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In Search of a Character
In Search of A Character is a vivid portrait of Greene's Africa and provides a wonderful glimpse of the novelist responding to the raw material of his art. Two African notebooks record his travels in 1959, and his stay at the Yonda leper colony in the jungle which inspired the story for A Burnt-Out Case. Convoy to West Africa describes his voyage in a cargo boat during WW2, from Liverpool to Freetown, Sierra Leone, the setting for The Heart of the Matter.
106 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1961
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About the author
Graham Greene
801 books6,119 followersHenry Graham Greene was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century.
Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a reputation early in his lifetime as a major writer, both of serious Catholic novels, and of thrillers (or "entertainments" as he termed them). He was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times. Through 67 years of writing, which included over 25 novels, he explored the conflicting moral and political issues of the modern world. The Power and the Glory won the 1941 Hawthornden Prize and The Heart of the Matter won the 1948 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Best of the James Tait Black. Greene was awarded the 1968 Shakespeare Prize and the 1981 Jerusalem Prize. Several of his stories have been filmed, some more than once, and he collaborated with filmmaker Carol Reed on The Fallen Idol (1948) and The Third Man (1949).
He converted to Catholicism in 1926 after meeting his future wife, Vivienne Dayrell-Browning. Later in life he took to calling himself a "Catholic agnostic". He died in 1991, aged 86, of leukemia, and was buried in Corseaux cemetery in Switzerland. William Golding called Greene "the ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man's consciousness and anxiety".
Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a reputation early in his lifetime as a major writer, both of serious Catholic novels, and of thrillers (or "entertainments" as he termed them). He was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times. Through 67 years of writing, which included over 25 novels, he explored the conflicting moral and political issues of the modern world. The Power and the Glory won the 1941 Hawthornden Prize and The Heart of the Matter won the 1948 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Best of the James Tait Black. Greene was awarded the 1968 Shakespeare Prize and the 1981 Jerusalem Prize. Several of his stories have been filmed, some more than once, and he collaborated with filmmaker Carol Reed on The Fallen Idol (1948) and The Third Man (1949).
He converted to Catholicism in 1926 after meeting his future wife, Vivienne Dayrell-Browning. Later in life he took to calling himself a "Catholic agnostic". He died in 1991, aged 86, of leukemia, and was buried in Corseaux cemetery in Switzerland. William Golding called Greene "the ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man's consciousness and anxiety".
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July 15, 2023
There were many landscapes that Graham Greene had charted and chronicled throughout his career as the twentieth-century's most prolific and consistently thoughtful storytellers, be it the Indo-China of the 1950s, Haiti of the 1960s and even the South America of the turbulent 1970s. But of all these landscapes, there has been one region that has always intrigued and fascinated his imagination, even showing up in one of his children's books and later novels. That region has been Africa, the Dark Continent, a region still in the throes of mystery and enigma, the milieu of such diametrically opposite novelists such as Henry Rider Haggard and Joseph Conrad. It is worth noting here that both these writers had exerted their influence on Greene as a storyteller; he was able to blend the awe-inspiring wonder and atmospheric darkness of Haggard's adventures with the gritty deconstruction of sordid truths that Conrad was known for. It is therefore heartening to discover within the pages of this slim collection of two journals these two elements, wonder and apprehension, adventure and introspection, which are served in Greene's typically assured style to make for another compelling reading experience.
Greene wrote two novels and a travelogue set in Africa and each of these works was distinguished uniquely from each other, thus revealing the extent of his observations of this territory. "Journey Without Maps" took him across the breadth of Liberia, an actually unmapped country founded by the freed slaves of Africa; "The Heart of The Matter" was set against the British colonial outpost of Sierra Leone and "A Burnt-Out Case", most dramatically, led him into the depth of Belgian Congo and the discovery of suffering caused by the debilitating disease of leprosy.
It was this particular novel that warranted Greene to undertake a journey and also maintain a journal of experiences, discoveries and reflections, all of which he could then blend organically into his novel. The Congo journal begins thus with Greene on a flight to Leopoldville with only a fragment of the intended novel in his mind: "The novel is an unknown man and I have to find him..", writes the author and it is in the alternately baffling and beautiful world of the Congo where this search would be conducted.
