5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Weakest of the three volumes, August 26, 2005
This review is from: The Life of Graham Greene, Volume 3: 1956-1991 (Hardcover)
While Volume 3 of the Graham Greene Biography is interesting it is not as riveting as the first two volumes by Sherry. In the first two volumes (and especially in volume 2 which reads almost like a fantastic novel) the author Norman Sherry points all his guns on Greene in excellent thorough and succinct reportage. It makes for an enthralling read and some of the best biography I have read. Unfortunately in Volume three Sherry inserts himself into the biography even going so far as to include a picture of him on a donkey in a place where Greene once was. Such puffery only distracts from the subject at hand. Sherry in volume three goes to great lengths to let you know he has talked to important people in Greene's life. Even so far as to include interview excerpts between himself and these people. This creates a very jarring affect and interferes with the story telling. It is downright annoying. Sherry also ends up in these long circular arcs repeating material already covered in other volumes and revealing little new in the process. It remains an intriguing read especially if you have read volumes one and two. It is a real let down to see the final volume does not have the same high standards as the first two either because Sherry is taking himself more seriously than his topic or because he is an egomaniac. Still there is enough interesting about Greene to keep you turning the pages in this overwritten 800 plus page tome that could have received a good editing job.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Disappointing Conclusion to a Massive Life Lived Darkly, June 24, 2010
Having read the earlier two volumes and each of Greene's available published novels, I am sadly forced to say that the culmination of Sherry's massive three-volume series is both...far too long and not very interesting. Where was Sherry's editor? Clocking in at over 800 pages of primary text Vol. 3 is nearly 300 pages longer than the much better Vol. 2 and almost 100 pages longer than the slightly better Vol. 1. Given Greene's obsessive desire not to reveal his true self and his personal life to Sherry (his authorized official biographer), this volume breaks with the earlier two by being much more critical of Greene's life and willing to discuss the havoc he wrought on both his myriad lovers and their devastated families. Sherry was far too afraid of making Greene mad while he was still alive that he pulled his punches in Vol. 1. Then Sherry was too afraid of losing access to friends and family so he is still hesitant in Vol. 2. But finally with Vol. 3 his subject can no longer hurt or help him, neither can nearly all of the now deceased family and friends. Sherry does a great job pointing out how Greene's move to the left in the 1970s and 1980s was a direct result of no longer questioning some select few in authority and power. And Sherry is right to point out that the later Greene is one obsessed by good food, great wine, and a life of luxury. Greene the previously hardship enduring world traveler has become Greene the decadent aristocrat, one who hangs out with leftist thugs while advocating for the common man. Too bad Sherry then goes out of his way to put himself into the mind and life of Greene, after Sherry had already revealed in detail how Greene refused to let the biographer get to know his subject. For far too long in too many sections, Sherry the unsuccessful biographer becomes Sherry the literary critic who uses the works in lieu of biography.
This volume is nearly destroyed by the far too lengthy amount of direct quoting from Greene's novels and plays. Since Sherry was never able to pierce Greene's vail of secrecy, he wrongly concluded that he then could use the works themselves to supply information that Greene wouldn't. But who wants to wallow through page after page of text from novels and plays, when many a reader has already read the same and the savvy editor could've and should've pruned savagely the quoting.
The work also fails, as did the first two volumes, to the extent that Sherry relies far too heavily on Greene's redacted diaries and his letters. Whole sections are nothing more than quotations or allusions to quotes from Greene's letters. Sherry failed in his primary duty: get the subject to be open and honest, discussing his life in detail with the biographer. Having failed that, Sherry should've ruthlessly pointed out how Greene refused to participate in his own authorized biography.
A summary of the life: Greene was a horrible husband and father, a mediocre spy, a political gadfly out to tweak all sides, a good book editor/publisher, someone usually excessively loyal to most friends but sometimes shockingly disloyal to other friends, but a magnificent writer whose writings benefited greatly from his extensive travels, his reporter's eyes for details, and his unfailing ability to bring people and places to life.
Michael Sheldon's earlier one volume biography, while overly aggressive and hostile to Greene, is a far more interesting and lively read. One can only hope some aggressive editor creates a more readable abridged one volume life by Sherry that runs to say about 900 pages, about 300 from each of Sherry's three volumes. Now that would be far more readable and equally informative!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Maturity, July 6, 2009
This review is from: The Life of Graham Greene, Volume 3: 1956-1991 (Hardcover)
Graham Greene died in 1991. His writing career dated back to 1925. The introduction is about finding Greene: wars, politics, geography. He was adventurous and curious. His nature had variety. He was plagued by depressions. Greene moved from his father's school to Oxford. He was fastidious, sensitive, observant.
Shortly after graduation Graham Greene acquired a job as subeditor of THE TIMES. His third novel was published and became a literary success. He got married, having converted to Catholicism for his wife's sake. Another novel, STAMBOUL TRAIN, was successful. He traveled to Liberia and wrote, JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS.
While conceiving BRIGHTON ROCK, Greene went to Mexico to write about religious persecution. Back in England he arranged to rent a studio in which to write and turned out THE CONFIDENTIAL AGENT and THE POWER AND THE GLORY. Next came THE MINISTRY OF FEAR.
In 1942 Greene went to Sierra Leone for the SIS and wrote THE HEART OF THE MATTER. After the war Catherine Walston became Greene's lover for thirteen years. The complex and beautiful love was best described in THE END OF THE AFFAIR.
Greene was a compulsive writer, producing five hundred words a day. In 1955 Greene was fifty-one, the year of THE QUIET AMERICAN. He had a feeling for victims. Greene had an outcast of a brother and his mother had always put his father first. In the fifties Greene spent three weeks in China. At that time Greene was trying to hold onto at least two women and was failing with one, Catherine.
OUR MAN IN HAVANA came out in 1958. Greene served as a watchdog for the Bodley Head publishing firm. He assisted in bringing out a favorite of his, Ford Maddox Ford. After OUR MAN IN HAVANA, book and movie, Greene sought material for A BURNT-OUT CASE. That book is an introspective study of crisis.
Greene was a man of five different personalities. His frantic busyness began after Catherine Walston refused marriage. His contact with her became more and more tenuous. The journey to the Congo took place in 1959. In visiting a leper colony Greene was seeking spiritual hope. The doctor in charge opined that Greene was the opposite of a journalist. He did not look at people like cockroaches. Revising BURNT-OUT CASE without Catherine Walston was difficult.
THE COMPLAISANT LOVER, a play, was a success, but the next play wasn't. THE COMEDIANS was set in Duvalier's Haiti. By focusing on Duvalier, Greene escaped himself. Greene is more revelatory in his fiction than he is in his memoirs. (He was a shy man.)
The biographer believes his last masterpiece was THE HONORARY CONSUL. Greene wanted to tell the truth. He possessed a sharply sceptical mind. Work on THE HUMAN FACTOR was interrupted in 1963 by the Kim Philby affair. The book came out in 1978.
For the sake of his work, Greene gave up being a comrade to men and a lover to women. In 1980 Greene received death threats. Faith and doubt were the topics of MONSIGNOR QUIXOTE, 1982.
The book traces the mature working habits of the writer. He arranged his life so as not to interfere with the inner voice. He found material for his work in his travels. The five women he loved, basically serially, were of immense importance to his literary and personal development. The biographer has achieved excellence through documenting exhaustively the life of the writer on his artistic and spiritual journeys.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
