My Hero About
Graham Greene

 

 Maybe itís too insolent for me to write about famous English writer.  But I canít stay silent because I like to read his books very much.
 I should begin this story from a long time ago.  I was a young man at that time.  One of my friends advised me to pay attention to a new book written by Graham Greene and translated into Russian.  Title of this book was ěThe Quiet Americanî.  I was astonished by its style and method of exposition and by its simplicity of actions and depth of knowledge of human psychology.  Then I discovered all of his books and read with thirst.
 When I read ěThe Heart of the Matterî, I was in shock.  The terrible truth of the life was presented without embellishments by using taciturn and laconic sentences.  But they held me in a tight grip while I was reading this novel.
 In the very beginning Greene was famed as a spy writer, but he could uncover secret levers of human actions.  And he did it.  He went on keeping this form (form of mystery) for a lot of his novels.  But it was only external aspect.  The contents of his novels were more deep.   His heroes are very humane.  Their actions are understandable.  Their dialogues are short but pithy.  There are a lot of thoughts in his books.
 Greene knew well political situation in the world.  He described events that happened in different corners of the world (Cuba, Haiti, Vietnam, African countries, South America, Middle East, Mexico, France, Spain, Switzerland and so on).
 But this is interesting fact: his descriptions foretold these events.  They happened after issue of Greeneís books.  He was named ěPolitical Barometerî.  Maybe his awareness of political situation was a result of his work in English Intelligence for about ten years.  Maybe because his brother was a director of BBC...
 He was a brave man.  He wasnít afraid to visit dangerous places and people.  He visited Sweden, Mexico, Sierra Leone,  Vienna and Prague, Malaya and Vietnam, Kenya, Haiti, Antibes, Havana, Poland, Paraguay and Argentina, Panama, French Riviera, Switzerland.  He met Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro, Salvador Allende and others.
 Once Pope Paul VI invited Greene to visit Vatican- he was Catholic.  There was a warm friendly talk.  Pope said he read attentively all of Greeneís novels and named the three best of them.  They were:

Iíve read all three, but the second of them Iíve already read in San Francisco in English.
 His hero usually comes across with people who were often obdurate and soulless, with society, laws and authority and then becomes defeated.  And the effort of human soul to associate with another for friendship or love or for comprehension is doomed to a fiasco.
 This is the main topic of his novels.
 He was born in 1904 and died in 1991.
 To read his books is always interesting.  He was a great humanist. His novels are the whole world.  And it was named ěGreenelandî

      11/14/2000   Class 10:15
       Viktor Sinayskiy