Hardly has he landed, inhaling "the smell of Africa" that the reader is suddenly aware of that distinctive aroma of danger and intrigue in the air. The streets of Leopoldville are in the state of a tense patrol due to riots and a dinner with a businessman later, we are also given a peek into the brothel life of the city. We are assuredly back in Greeneland, one thinks of affection which soon matures into admiration and even exhilaration.
The Congo journal lasts for about seventy five pages and for a month and a half. In that duration, Greene was able to collect an astonishingly vast store of information, experience and observations, all of which he would fold in seamlessly into the book. There are the pivotal characters of the priests of the mission and the doctor of the leproserie whom he encounters, initially in Yonda and then in the crawl up the river to Imbonga and Lombo Lumba; there is the milieu of the leproserie, the minutiae of their work, from the doctor's visits to the dosage of DDS medicine, right down to the portraits of these unfortunate victims, rendered faithfully in the deftest strokes. And there is also a seamlessly woven layer of stirring travel writing that Greene perfected all through his career.
There is a certain, subtle yet arresting style always to Greene's descriptions of these places, be it in his novels or even memoirs. His ability to encapsulate the essence of a place in a succinct paragraph or even a simple sentence is indeed unrivalled; it owes a lot to his well-known penchant to introduce his characters and depict his conundrums dextrously. It is the kind of precise, witty and even immediately entertaining style that one would find in the travel documentaries written and narrated by Michael Palin. When describing the Congo riverbank, for the first time, here's Greene pointed but usually vivid observation: "The great trees with their roots like the ribs of ships" or "Egrets like patches of snow stand among the small coffee-coloured cattle". When on the actual river, halting only at missions or to take cargo or supplies, his descriptions become even more supple and sublime: "The colour of the water a polished pewter; the clouds seem to shine upwards from below the pewter surface."
Such stirring clarity is not just limited to these vignettes of the place and its distinctive qualities. It is also to be found in the miniature portraits he renders of the people he encounters on his experiences. We should not forget this author's skill in describing moral complexity and so the little but precisely observed portraits of the priests in the mission and then on the boat, of Father Georges, and his thirst for hunting birds and small game are utterly gripping, as are the compassionate descriptions of the bewildered victims of this abominable disease.
Convoy to West Africa, the second and smaller journal in this book, is marked by a lingering atmosphere of paranoia and suspense. This smaller collection of observations was written nearly twenty years before the more languid and introspective Congo journal; Greene admits that he had not kept any journals during his stay in Sierra Leone that actually inspired his other African novel. However, this journal begins thrillingly with the author tearing up his uncensored letters from the taxi in Liverpool and ends memorably with the first glimpse of Africa, thus coming full circle from the beginning of the book, with Greene again inhaling the "smell" of this region. In between, the author weaves in compelling and superbly characterised vignettes of a journey by sea crammed with fears of being torpedoed during the war and also of the unique and eclectic characters reacting variously to these fears on board.
In the space of little more than a hundred pages, thus, in these two journals, Greene is able to evoke sensations and scenes of exploring a new land and even undertaking a journey. "In Search of a Character" is commonly described as an insider's view into the mind of a writer, filling up the background of a novel and collecting material at all times but it is also the map of the complex beauty and character of a continent as well as the complex personality of the man himself. We learn intriguing things about Greene's life as much as about Congo or the wartime atmosphere of the convoy's journey as well and what these journals both reveal both distinctly is his voracious appetite for reading, from revisiting Conrad and Dickens on the Congo to reading Huxley and Ambler on the ship to escape boredom and fear of certain death.
In the hands of a lesser writer, these journals would not have amounted to anything significant. But given Greene's peerless skill and seemingly inexhaustible reservoir of stories, which meant that he always had something new to regale or enthral his readers, these two journals end up becoming excellent and entertaining reading experiences, as multi-faceted and mesmerising as anything else that he had written. This is a book marked with that same incisive intelligence and empathetic objectivity that distinguishes him as a great novelist.
