Editing Graham Greene (section)

== Writing style and themes ==
[[File:German book cover "Der stille Amerikaner" by Graham Greene, orig. "The Quiet American", 2nd edition 8 weeks after 1st edition, 1956.jpg|thumb|upright|Cover of the second German edition of ''The Quiet American'' (1956), claiming to be on sale only 8 weeks after the first edition, with the implication that the first is already sold out]]
Greene originally divided his fiction into two genres: [[thriller (genre)|thrillers]] ([[mystery (fiction)|mystery]] and [[suspense]] books), such as ''[[The Ministry of Fear]]'', which he described as entertainments, often with notable philosophic edges; and literary works, such as ''[[The Power and the Glory]]'', which he described as novels, on which he thought his literary reputation was to be based.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://books.guardian.co.uk/authors/author/0,,-78,00.html |title=Greene, Graham &#124; Authors &#124; guardian.co.uk Books |publisher=Books.guardian.co.uk |date=22 July 2008 |access-date=2 June 2010 |location=London}}</ref>

As his career lengthened, both Greene and his readers found the distinction between "entertainments" and "novels" to be less evident. The last book Greene termed an entertainment was ''[[Our Man in Havana]]'' in 1958. When ''[[Travels with My Aunt]]'' was published eleven years later, many reviewers noted that Greene had designated it a novel, even though, as a work decidedly comic in tone, it appeared closer to his last two entertainments, ''[[Loser Takes All]]'' and ''Our Man in Havana'', than to any of the novels. Greene, they speculated, seemed to have dropped the category of entertainment. This was soon confirmed. In the ''Collected Edition'' of Greene's works published in 22 volumes between 1970 and 1982, the distinction between novels and entertainments is no longer maintained. All are novels.

Greene was one of the more "cinematic" of twentieth-century writers; most of his novels and many of his plays and short stories have been [[:Category:Films based on works by Graham Greene|adapted for film or television]].<ref name="oxforddnb.com" /><ref name="caterson">{{cite web |url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/451551/index.html |title=Greene, Graham (1904-1991) |first=John|last=Caterson |work=[[Screenonline]] |access-date=15 May 2024}}</ref> The [[Internet Movie Database]] lists 66 titles between 1934 and 2010 based on Greene material. Some novels were filmed more than once, such as ''[[Brighton Rock (novel)|Brighton Rock]]'' in 1947 and 2011, ''[[The End of the Affair]]'' in 1955 and 1999, and ''[[The Quiet American]]'' in [[The Quiet American (1958 film)|1958]] and [[The Quiet American (2002 film)|2002]]. The 1936 thriller ''[[A Gun for Sale]]'' was filmed at least five times under different titles, notably ''[[This Gun for Hire]]'' in 1942. Greene received an [[Academy Award]] nomination for the screenplay for [[Carol Reed]]'s ''[[The Fallen Idol (film)|The Fallen Idol]]'' (1948),<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1950|title=The 22nd Academy Awards {{!}} 1950|website=www.oscars.org|date=3 October 2014 |language=en|access-date=2024-05-15}}</ref> adapted from his own short story ''The Basement Room''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/459908/index.html |title=Fallen Idol, The (1948) |first=Sergio|last=Angelini |work=[[Screenonline]] |access-date=15 May 2024}}</ref> He also wrote several original screenplays.<ref name="timesobit" /> In 1949, after writing the novella as "raw material", he wrote the screenplay for a classic [[film noir]], ''[[The Third Man]]'', also directed by Reed and featuring [[Orson Welles]].<ref name="oxforddnb.com" /><ref name="telly">{{Cite news |date=4 April 1991 |title=Obituary: Graham Greene |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |issue=42231 |page=21}}</ref> In 1983, ''[[The Honorary Consul]]'', published ten years earlier, was released as a [[The Honorary Consul (film)|film]] (under the title ''Beyond the Limit'' in some territories), starring [[Michael Caine]] and [[Richard Gere]].<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/30/movies/film-beyond-the-limit-from-graham-greene.html | work=[[The New York Times]] | title=Film: 'Beyond the Limit,' From Graham Greene | first=Vincent | last=Canby | author-link=Vincent Canby | date=30 September 1983 | access-date=13 September 2024}}</ref> Author and screenwriter [[Michael Korda]] contributed a foreword and introduction to this novel in a commemorative edition.

