A Study in Greene
Graham Greene and the Art of the Novel
Published on 7. September 2006
Book
Hardback
208 pages
978-0-19-929102-1 (ISBN)
Description
Bernard Bergonzi has been reading Graham Greene for many years; he still possesses the original edition of The End of the Affair that he bought when it was published in 1951. After so much recent attention to Greene's life he believes it is time to return to his writings; in this critical study Bergonzi makes a close examination of the language and structure of Greene's novels, and traces the obsessive motifs that recur throughout his long career. Most earlier criticism was written while Greene was still alive and working, and was to some extent provisional, as the final shape of his work was not yet apparent. In this book Bergonzi is able to take a view of Greene's whole career as a novelist, which extended from 1929 to 1988. He believes that Greene's earlier work was his best, combining melodrama, realism, and poetry, with Brighton Rock, published in 1938, a moral fable that draws on crime fiction and Jacobean tragedy, as the masterpiece. The novels that Greene published after the 1950s were very professional examples of skilful story-telling but represented a decline from this high level of achievement. Bergonzi challenges assumptions about the nature of Greene's debt to cinema, and attempts to clarify the complexities and contradictions of his religious ideas. Although this book engages with questions that arise in academic discussions of Greene, it is written with general readers in mind.
Reviews / Votes
Bergonzi... is to be congratulated for two reasons in particular: first, in refocusing the public eye on Greene's work as apposed to his private private life (he makes it clear, in acidic little asides, that he is no fan of Greene's biographers) and, second, in having the courage to re-imagine this body of work in a way rather different to the currently accepted view. * Catholic Herald * ... gives the reader not only some new highlights into Greene's fiction, but encourages one to go back and read some of it again. * Camden New Journal * In his introduction, Bernard Bergonzi comments that 'readers should be warned that this is a work of old-fashioned criticism'. Far from being a literary Health Warning, this may serve as a positive recommendation to many... like all good criticism, it will send you scurrying back to the novels. * Newsletter of the Graham Greene Birthplace Trust * The book is measured, civilized, sympathetic to its subject - as Bergonzi's criticism usually is. It is not adulatory; some rather harsh statements are made; but Bergonzi bases his opinion on reasonable premises and makes no intemperate judgements. * US Weekly Standard * Any reader who wants a lucid, concise, elegantly written survey of the novels could not do better than turn to A Study in Greene. * David Lodge, The Tablet * An impressive and provocative book * Literary Review * Crisply written and happily free of jargon,A Study in Green offers a long-needed antidote to Norman Sherry and other 'Dirty Linen' biographers who have sought to expose a darker shade of Greene and, in consequence, lost sight of the books. Not everyone will agree with Professor Bergonzi's argument, but his book is well worth reading. * Ian Thompson, Spectator *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 210 mm
Width: 145 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
346 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-929102-1 (9780199291021)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
04/2008
Oxford University Press
€19.84
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Person
Bernard Bergonzi read English as a mature student at Wadham College, Oxford, having previously worked in clerical jobs. He has been assistant lecturer, then lecturer, at the University of Manchester, and senior lecturer and then Professor of English at the University of Warwick. He has been Emeritus Professor of English there since 1992, and has held visiting professorships at Brandeis, Stanford, and Louisville.
Since 1961 he has published many books of criticism and biography, and edited several more. His most recent titles include Exploding English: Criticism, Theory, Culture (OUP, 1990), Wartime and Aftermath: English Literature and its Background 1939-1960 (OUP, 1993), War Poets and Other Subjects (Ashgate, 2000), and A Victorian Wanderer: The Life of Thomas Arnold the Younger (OUP, 2003), of which A. N. Wilson wrote in the Spectator, 'Professor Bergonzi has painted a perfect Victorian miniature'.
Since 1961 he has published many books of criticism and biography, and edited several more. His most recent titles include Exploding English: Criticism, Theory, Culture (OUP, 1990), Wartime and Aftermath: English Literature and its Background 1939-1960 (OUP, 1993), War Poets and Other Subjects (Ashgate, 2000), and A Victorian Wanderer: The Life of Thomas Arnold the Younger (OUP, 2003), of which A. N. Wilson wrote in the Spectator, 'Professor Bergonzi has painted a perfect Victorian miniature'.
Content
Preface ; Introduction ; 1. Obsessions and Jokes ; 2. Into the Thirties ; 3. Entertainments ; 4. Brighton ; 5. Mexico ; 6. A Catholic Novelist? ; 7. The Greene Man ; 8. Manic Interludes ; 9. Last Words ; Books by Graham Greene