Greene wrote two novels and a travelogue set in Africa and each of these works was distinguished uniquely from each other, thus revealing the extent of his observations of this territory. "Journey Without Maps" took him across the breadth of Liberia, an actually unmapped country founded by the freed slaves of Africa; "The Heart of The Matter" was set against the British colonial outpost of Sierra Leone and "A Burnt-Out Case", most dramatically, led him into the depth of Belgian Congo and the discovery of suffering caused by the debilitating disease of leprosy.
It was this particular novel that warranted Greene to undertake a journey and also maintain a journal of experiences, discoveries and reflections, all of which he could then blend organically into his novel. The Congo journal begins thus with Greene on a flight to Leopoldville with only a fragment of the intended novel in his mind: "The novel is an unknown man and I have to find him..", writes the author and it is in the alternately baffling and beautiful world of the Congo where this search would be conducted.
Hardly has he landed, inhaling "the smell of Africa" that the reader is suddenly aware of that distinctive aroma of danger and intrigue in the air. The streets of Leopoldville are in the state of a tense patrol due to riots and a dinner with a businessman later, we are also given a peek into the brothel life of the city. We are assuredly back in Greeneland, one thinks of affection which soon matures into admiration and even exhilaration.
The Congo journal lasts for about seventy five pages and for a month and a half. In that duration, Greene was able to collect an astonishingly vast store of information, experience and observations, all of which he would fold in seamlessly into the book. There are the pivotal characters of the priests of the mission and the doctor of the leproserie whom he encounters, initially in Yonda and then in the crawl up the river to Imbonga and Lombo Lumba; there is the milieu of the leproserie, the minutiae of their work, from the doctor's visits to the dosage of DDS medicine, right down to the portraits of these unfortunate victims, rendered faithfully in the deftest strokes. And there is also a seamlessly woven layer of stirring travel writing that Greene perfected all through his career.
There is a certain, subtle yet arresting style always to Greene's descriptions of these places, be it in his novels or even memoirs. His ability to encapsulate the essence of a place in a succinct paragraph or even a simple sentence is indeed unrivalled; it owes a lot to his well-known penchant to introduce his characters and depict his conundrums dextrously. It is the kind of precise, witty and even immediately entertaining style that one would find in the travel documentaries written and narrated by Michael Palin. When describing the Congo riverbank, for the first time, here's Greene pointed but usually vivid observation: "The great trees with their roots like the ribs of ships" or "Egrets like patches of snow stand among the small coffee-coloured cattle". When on the actual river, halting only at missions or to take cargo or supplies, his descriptions become even more supple and sublime: "The colour of the water a polished pewter; the clouds seem to shine upwards from below the pewter surface."
Such stirring clarity is not just limited to these vignettes of the place and its distinctive qualities. It is also to be found in the miniature portraits he renders of the people he encounters on his experiences. We should not forget this author's skill in describing moral complexity and so the little but precisely observed portraits of the priests in the mission and then on the boat, of Father Georges, and his thirst for hunting birds and small game are utterly gripping, as are the compassionate descriptions of the bewildered victims of this abominable disease.
Convoy to West Africa, the second and smaller journal in this book, is marked by a lingering atmosphere of paranoia and suspense. This smaller collection of observations was written nearly twenty years before the more languid and introspective Congo journal; Greene admits that he had not kept any journals during his stay in Sierra Leone that actually inspired his other African novel. However, this journal begins thrillingly with the author tearing up his uncensored letters from the taxi in Liverpool and ends memorably with the first glimpse of Africa, thus coming full circle from the beginning of the book, with Greene again inhaling the "smell" of this region. In between, the author weaves in compelling and superbly characterised vignettes of a journey by sea crammed with fears of being torpedoed during the war and also of the unique and eclectic characters reacting variously to these fears on board.
In the space of little more than a hundred pages, thus, in these two journals, Greene is able to evoke sensations and scenes of exploring a new land and even undertaking a journey. "In Search of a Character" is commonly described as an insider's view into the mind of a writer, filling up the background of a novel and collecting material at all times but it is also the map of the complex beauty and character of a continent as well as the complex personality of the man himself. We learn intriguing things about Greene's life as much as about Congo or the wartime atmosphere of the convoy's journey as well and what these journals both reveal both distinctly is his voracious appetite for reading, from revisiting Conrad and Dickens on the Congo to reading Huxley and Ambler on the ship to escape boredom and fear of certain death.
