Graham Greene
Page 36
Lots of love,
Graham.
P.S. The queen has a lot of wives!
‘She’ in Rider Haggard’s novel is a Rain Queen of the Lovedu – the rain queens had wives as a form of property and were required at the age of about sixty to drink a poison made from the entrails of a crocodile.
TO JOSEF SKVORECKY
Skvorecky kept Greene informed about the literary scene in Czechoslovakia and about individual writers such as Ladislav Fuks (1923–94). He often included in his letters grimly amusing anecdotes, including the story of Comrade Balasova, the director of Prague television, who enforced a strict dress-code which, among other things, required women employees to be checked for bras.
15 October 1973
Dear Skvorecky,
[…]
As usual your descriptions of the literary scene in your poor country fill me with a mixture of amusement and despair. I particularly like the story of the horse Fuks. Considering the situation I was rather surprised to receive a letter from my publisher Vysehrad asking whether they could publish The Honorary Consul on the same terms as they had published Travels with My Aunt. I said yes. Am I still regarded as a safe author in Czechoslovakia? I also received a letter from my Russian translator of the past saying that now Russia had joined the Berne Convention could he get the publishers to approach me about the new novel, and I replied that I had already made my situation clear and this was not altered by any adhesion to the Berne Convention. As long as the situation of the dissident writers in Russia remained what it was I was not going to sign any contract for any book to be published in Russia. Am I wrong not to take up a similar attitude with Czechoslovakia? Other so-called democratic republics continue to publish my books – Rumania and Poland. I’ve done nothing in the case of Czechoslovakia because one feels that all the governments are acting under the tutelage of Big Brother, and it’s only Big Brother that one should take the firm line with. I would like your opinion about all this.
Your description of Comrade Balasova amused me enormously. I wish you would allow me to write that I had received the story from a friend in Czechoslovakia and send it to The Times, naturally with quotation marks. Perhaps however this would somehow get back to its source. I do think that farce is the best way of attacking these people.45
I liked Allende very much and I liked the type of communists who were around him who belong much more to the school of Dubcek than to Moscow, and I was horrified but not surprised by the putsch.46 It’s an odd thing to be able to say that about two years ago one was at a lunch party – not a very big lunch party – of men only, of whom three have now died by violence. This was in Santiago and the dead men are Allende, his naval attaché Captain Araya47 and his Minister of Finance at that moment Vuskovic48 with whom I visited one of the taken-over factories and whom I liked very much. Another member of the lunch party is now in exile in France and two others I have no news of and may have been executed. The Chile affair was horribly efficient and far more murderous than the Prague putsch. But perhaps in the long run it was less corrupting. If there is anything I can do for your friend from Chile do let me know – not that I have influence with anyone on the right or the left.
Yours ever,
Graham Greene
TO ERIC QUAYLE
Eric Quayle, an expert on children’s literature, sent Graham a copy of his Collector’s Book of Boy’s Stories (1973).
130 Boulevard Malesherbes, | Paris 17. | 6 December 1973 Dear Quayle,
A thousand thanks for the handsome Collector’s Book of Boys’ Stories. I have never collected them in a big way myself, although when I had more space49 in England I used to collect the boys’ stories which had had what I thought a formative influence on me! I am sorry for that reason you have rather scamped Captain Gilson! I must have read The Pirate Aeroplane50 a dozen times and it had some effect on a book of mine called England Made Me. I look too in vain for Jack Harkaway,51 though that was a later discovery. I had dealings at one time with Captain Gilson’s son (a drop-out) who was arrested by the French police at Lyons and he told me fascinating stories about ‘Herbert Strang’ who were friends of his father. I can’t remember which of the collaborators was an alcoholic and worse.52 I suspect that a lot of these boys’ writers led most extraordinary lives and I suggest you do a book on the oddities among them. Again many thanks.
Yours ever,
Graham Greene
TO R. K. NARAYAN
La Résidence des Fleurs, | Avenue Pasteur, | 06 Antibes. | 23 March 1974
Dear Narayan,
Marshall Best53 sent me the proof of My Days and I’ve read the book with enormous pleasure. I almost begin to believe in horoscopes! We are both Libra, we both write novels, we have both published an autobiography, and both our fathers were headmasters. One can even see a parallel between us when we both left college and were trying unsuccessfully to settle down to a job.