In 2009, ''[[The Strand Magazine]]'' began to publish in serial form a newly discovered Greene novel titled ''The Empty Chair''.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jul/09/grahamgreene-fiction | work=[[The Guardian]] | title=Lost Greene novel to be serialised in crime magazine | first=Alison | last=Flood | date=9 July 2009 | access-date=21 December 2024}}</ref> The manuscript was written in longhand when Greene was 22 and newly converted to Catholicism.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/books/15arts-NEWGRAHAMGRE_BRF.html | work=[[The New York Times]] | title='New' Graham Greene Mystery To Be Published | first=Charles | last=McGrath | date=14 July 2009 | access-date=21 December 2024}}</ref>

Greene's literary style was described by [[Evelyn Waugh]] in ''[[Commonweal (magazine)|Commonweal]]'' as "not a specifically literary style at all. The words are functional, devoid of sensuous attraction, of ancestry, and of independent life". Commenting on the lean prose and its readability, Richard Jones wrote in the ''[[Virginia Quarterly Review]]'' that "nothing deflects Greene from the main business of holding the reader's attention".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.vqronline.org/articles/1979/spring/jones-improbable-spy |title=The Improbable Spy |publisher=Vqronline.org |access-date=2 June 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081120100405/http://www.vqronline.org/articles/1979/spring/jones-improbable-spy/ |archive-date=20 November 2008 }}</ref> Greene's novels often have religious themes at their centre. In his literary criticism he attacked the [[Modernist literature|modernist]] writers [[Virginia Woolf]] and [[E. M. Forster]] for having lost the religious sense which, he argued, resulted in dull, superficial characters, who "wandered about like cardboard symbols through a world that is paper-thin".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.angelfire.com/journal/ggbtps/FrstThing.htm |title=First Things |publisher=Angelfire.com |date=9 October 2004 |access-date=2 June 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091111034929/http://www.angelfire.com/journal/ggbtps/FrstThing.htm |archive-date=11 November 2009 }}</ref> Only in recovering the religious element, the awareness of the drama of the struggle in the soul that carries the permanent consequence of salvation or damnation, and of the ultimate [[metaphysics|metaphysical]] realities of good and evil, sin and [[divine grace]], could the novel recover its dramatic power. Suffering and unhappiness are omnipresent in the world Greene depicts; and Catholicism is presented against a background of unvarying human evil, sin, and doubt. [[V. S. Pritchett]] praised Greene as the first English novelist since [[Henry James]] to present, and grapple with, the reality of evil.<ref name="Crisis">The Catholic Novels of Graham Greene, ''Crisis Magazine'', May 2005.</ref> Greene concentrated on portraying the characters' internal lives—their mental, emotional, and spiritual depths. His stories are often set in poor, hot and dusty tropical places such as Mexico, West Africa, Vietnam, Cuba, Haiti, and Argentina, which led to the coining of the expression "Greeneland" to describe such settings.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dur.ac.uk/postgraduate.english/AndrewPurssellArticle.htm |title=Regions of the Mind: The Exoticism of Greeneland |publisher=Dur.ac.uk |access-date=2 June 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090418193302/http://www.dur.ac.uk/postgraduate.english/AndrewPurssellArticle.htm |archive-date=18 April 2009  }}</ref>

{{Quote box
|quote  = A stranger with no shortage of calling cards: devout Catholic, lifelong adulterer, pulpy hack, canonical novelist; self-destructive, meticulously disciplined, deliriously romantic, bitterly cynical; moral relativist, strict theologian, salon communist, closet monarchist; civilized to a stuffy fault and louche to drugged-out distraction, anti-imperialist crusader and postcolonial parasite, self-excoriating and self-aggrandizing, to name just a few.
|source = ''[[The Nation]]'', describing the many facets of Graham Greene<ref>[http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090504/orange/single?rel=nofollow Not Easy Being Greene: Graham Greene's Letters] by Michelle Orange, ''[[The Nation]]'', 15 April 2009</ref>
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The novels often portray the dramatic struggles of the individual soul from a Catholic perspective. Greene was criticised for certain tendencies in an unorthodox direction—in the world, sin is omnipresent to the degree that the vigilant struggle to avoid sinful conduct is doomed to failure, hence not central to holiness. His friend and fellow Catholic Evelyn Waugh attacked that as a revival of the [[Quietism (Christian philosophy)|Quietist]] heresy. This aspect of his work also was criticised by the theologian [[Hans Urs von Balthasar]], as giving sin a mystique. Greene responded that constructing a vision of pure faith and goodness in the novel was beyond his talents. Praise of Greene from an orthodox Catholic point of view by Edward Short is in ''Crisis Magazine'',<ref name="Crisis" /> and a mainstream Catholic critique is presented by [[Joseph Pearce]].<ref name=Pearce />