In the hands of a lesser writer, these journals would not have amounted to anything significant. But given Greene's peerless skill and seemingly inexhaustible reservoir of stories, which meant that he always had something new to regale or enthral his readers, these two journals end up becoming excellent and entertaining reading experiences, as multi-faceted and mesmerising as anything else that he had written. This is a book marked with that same incisive intelligence and empathetic objectivity that distinguishes him as a great novelist.
April 2, 2016
If he wrote about trimming his toenails I would give it three stars, so my natural pro-Greene bias does need to be factored in here, suffice to say that reading his diaries/notes as he began to formulate ideas for two of his finest novels is (to me) fascinating. The more extensive section (on A Burnt-out Case) is the more interesting, as you can see the genus of ideas slowly forming. While his methods are quite idiosyncratic there is a little that can be gleaned, such as his strict observance of starting with the setting and then hunting for the characters to inhabit it. He even "catches himself plotting" (my words, not his) and expressed reservation at this, which is an interesting discovery, as is his comments on Belloc and Conrad, in which he mentions briefly what not to do.
The latter is possibly a more interesting diary in and of itself but is at more of a remove from the final material and I suspect that it was put in to make the book a more respectable length. However, it is just a joy to spend time in his company, even if you suspect that it was a company that he did not always enjoy.
The latter is possibly a more interesting diary in and of itself but is at more of a remove from the final material and I suspect that it was put in to make the book a more respectable length. However, it is just a joy to spend time in his company, even if you suspect that it was a company that he did not always enjoy.
September 19, 2023
The diaries Greene kept while traveling in the Congo in 1959, and in a convoy to West Africa in 1941. The Congo diary is the more extensive, taking up most of the book, but both have their charm--read the latter during Christmas.
Unlike his other nonfiction, neither diary was written with the intention of publication and so both are brief and fragmentary. The Congo diary offers an excellent behind the scenes look at Greene's writing process, especially for those who have read A Burnt-Out Case, but interspersed are absolute gems like this:
Good one, Mr. Greene. Very amusing.
Almost as amusing as his record, in the Convoy diary, of books he finds on other people's book shelves. Have I mentioned I love mentions of what writers are reading? Greene is critical Conrad's Heart of Darkness, dismissive of Allingham's The Tiger in the Smoke and also read Compton-Burnett's Parents and Children, among many others. To be revisited.
Unlike his other nonfiction, neither diary was written with the intention of publication and so both are brief and fragmentary. The Congo diary offers an excellent behind the scenes look at Greene's writing process, especially for those who have read A Burnt-Out Case, but interspersed are absolute gems like this:
Reading Julian Green one wonders whether it is easier for a homosexual to lead a chaste life, if he so wishes, because of the unfair stigma attached to his desire. Is it easier for him than for someone like X to refuse - from a religious motive - an affair which offers itself?
Good one, Mr. Greene. Very amusing.
Almost as amusing as his record, in the Convoy diary, of books he finds on other people's book shelves. Have I mentioned I love mentions of what writers are reading? Greene is critical Conrad's Heart of Darkness, dismissive of Allingham's The Tiger in the Smoke and also read Compton-Burnett's Parents and Children, among many others. To be revisited.
November 2, 2019
Graham Greene wrote two journals about trips to Africa. One consisted of notes for his novel The Burnt-Out Case; the other did not result in a work of fiction, but was the record of a convoy to West Africa during the Second World War.
The notes for his 1959 trip to the Congo comprise the major part of In Search of a Character: Two African Journals. It is interesting to see the story of the novel begin to emerge through the incidents of Greene's 3-week trip to leprosaria in the Congo.
The notes for his 1959 trip to the Congo comprise the major part of In Search of a Character: Two African Journals. It is interesting to see the story of the novel begin to emerge through the incidents of Greene's 3-week trip to leprosaria in the Congo.
February 10, 2014
'Congo Journal,'[1959] and 'Convoy to West Africa'[1941] comprise this book's contents,and are impressively transparent. In the first, Greene has noted bits of novelistic dialogue that came to him during his visit to Leopoldville and Brazzaville, as well as his raw impressions of various people and places. In the second, he has noted events and his responses to same, while on a wartime convoy travelling to West Africa. He seems to have had a role with British intelligence, but this is only vaguely hinted at; he seems to also have loved Africa. A modest and somehow endearing glimpse of Greene and his moment in history!!