I was fascinated by your adventures with the Prime Minister (of Mysore: Sir Mirza Ismail). Would it be possible for me somehow to buy a copy of your Mysore? I want to add it to the collection of your books on my shelves.54
With all my affection,
Graham
TO FRANCIS STEEGMULLER AND SHIRLEY HAZZARD
The journalist Bernard Levin (1928–2004) wrote in The Times (31 May 1974) that while President Nixon might be guilty of all that he was accused of in the Watergate scandal and so be unfit for office, many of his pursuers in the liberal establishment were motivated by desire to undo the election of 1972 and ‘shove that landslide back up the mountain’.
La Résidence des Fleurs, | Avenue Pasteur, | 06 Antibes. | May 31 [1974]
Dear Francis & Shirley,
Forgive the address on the envelope. I have no other.
Certainly you have seen this piece absurd even for barrow-boy Bernard. It doesn’t merit a reply in words, but haven’t you some friend in Washington who would collaborate with a plausible address perhaps for a reply in a telegram?
‘The President has much appreciated the stand you have taken in the London Times of May 31 & he would like to invite you to be the guest of the government in Washington on June 15–22. During that week the President will be making an important statement off the record. A room has been booked for you at… Hotel. Only if you are unable to be present please reply to … White House.’
You can draft this much better than I can. My experience in life assures me that the big lie always comes off & the barrow-boy will turn up in Washington.
Our love to you both from rainy Antibes.
Graham.
TO MICHAEL KORDA
130 Boulevard Malesherbes, | Paris 17. | 24 June 1974
Dear Michael,
[…]
I’ve finished the first complete draft of my ghosting book – An Impossible Woman: The Memoirs of Doctor Elisabeth Moor of Capri. I don’t know whether you will be in the market for it? It’s a curious book, not like many others. Based on tape recordings translated from German into English and then altered again to suit the Dottoressa’s very individual style, plus large insertions by myself in her style, plus an epilogue by myself, you may find it a bit of a ragbag. Old Elisabeth is a bit of a combination of Chaucer’s Good Wife of Bath and Mrs Bloom. She lost her last lover at the age of 70 and is now approaching 90. Her last feeling was that she didn’t want the book published while she was alive, but I suspect she will outlive all of us and I think she might be open to persuasion. Max and Polak of Zsolnay have the world rights. Anyway by September I may have something to show you.
Affectionately,
Graham
Korda declined the manuscript, which was published in America by the Viking Press.
TO MURIEL SPARK
La Résidence des Fleurs, | Avenue Pasteur, | 06 Antibes. | Dec. 17 [1974]
Dear Muriel,
I’ve just received The Abbess55 with an undignified crow of delight. Thank you so much. I’ve been bookstarved by the postal strike & here’s 2 hours –
no, an hour & a half – of pleasure before Christmas drops its melancholy pall. Don’t make your books any shorter, please, or you’ll disappear like Beckett.
Love,
Graham
I receive news of you from the Steegmullers. Why don’t you come & see us all in Capri?
TO RAYMOND GREENE
In 1975, Raymond was suffering from throat cancer, requiring treatment with radioactive gold pellets, then cryogenic therapy, to get rid of tissue that would not heal.56
La Résidence des Fleurs, | Avenue Pasteur, | 06600 Antibes | Jan. 30 [1975]
Dear Raymond,
I was so very sorry to hear from Elisabeth that you had to go back to hospital – by an odd coincidence I dreamed of you very vividly that night & woke worried & meant to write. It seems so awful that you now have to face yet another season of pain. I pray – literally – that this one will be shorter & you’ll feel the progression. You are the real heart of the Greene family & we have always depended on you more than you know.
Don’t bother to answer this. I wish I were in London & not so far away.