Catholicism's prominence decreased in his later writings.{{sfn|Sinyard|2003|p=5}}{{efn|Asked in 1980 whether Fischer in ''[[Doctor Fischer of Geneva]]'' was evil, he replied, "The big Catholic verities like good and evil – you won't find these in my later work".<ref name="burgess" />}} The supernatural realities that haunted the earlier work declined and were replaced by a [[humanism|humanistic]] perspective, a change reflected in his public criticism of orthodox Catholic teaching.

In his later years, Greene was a strong critic of [[American imperialism]] and sympathised with the Cuban leader [[Fidel Castro]], whom he had met.<ref name="Kirjasto">{{cite web|url=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/greene.htm |title=Graham Greene |website=Books and Writers |first=Petri |last=Liukkonen |publisher=[[Kuusankoski]] Public Library |location=Finland |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050727074735/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/greene.htm |archive-date=27 July 2005 |url-status=dead  }}</ref><ref name="lebrecht">{{Cite news |date=1 April 1984 |title=The Greene Factor |first=Norman |last=Lebrecht |author-link=Norman Lebrecht |work=[[The Sunday Times]] |issue=8330 |pages=33–34}}</ref> Years before the [[Vietnam War]], he prophetically attacked the idealistic but arrogant beliefs of ''[[The Quiet American]]'', whose certainty in his own virtue kept him from seeing the disaster he inflicted on the Vietnamese.<ref>For Greene's views on politics, see also {{cite journal |first=Anthony |last=Burgess |author-link=Anthony Burgess |title=Politics in the Novels of Graham Greene |journal=Journal of Contemporary History |volume=2 |issue=2 |year=1967 |pages=93–99 |doi=10.1177/002200946700200208 |s2cid=153416421 }}</ref> In ''[[Ways of Escape]]'', reflecting on his Mexican trip, he complained that Mexico's government was insufficiently left-wing compared with Cuba's.<ref name="P.xii of John Updike">P.xii of John Updike's introduction to ''The Power and the Glory'' New York: Viking, 1990.</ref> In Greene's opinion, "Conservatism and Catholicism should be ... impossible bedfellows".<ref name="P.xii of John Updike" />

{{cquote|In human relationships, kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.|||Graham Greene}}

In May 1949, the ''[[New Statesman]]'' held a contest for parodies of Greene's writing style: he himself submitted an entry under the name "N. Wilkinson", and took second place. Greene's entry comprised the first two paragraphs of a novel, apparently set in Italy, ''The Stranger's Hand: An Entertainment''. Greene's friend, the film director [[Mario Soldati]], believed it had the makings of a suspense film about [[Yugoslavia|Yugoslav]] spies in postwar [[Venice]]. Upon Soldati's prompting, Greene continued writing the story as the basis for a film script.{{sfn|Parkinson|1995|p=623}}{{sfn|Sexton|2005|p=ix}} Apparently he lost interest in the project, leaving it as a substantial fragment that was published posthumously in ''The Graham Greene Film Reader'' (1993){{sfn|Parkinson|1995|pp=623-666}} and ''No Man's Land'' (2005).{{sfn|Sexton|2005|pp=55-103}} A script for ''[[The Stranger's Hand]]'' was written by [[Guy Elmes]] on the basis of Greene's unfinished story, and filmed by Soldati.{{sfn|Parkinson|1995|pp=623-624}}<ref name="caterson" />{{sfn|Sexton|2005|pp=xxiii-xxiv}} In 1965, Greene again entered a similar ''New Statesman'' competition pseudonymously, and won an honourable mention.