April 9, 2018
These are the journals that Greene kept on his journies in Africa and what would inspire A Burnt out Case and The Heart of the Matter. Truly inspiring.
August 26, 2011
Another one where I am racing to read before the library fines stack up. I think I found this as a mention in Guardian on writer's journals? Unsure, it has been awhile. Also started reading on the bus, a risky proposition, will it captivate or disappoint. Shouldn't have worried, it is Greene and even in working journals not meant for publication he captivates from the off. The language shouldn't matter, as it was only intended for him and yet in places it sings. It has been awhile since I have read him, for a long while his work was important to me, how now? This is a man I probably couldn't spend 5 minutes with in person but as a writer, he is fascinating.
The first journal written as reasearch for Burnt Out Case is fascinating. He is an older man, following his main character "X" to find out who he is. Footnotes by Greene tell you how much of the material ended up in the novel, most doesn't. the novel was a struggle to write and his main character was a difficult one to live with. Short but absorbing. the second journal was from the war as he left UK for Sierra Leone. I had read Journey without Maps but this was an interesting prequel. He is crazier than I thought! Enough that he went to an unmapped part of Africa with his teenage girl cousin and no experience in the bush but I forgot that he went in 1941 with war raging. he could have died via German sub attack on the way. Still interesting.
The first journal written as reasearch for Burnt Out Case is fascinating. He is an older man, following his main character "X" to find out who he is. Footnotes by Greene tell you how much of the material ended up in the novel, most doesn't. the novel was a struggle to write and his main character was a difficult one to live with. Short but absorbing. the second journal was from the war as he left UK for Sierra Leone. I had read Journey without Maps but this was an interesting prequel. He is crazier than I thought! Enough that he went to an unmapped part of Africa with his teenage girl cousin and no experience in the bush but I forgot that he went in 1941 with war raging. he could have died via German sub attack on the way. Still interesting.
March 19, 2021
Continuing my annual spring excursion to Greeneland. This one is solely for Greene fans, and only if you have read
A Burnt-Out Case
and The Heart of the Matter. (Indeed, I am surprised these brief journal accounts aren't included as appendices in modern editions those two novels.) Greene offers his keen observations of a leper colony and a convoy during WWII while he gathered material for his two novels. Although these journals obviously weren’t meant to be published, Greene offers some helpful clarifying footnotes for context, often correcting minor details that he inaccurately recorded years ago or pointing to ways in which his initial thoughts would shift as he began the process of arranging ideas in his head before writing. It’s fascinating to see how he took snippets of conversations, observations, and overhead remarks to fashion into dialogue, characters, and passages; and his voice is lively, witty, and funny throughout, with wonderful asides on literary topics ranging from Dickens to Gertrude Stein. But the short length and very specific target audience make this really just for Greene completists.
January 18, 2017
I found a beat up little penguin (a paperback, thank goodness, not a bird) which had on its back cover a warning which went something like, “Not to be Printed in the United States.” I’m paraphrasing because the book is now in storage ALONG WITH OVER 2,000 OTHERS AS I’M BETWEEN APARTMENTS AND IT’S DRIVING ME CRAZY – I HAVE 14 – 14! – BOOKS WITH ME AND THEY’RE NOT EVEN IN A BOOK CASE, THEY’RE IN A FRESH DIRECT BOX! – but I digress.
I love Graham Greene’s novels; both elegant and masculine, written with a singular ability to internalize the external, to quietly deliver the deepest wrench of emotion – as if just setting sorrow down on the table, there – while never losing sight of story or place. Reading the African journals held me in sort of a trance; floating along down the Congo in hell but unable to do anything else. Mosquitos bite at the page tips, rain beats down through floating paragraphs, the thin volume gives off a vague but persistent smell of illness, but you won’t leave Mr. Greene, not while he’s searching for something so much more than a fictional character, not while he grants access to thought, memory and vision from the obsidian blade of his mind.