Love
Graham
TO MARIO SOLDATI
La Résidence des Fleurs, | Avenue Pasteur, | 06600 Antibes | March 2157
Dear Mario,
Thank you so much for The Malacca Cane (you had given it me in Italian & I didn’t know it had appeared in English). It’s come at the best moment because no books are being published & I am being driven to reread Proust – with less pleasure than 20 years ago & some impatience.
We long to see you.
Love,
Graham
TO ANITA BJÖRK
La Résidence des Fleurs, | Avenue Pasteur, | 06600 Antibes. | [31 December 1975]
You are quite wrong. I’ve never tried to avoid seeing you – I would love to see you. But you are most of the time in Stockholm. I am most of the time – say 8/12ths – in Antibes. I go to London for a week perhaps four times a year, to Paris for a week perhaps six times, & in the summer – which was when you came here – I go away – for three years to South America, another year to South Africa – because this flat is impossible to live in during the summer because of the noise. So it is that the odds are all against us being within reach at the same time. But avoid seeing you – never. Whenever I’m in Paris – that is to say the colder North – I drink Swedish akvavit out of the little silver beaker you gave me & always with thoughts of you.
Love,
Graham
TO ELISABETH DENNYS (NÉE GREENE)
Ritz Hotel, | London | June 1 [no year]
Dear Elisabeth,
My plans for June remain rather uncertain – but I think I will be burying myself in Brighton* to fight through a writer’s block, & an American professor wouldn’t help, especially one who brackets me with the Murdoch & the Amis whom I consider two of the worst novelists of the period! I’d love to see you – but somehow Biles of Georgia58 – I doubt if it would be advisable. Love, Graham
* Royal Albion from the 14th.
TO MURIEL SPARK
La Résidence des Fleurs, | Avenue Pasteur, | 06600 Antibes | Aug. 2 [1976]
Dear Muriel,
I got your book yesterday & finished it avidly today. The reason I didn’t get it earlier was because I was driving 3,500 kilometres in Spain in a tiny Renault with a priest & a student & two large boxes of wine. Now my back aches – but your book was good for it. Beware though of the whos & whoms & whiches – first sentence on p.217!59
Affectionately,
Graham
1 Greene attempted to organise a mass resignation. See p. 308.
2 In Travels with My Aunt (1968) a Czech manufacturer of plastics offers Henry Pulling two million drinking straws for free (188).
3 Auberon Waugh was then the Spectator’s political correspondent. He wrote extensively against Britain’s moral and material support of the Nigerian government in the Biafran war. In 1970 he campaigned on this issue in the Bridgwater by-election but withdrew in favour of the Liberal candidate. (Information from Alexander Waugh.) He and Graham Greene, along with Muriel Spark and V. S. Naipaul, signed a letter of protest published in The Times (13 November 1968).
4 In a review of Philby’s My Silent War and Hugh Trevor-Roper’s The Philby Affair, Charles Stuart recalled that Greene at SIS had discouraged conversation ‘by rebarbative silence and repulsive demeanour’. (Spectator, 27 September 1968)
5 These novellas were not published in English until 1977 when a Canadian firm, Anson-Cartwright, in which Greene’s niece Louise Dennys (b. 1948) was a partner, put out an edition. Dennys remained Skvorecky’s publisher for a number of years in her new firm, Lester & Orpen Dennys.
6 Greene’s trip was complicated by Skvorecky’s being unexpectedly granted permission to leave the country. He sent his friend Jarmila Emmerova to the airport with a letter explaining the situation. She helped Graham through the early part of his visit, and he gave her what she supposes was a gift intended for Skvorecky’s wife, three bottles of Chanel No. 5 (e-mail from Emmerova to RG, 13 March 2006).
7 Father Jean-Claude Bajeux, who was working with Haitian refugees. ‘Duvalier had killed his family and he was not talkative on our border trip.’ (Bernard Diederich, e-mail to RG, 29 January 2006.)
8 The Ortolan (1967). The play was written in 1951 and had recently been revived. Its subject, the lot of the woman artist in northern Sweden, limited its appeal.
9 Rosemary’s Baby (1968), a horror film directed by Roman Polanski and starring Mia Farrow.
10 Yours etc, 141–5.
11 The Poet allen Ginsberg (1926–97) had visited Prague in the mid-1960s. He and Skvorecky had a series of adventures until Ginsberg was expelled from the country by the police (Josef Skvorecky, e-mail to RG, 6 February 2006).
