Simon Heffer
The End of the Affair
The Life of Graham Greene, Volume III: 1955-1991
By Norman Sherry
Jonathan Cape 706pp £25
This is the third, and last, volume of Norman Sherry's authorised life of a man reputed to have been England's finest novelist of the twentieth century. The first volume appeared in 1989; the second in 1994. The similarities of tone and approach between this long-awaited conclusion and its forerunners are as striking as the differences. Sherry is still thorough and perceptive, and has a deep rapport with his subject. He is also frequently emotional, censorious (notably over Greene's admittedly often absurd political posturing) and solipsistic, sometimes to the point of indiscipline. Yet this volume completes one of the great modern works of literary biography, a life to compete, in its way, with George Painter's breath-taking work on Marcel Proust, or Michael Holroyd's Bernard Shaw.
Sherry resumes the story in 1955, though one of the immediate distinctions from the earlier books is that the narrative becomes more thematic and less chronological. This can, at times, be exacting and puzzling for the reader. In 1955 Greene is fifty-one, obsessively travelling around the world looking - literally
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Does the monumental life of WH Auden justify yet another book?
@FionaRSampson considers the latest effort.
Fiona Sampson - Tell Me the Truth About Love
Fiona Sampson: Tell Me the Truth About Love - The Island: W H Auden and the Last of Englishness by Nicholas Jenkins
literaryreview.co.uk
Here's Michael Billington's (@billicritic) superb piece for the next @Lit_Review about Anand Tucker's film about 1930s theatre, theatre-going, and theatre reviewing, The Critic, written by Patrick Marber, starring Ian McKellen and Gemma Arterton
The theatre has always fascinated filmmakers. Is this latest addition to the long list of theatrical flicks, The Critic, written by Patrick Marber and directed by Anand Tucker, a hit or a flop?
@billicritic gives his verdict.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/ring-down-the-curtain