I love Graham Greene’s novels; both elegant and masculine, written with a singular ability to internalize the external, to quietly deliver the deepest wrench of emotion – as if just setting sorrow down on the table, there – while never losing sight of story or place. Reading the African journals held me in sort of a trance; floating along down the Congo in hell but unable to do anything else. Mosquitos bite at the page tips, rain beats down through floating paragraphs, the thin volume gives off a vague but persistent smell of illness, but you won’t leave Mr. Greene, not while he’s searching for something so much more than a fictional character, not while he grants access to thought, memory and vision from the obsidian blade of his mind.
September 23, 2011
I just finished reading Graham Greene’s journals from two separate African journeys in the book In Search of A Character. It contains “The Congo Journal” and “Convoy To West Africa.” Both of these journeys resulted in novels based on his experiences there: A Burnt-Out Case and The Heart of the Matter (one of my personal favorites since it was the first Graham Greene novel I read). I really enjoyed these brief journals. I have always enjoyed Greene’s travel writing in books like Journey Without Maps and The Lawless Roads and these journals provide that kind of detail and description. I guess it isn’t essential reading for the average Greene reader and only of interest to scholars and big fans-I expect to read his autobiographies soon as well as some of the biographies out there eventually.
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August 6, 2024I haven't read any of Graham Greene's other much more famous works but his life and travels sound as interesting as his famous spy novels.
This is his journal of his travels in the Belgian Congo including a visit at an interesting time right on the eve of decolonization.
He visits a Leper colony on the Congo River and has some interesting observations of the Europeans and Africans there.
The journal's most 1950s moment might be him commenting on DDT (you know the cancer causing stuff) being sprayed within the cities
This is his journal of his travels in the Belgian Congo including a visit at an interesting time right on the eve of decolonization.
He visits a Leper colony on the Congo River and has some interesting observations of the Europeans and Africans there.
The journal's most 1950s moment might be him commenting on DDT (you know the cancer causing stuff) being sprayed within the cities
September 13, 2022
Interesting informative insights and glimpses into the thought process and note taking of Graham Greene as he jots ideas and creates a diary of his time in the Congo and again on a journey mid war to west Africa.
October 21, 2016
Interesting short book. Works as a travel journal and also in giving an insight into the author's writing process.
February 7, 2020
Perhaps you need to be a Graham Greene aficionado to love this book, but if read in conjunction with the novel that eventually emerged from the journal, A Burnt Out Case, then it provides invaluable insights into writing generally. From the journal I learnt that Greene had no clue about what his book A Burnt Out Case was going to say, other than that 'character x' arrives at a leper colony in Africa. Throughout the journey, a Burnt Out Case appears and disappears from view, like a distant shore in a fog. However as you would expect from a business-like writer such as Greene, a great many scribbled incidents and thoughts do eventually appear in the novel.
Another valuable lesson; driving him to write was no great message of which he was conscious of, but just the simple desire or need (he had to live like all of us) to ply his trade. I learnt with amazement that Greene throughout his writing career wrote 500 words a day 'no more, no less'. No wasting away in a garret for him! After that he read, walked, drank in bars, saw his friends and recharged for the next day. What a comforting example he is to even mildly aspiring writers. 500 words is just a page and a half or two, and yet written consistently, of course that's a book every 4 or 6 months.
Another valuable lesson; driving him to write was no great message of which he was conscious of, but just the simple desire or need (he had to live like all of us) to ply his trade. I learnt with amazement that Greene throughout his writing career wrote 500 words a day 'no more, no less'. No wasting away in a garret for him! After that he read, walked, drank in bars, saw his friends and recharged for the next day. What a comforting example he is to even mildly aspiring writers. 500 words is just a page and a half or two, and yet written consistently, of course that's a book every 4 or 6 months.
July 18, 2022
A Burnt-Out Case is one of my favorite novels by Graham Greene. The majority of this book are his notes from visiting the Congo to get material for the novel. The trip to the Congo was also a way, according to Greene's writing, to get some separation from a lover he'd recently broken with.
It gave me great pleasure to learn that Greene was a fan of Ray Bradbury. Greene also writes that he considered Conrad to be too great an influence. As a fan of Conrad, I also enjoyed learning this. Greene also notes he enjoys Orwell and Dickens.
