grahame greene

IdleRich

IdleRich
which of these should i read next?
The Heart of the Matter is my favourite of his books. The Comedians was also one of the ones I enjoyed the most but I read it when I was very young, so much so that I cannot remember any details...

Although one thing suddenly came to me, I remember my mum taking me out of school to go to the dentist (must have broken a tooth) and the dentist saw me carrying The Comedians and we had a conversation about how GG was his favourite author.

Not exactly an earth shattering story but it's interesting that it popped into my head from nowhere like that, haven't thought of that guy for years but that incident must have been stored pointlessly in my memory, lurking, ready to pounce if I thought about that book.

I think The Human Factor is good too, in fact my opinion is precisely the same as that of @jenks in that the only inferior GG I have read was Travels With My Aunt... it was fine, but wasn't what I wanted from him. I don't think I read any of his other light-hearted ones.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Joking aside, I very much like GG as an author, perhaps he's not a Great writer, certainly he is a small writer, close in, details, not big statements. But, for me, Heart of The Matter is his best, it's the one I'd go if someone asked me why they should read Grahame Greene
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Joking aside, I very much like GG as an author, perhaps he's not a Great writer, certainly he is a small writer, close in, details, not big statements. But, for me, Heart of The Matter is his best, it's the one I'd go if someone asked me why they should read Grahame Greene

Did you write this before or after the cactus sliced open your ear?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
The cactus incident was about eight or nine hours later... turns out my friends like to watch the sunrise by some artificial lake out in the countryside and they decided to drive there at some point. I was a bit confused and I got into the car with them under the misapprehension that they were giving me a lift back to Lisbon. Think I fell asleep in the car maybe, there are certainly a few hours missing somewhere... woke up maybe 9am by this lake, got out for a leak behind this gigantic cactus and it bit me on the ear, was surprisingly nasty, there was blood everywhere, both hands dyed red.
 

woops

is not like other people
The cactus incident was about eight or nine hours later... turns out my friends like to watch the sunrise by some artificial lake out in the countryside and they decided to drive there at some point. I was a bit confused and I got into the car with them under the misapprehension that they were giving me a lift back to Lisbon. Think I fell asleep in the car maybe, there are certainly a few hours missing somewhere... woke up maybe 9am by this lake, got out for a leak behind this gigantic cactus and it bit me on the ear, was surprisingly nasty, there was blood everywhere, both hands dyed red.
I've had a hard week too rich...
 
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luka

Well-known member
i like how lies are taken to be unavoidable, part of how you get tangled in the human condition, which is a mean and shabby private thing
everyone with their own mean set of lies to maintain. most of the love affairs seem to be based on lies, the marriages are based on the lie
that they still love each other, the infidelities are of course dependent on lies, the secret service spy stuff traps people in the
incommunicable privacy and interiority of lies. people lie to protect peoples feelings and get trapped in worse lies. lies are the
basic fact of life and the reason for it being so miserable. on the other hand, you can always have a drink in these books. if youre
not pouring one out for yourself regardless of the time of day someone else is offering you one. or you are in a hotel with the sea
stretched out in front of you and the bougainvillea in bloom
 

luka

Well-known member
there is a self sacrificing aspect to these lies, they are very often martyrs lies, or justified to the self in that way, the characters take on the sadness of the world by the lies they tell to protect other people, or for duty
 

luka

Well-known member
the banality of the phrases saddened him: they seemed to have no truth personal to herself: they had been used to often. If I were young, he thought, I would be able to find the right words, the new words, but all of this has happened to me before. He wrote again I love you, forgive me.
 

luka

Well-known member
i like that. it captures something real about how individuals fade and all that remains is the reptition of events, each time a little more shop-faded, and little harder to beleive in. and so we commit ourselves less, beleiving in it less
 

luka

Well-known member
seduction becomes routine. sex becomes routine. the words of intimacy and comfort become routine. and we abstract ourselves from them and stand a little further behind them each time
 

luka

Well-known member
the novel, to me, is fundamentally an adult form and about disillusionment. that is how i have always thought about it. poetry on the other hand is always about the first time. this is why rilke says writing a poem is always about becoming a beginner again
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Yeah very much so (re self sacrifice)... I seem to recall people doing difficult and nasty things that they don't want to do for some kind of vaguely envisaged greater good that they don't understand and which has no relation to what they do anyway. Unnecessarily ruining their lives basically cos they somehow feel they ought.
 

catalog

Well-known member
i like how lies are taken to be unavoidable, part of how you get tangled in the human condition, which is a mean and shabby private thing
everyone with their own mean set of lies to maintain. most of the love affairs seem to be based on lies, the marriages are based on the lie
that they still love each other, the infidelities are of course dependent on lies, the secret service spy stuff traps people in the
incommunicable privacy and interiority of lies. people lie to protect peoples feelings and get trapped in worse lies. lies are the
basic fact of life and the reason for it being so miserable. on the other hand, you can always have a drink in these books. if youre
not pouring one out for yourself regardless of the time of day someone else is offering you one. or you are in a hotel with the sea
stretched out in front of you and the bougainvillea in bloom
sounds like end of empire sort of stuff. like jg ballard's parents in shanghai.
 
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