair came to an end.[61][62]"

This doesn't tally with the mention elsewhere that she was his partner till 1966. It needs to be checked. Harfarhs (talk) 19:54, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Most citations lack page numbers
It's a shame that someone--or maybe more than one person--did all this work but left out the page numbers for most citations. That job is available for anyone who wants to take on the heroic challenge of finding those numbers. N. Bolkonsky (talk) 05:23, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

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Libel Action against Graham Greene
Shirley Temple and Twentieth Century-Fox sued Graham Greene for libel and won. The settlement remained in trust for Temple in England until she turned twenty-one, at which time it was used to build a youth center in England.

On 29 March 1938, 20th Century Fox was awarded £3,500 in a trial for civil libel brought against British novelist Graham Greene, who was judged to have written an extremely suggestive and defamatory review of Wee Willie Winkie for the magazine Night and Day. He had written. "The owners of a child star are like leaseholders&mdash;their property diminishes in value every year. Time's chariot is at their back; before them acres of anonymity. Miss Shirley Temple's case, though, has a peculiar interest: infancy is her disguise, her appeal is more secret and more adult. Already two years ago she was a fancy little piece (real childhood, I think, went out after The Littlest Rebel). In Captain January she wore trousers with the mature suggestiveness of a Dietrich: her neat and well-developed rump twisted in the tap-dance: her eyes had a sidelong searching coquetry. Now in Wee Willie Winkie, wearing short kilts, she is completely totsy. Watch her swaggering stride across the Indian barrack-square: hear the gasp of excited expectation from her antique audience when the sergeant's palm is raised: watch the way she measures a man with agile studio eyes, with dimpled depravity. Adult emotions of love and grief glissade across the mask of childhood, a childhood that is only skin-deep. It is clever, but it cannot last. Her admirers&mdash;middle-aged men and clergymen&mdash;respond to her dubious coquetry, to the sight of her well-shaped and desirable little body, packed with enormous vitality, only because the safety curtain of story and dialogue drops between their intelligence and their desire."

There are numerous videos on YouTube showcasing the ill-treatment that Shirley Temple received while a child star in Hollywood ('Shirley Temple and the disturbing history of Baby Burlesk', is one example). Also watch some of her film clips and see the level of immodesty and sexual innuendo. In retrospect, was Graham Greene correct in his assessment? 192.40.24.4 (talk) 15:30, 23 August 2017 (UTC)Shandafurdie

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Nobel Prize
Hello!

Why there is no category caled 'Nominated for Nobel Prize in Literature', so that we can easily find who were nominates but not winners. Cheese! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Srnodol (talk • contribs) 19:21, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

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Papa Doc
the wording here is ambiguous: it suggests Papa Doc Duvalier was already in power when Greene visited Hiaiti for the first time in 1954. This is not the case: Duvalier became president in 1957 TheRealDeacon (talk) 18:14, 26 August 2022 (UTC)