The last third of the book is about a trip by sea from England to the coast of Africa in 1941. Everyone is afraid of submarines, and every passenger helps acting as lookouts and manning machine guns.
Have given up drinking gin—it's too depressing.
It gave me great pleasure to learn that Greene was a fan of Ray Bradbury. Greene also writes that he considered Conrad to be too great an influence. As a fan of Conrad, I also enjoyed learning this. Greene also notes he enjoys Orwell and Dickens.
The last third of the book is about a trip by sea from England to the coast of Africa in 1941. Everyone is afraid of submarines, and every passenger helps acting as lookouts and manning machine guns.
Have given up drinking gin—it's too depressing.
November 6, 2020
An interesting look at how Greene went about writing and his research, but, otherwise, sort of a throw-away book. The two journals contained in this book are some 18 years apart: the journal of his trip to the Belgian Congo (to research A Burnt-Out Case) in 1959 and his trip to West Africa, and specifically Sierra Leone (where he ultimately set The Heart of the Matter) in 1941.
As Greene himself says in his introduction to the book: “Neither of these journals was kept for publication, but they may have some interest as an indication of the kind of raw material a novelist accumulates. He goes through life discarding more than he retains, but the points he notes are what he considers of creative interest at the moment of occurrence.”
As Greene himself says in his introduction to the book: “Neither of these journals was kept for publication, but they may have some interest as an indication of the kind of raw material a novelist accumulates. He goes through life discarding more than he retains, but the points he notes are what he considers of creative interest at the moment of occurrence.”
February 12, 2021
This slim-spined book records and contains on the spur of the moment, raw, and unedited, Greenean observations, opinions and descriptions made on two voyages to West Africa in 1941 and 1959.
The merest impression made of behaviour, bodily appearance, personality, intention, surroundings, activities, experiences and moods of the surroundings/activities/situations and the people/individuals that inhabit and undergo them with him or on his own are unabashedly caught and jotted by Greene's predatorial gaze, scribal listening and confessional self awareness/scrutiny... as he zigzags, treks, rides and sails bipolarily towards, along and across colonial western Africa's hospitable inhospitable localities... in search of a character.
The merest impression made of behaviour, bodily appearance, personality, intention, surroundings, activities, experiences and moods of the surroundings/activities/situations and the people/individuals that inhabit and undergo them with him or on his own are unabashedly caught and jotted by Greene's predatorial gaze, scribal listening and confessional self awareness/scrutiny... as he zigzags, treks, rides and sails bipolarily towards, along and across colonial western Africa's hospitable inhospitable localities... in search of a character.
June 27, 2020
Greene's journal of this tour of leper colonies in the Congo in 1959 is terrific. He is there researching the book that will become The Burnt Out Case, but the more time he spends there the more he realizes he has to completely chuck out everything he was written. At this point in his life, Greene is in his mid-50s and internationally famous, yet he is always striving to learn more about people. Really good read.
January 24, 2019
This lifts the lid on Greene's writing habits, although presumably only the habits he wishes you to see. Interesting to see how a novel shifts like sand over time, the beginning changing as the character emerges, and the boredom that comes of waiting and watching for inspiration. This book works as a snapshot of time, at times jarring, and far removed from today's world, but not without charm.
August 4, 2021
Al ser una especie de diario, creo que el libro puede gustar más si se han leído previamente los libros en los que aparecen los personajes que perfeccionó durante los días que transcurren en esos diarios.
A mí no me ha resultado un libro especialmente interesante, así como no me ha llegado a enganchar.
A mí no me ha resultado un libro especialmente interesante, así como no me ha llegado a enganchar.
September 5, 2022
Un gran libro porque es al mismo tiempo un diario personal y una gran crónica de viaje.
Además muestra la forma particular de Greene de ir generando y perfilando sus personajes.
Este libro es una crónica de cómo fue dándole forma a las novelas "Un caso acabado" y "El revés de la trama".
Además muestra la forma particular de Greene de ir generando y perfilando sus personajes.
Este libro es una crónica de cómo fue dándole forma a las novelas "Un caso acabado" y "El revés de la trama".
July 30, 2025
A journal from another age. The end of empire and colonialism. The characters in these odd places, I wonder if they are like that today. Very enjoyable easy read and educational, seeing how GG noted down people, events, conversations and thoughts.