12 Ian Thomson, ‘Our Man in Tallinn’, Articles of Faith, 165–79.
13 In his letter of 16 October, Leslie remarked that Budberg’s brothel no longer existed but had become a chemist’s shop by his time.
14 The text of this telegram is taken from Korda’s article, ‘The Third Man’, New Yorker (25 March 1996), 48. The original may be archived with files from the literary agency ICM at a warehouse in New Jersey (information from Mitch Douglas).
15 Waugh specified these two points in his review (22 November 1969) as minor flaws in Travels with My Aunt. Otherwise, it was ‘a spanking good collection of short stories, portrait-sketches and funny happenings’.
16 Prebendary of St Paul’s and a devotional author.
17 Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906–2001), poet and philosopher who was the first president of Senegal.
18 Graham suffered from Depuytren’s contractures, which cause the fingers to stiffen. Readers of Patrick O’ Brian may recall that in The Hundred Days (1998) Stephen Maturin acquires, as an anatomical specimen, a hand afflicted with this rare condition; the sailors see it as a talisman and call it ‘the hand of glory’.
19 Jean-Felix Paschoud, Greene’s Swiss lawyer.
20 Victoria Ocampo was Greene’s South American publisher. They had first met in 1938 and were close friends.
21 In Capri.
22 Sir Hugh Greene was 6‘ 6; “Graham was 6’ 2”.
23 Graham dined at Gemma’s from the 1940s, and walked in her funeral procession in 1984 (Hazzard 34–5).
24 The Driver’s Seat (London: Macmillan, 1970).
25 Elisabeth Moor. See pp. 268 and 331–2.
26 Presumably the Canadian scholar Philip Stratford, a friend of Greene’s and an important critic of his works.
27 Apparently, her daughter.
28 An attempt had been made to overthrow General Alejandro Lanusse, the liberalising president of Argentina, while he was meeting Allende at Antofagasta (see Reflections, 275–6).
29 Saunders reminded him of an announcement Charles Greene had made: ‘“I have here a request from some boys who want to see the film “Tarzan of the Alps”,’ said Charles breathing over the note. Masters to right & l
eft & rear lean toward him and gratingly whisper, “Apes”.’
30 Arthur Mayo suffered terribly at Berkhamsted School. It was his daughter, Hilary Rost, a county councillor and governor of the school in the 1970s, who contacted Graham about A Sort of Life. She says that her father spoke of one master in particular who ‘would make the scholarship boys stand up, while he told the rest of the class that they must watch these characters carefully as their fathers were paying their fees and they should make sure that they were not wasting their money. They were verbally abused and most of the staff evidently condoned this. Graham Greene would make a point of coming up to my father after these sessions and would engage him in discussions about some academic subject, making it quite clear that he respected him and would have nothing to do with the invitation to bully’ (Letter to RG, 12 March 2006).
31 Saunders remembered Carter: ‘pale red hair, snake-like skull who curled the lip & distended the lip at the approach of buggy Saunders et al.’
32 Saunders noticed that Greene referred (152) to a meeting between David Copperfield and Mr Squeers, but Squeers actually appears in Nicholas Nickleby.
33 Saunders recalled Whitehead as no gentleman for having encouraged boys to sneak. Sunderland Taylor assigned the boys to parse and analyse The Rime of the Ancient Mariner while he read a detective story. ‘The Oily Duke’, later called ‘the Devil’, was a master named Rawes who did not suffer fools.
34 Not to Disturb.
35 Glenville.
36 Graham’s friend and neighbour in Antibes, R. Hudson-Smith.
37 Bernard Diederich, unpublished second volume of his history of modern Haiti.
38 ‘Memories of George Orwell’, in The World of George Orwell, ed. Miriam Gross (1971); the essay is incorporated into Meyer’s autobiography, Not Prince Hamlet (1989). Orwell’s letter disputes the assertion that Greene is a Catholic reactionary, and describes him instead as mildly left-wing with Communist Party leanings – an accurate description.