July 28, 2019
The first of the two journals was great, but the second was too sparse to engage my attention. Greene is such a good writer, though, that I now want to reread his work N.M.
December 3, 2023
Excerpts from two of the author's diaries---giving an insight into his research for a novel. Not cohesive. For students of Graham Greene and fiction writers only.
4/10
4/10
March 14, 2024
A mix of keen observations and colonialist White male commentary.
May 26, 2024
Greene er en formidabel iagttager og fortæller i de to afrikanske dagbøger, der også viser hvordan Greene arbejder med virkeligheden som råstof for fiktion
March 7, 2025
Thought this would be more along the lines of Steinbeck's Journal of a Novel. It wasn't, and it was bad. Still, I hope to read more of Mr Greene's stuff.
July 23, 2025
“ Africa, the blank unexplored continent the shape of the human heart”
“ it was nice, for a while, being alone”
“ one was less homesick than one had expected”
“ it was nice, for a while, being alone”
“ one was less homesick than one had expected”
November 20, 2021
This is a fairly esoteric book likely to appeal only to the Greene scholar or passionate afficionado. Although I am a great fan of Greene's novels, I found this pretty forgettable. I have not yet read A Burnt Out Case but I think Greene's explanation of the genesis and development of that work would be helpful to its reading.
Outside that, there are a number of interesting comments in the book:
1. “I would claim not to be a writer of Catholic novels, but a writer who in four or five books took characters with Catholic ideas for his material. Nonetheless for years – particularly after The Heart of the Matter – I found myself hunted by people who wanted help with spiritual problems that I was incapable of giving. Not a few of these were priests themselves. I can only attribute to the heat my irritation with this poor school-master and to the fact perhaps that I was already beginning to live in the skin of Querry, a man who had turned at bay.”
2. “At the last moment a local mail brings a letter from another local writer with a copy of his book published at his own expense. Why should this dream of writing hold so many? The desire for money? I doubt it. The desire for a vocation when they find themselves in the life they haven’t really chosen? The same despairing instinct that drives some people to desire rather than to experience a religious faith?”
3. “Reading Conrad – the volume called Youth for the sake of The Heart of Darkness – the first time since I abandoned him about 1932 because his influence on me was too great and too disastrous. The heavy hypnotic style falls around me again, and I am aware of the poverty of my own. Perhaps now I have lived long enough with my poverty to be safe from corruption."
4. “Am I going too far from the original vague idea: am I beginning to plot, to succumb to that abiding temptation to tell a good story?"
Outside that, there are a number of interesting comments in the book:
1. “I would claim not to be a writer of Catholic novels, but a writer who in four or five books took characters with Catholic ideas for his material. Nonetheless for years – particularly after The Heart of the Matter – I found myself hunted by people who wanted help with spiritual problems that I was incapable of giving. Not a few of these were priests themselves. I can only attribute to the heat my irritation with this poor school-master and to the fact perhaps that I was already beginning to live in the skin of Querry, a man who had turned at bay.”
2. “At the last moment a local mail brings a letter from another local writer with a copy of his book published at his own expense. Why should this dream of writing hold so many? The desire for money? I doubt it. The desire for a vocation when they find themselves in the life they haven’t really chosen? The same despairing instinct that drives some people to desire rather than to experience a religious faith?”
3. “Reading Conrad – the volume called Youth for the sake of The Heart of Darkness – the first time since I abandoned him about 1932 because his influence on me was too great and too disastrous. The heavy hypnotic style falls around me again, and I am aware of the poverty of my own. Perhaps now I have lived long enough with my poverty to be safe from corruption."
4. “Am I going too far from the original vague idea: am I beginning to plot, to succumb to that abiding temptation to tell a good story?"
October 13, 2013
This book contains two of Graham Greene's journals, written during research trips for novels. The first was most interesting to me as I loved the novel that grew out of the experiences he's describing - The Burnt Out Case (set in a leprosy mission in the Congo in the early 60's). Reading the two books gives an amazing picture of how Greene's life and work were entwined. I borrowed 'In Search of a Character' but now I'm going to seek a copy out, just to have it on my bookshelf.
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