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Greene on Capri: A Memoir
When friends die, one's own credentials change: one becomes a survivor. Graham Greene has already had biographers, one of whom has served him mightily. Yet I hope that there is room for the remembrance of a friend who knew him-not wisely, perhaps, but fairly well-on an island that was "not his kind of place," but where he came season after season, year after year; and where he, too, will be subsumed into the capacious story. For millennia the cliffs of Capri have sheltered pleasure-seekers and refugees alike, among them the emperors Augustus and Tiberius, Henry James, Rilke, and Lenin, and hosts of artists, eccentrics, and outcasts. Here in the 1960s Graham Greene became friends with Shirley Hazzard and her husband, the writer Francis Steegmuller; their friendship lasted until Greene's death in 1991. In Greene on Capri , Hazzard uses their ever volatile intimacy as a prism through which to illuminate Greene's mercurial character, his work and talk, and the extraordinary literary culture that long thrived on this ravishing, enchanted island.
160 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2000
33 people are currently reading
620 people want to read
About the author
Shirley Hazzard
25 books313 followersShirley Hazzard was born in Australia, and as a child travelled the world due to her parents’ diplomatic postings. At age 16, she began working for British Combined Intelligence Services in Hong Kong, monitoring civil war in China. After her family moved to New York City, she worked for several years as a typist at the United Nations Secretariat in New York.
After leaving this post, she became a full-time writer and a passionate opponent of the United Nations, the subject of several of her nonfiction books.
Known for elegant and controlled writing, Hazzard’s works of fiction include five novels. Her last novel, The Great Fire, was shortlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the 2005 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
After leaving this post, she became a full-time writer and a passionate opponent of the United Nations, the subject of several of her nonfiction books.
Known for elegant and controlled writing, Hazzard’s works of fiction include five novels. Her last novel, The Great Fire, was shortlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the 2005 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews
December 1, 2020
The writing is cutting, deft, and the psychological portrait of novelist Graham Greene one of devastating acumen. He was not a nice man. Successful men rarely are. The fascinating thing for me though was Greene’s incuriousness. While always sensitive to mood and atmosphere—writing, yes, he cared a great deal about that. But architecture, painting, sculpture, antiquities, which Capri is full of—like Villa Jovis, from which Tiberius ruled the Roman Empire for last decade of his reign (14-37 CE)—forget it. He had no interest whatsoever. It’s good that Ms. Hazzard wrote all of this down. The evocation of landscape and history is alone worth the time, but there’s more. There are also interesting asides about Greene’s friend, the prolific writer and boy-lover Norman Douglas, Mussolini’s henchmen and fine novelist Curzio Malaparte, not to mention the great scholar and translator, Frances Steegmuller, to whom Hazzard was married. She also recalls visits in earlier times by Rainer Maria Rilke, Ivan Turgenev, D.H. Lawrence, Henry James, etc. Greene was arguably a man who had it all—immense worldly success, love, travel, intellectual friends—but as death approached he grew bitter, he’d always been rather obstreperous. In closing Hazzard evokes the life of Harold Acton who temperamentally was all that Greene was not: kind where Greene was cruel, his reverse in almost every way. The book is the last word from a brilliant woman about a man who preferred women not to be too intelligent or witty.
August 28, 2023
This is an account of Australian writer Shirley Hazzard's friendship with Graham Greene on the island of Capri, where both of them used to pass their winters for many years (Hazzard with her husband and Greene with his partner).
I am a bit ambivalent about this one.
The writing was absolutely wonderful: lucid, perceptive, intelligent prose. Occasionally Hazzard would go over the top with her use of arcane vocabulary, but she always managed to pull it off and give the impression that she was not a compulsive thesaurus user but rather a cultured, well-read person expressing herself in a linguistic register she was proficient in.
The content was of a markedly lower standard. Hazzard was not Greene's lover; she didn't work with him for the British intelligence during the war, and she never accompanied him on his journeys to Liberia or French Indo-China. Her acquaintance with him was through lunches and dinners-for-four in Capri restaurants, where the conversation would turn to books, literary gossip and current affairs.
Consequently, Hazzard didn't really have much to say about Greene that was poignant, moving or particularly revealing. She must have been aware of that, because she had done a lot of research to pad up the book with biographical information on Greene and anecdotes from the literary history of Capri, to bulk up what would have otherwise been just enough material for a weekend magazine feature article.
I'm a lover of Greene's writing and an Italophile, and the insipidity of some sections was enlivened for me by Hazzard's stellar prose, hence the full marks - but I can easily understand those readers who have given this book much lower ratings.
The verdict: Highly recommended - for a certain type of reader.
I am a bit ambivalent about this one.
The writing was absolutely wonderful: lucid, perceptive, intelligent prose. Occasionally Hazzard would go over the top with her use of arcane vocabulary, but she always managed to pull it off and give the impression that she was not a compulsive thesaurus user but rather a cultured, well-read person expressing herself in a linguistic register she was proficient in.
The content was of a markedly lower standard. Hazzard was not Greene's lover; she didn't work with him for the British intelligence during the war, and she never accompanied him on his journeys to Liberia or French Indo-China. Her acquaintance with him was through lunches and dinners-for-four in Capri restaurants, where the conversation would turn to books, literary gossip and current affairs.
Consequently, Hazzard didn't really have much to say about Greene that was poignant, moving or particularly revealing. She must have been aware of that, because she had done a lot of research to pad up the book with biographical information on Greene and anecdotes from the literary history of Capri, to bulk up what would have otherwise been just enough material for a weekend magazine feature article.
I'm a lover of Greene's writing and an Italophile, and the insipidity of some sections was enlivened for me by Hazzard's stellar prose, hence the full marks - but I can easily understand those readers who have given this book much lower ratings.
The verdict: Highly recommended - for a certain type of reader.
February 6, 2010
Hazzard writes: "Graham Greene has already had biographers, one of whom has served him mightily. Yet I hope there is room for one who knew him--not wisely, perhaps, but fairly well--on an island that was "not his kind of place," but where he came seasons after season, year after year..." and this as well: "It seemed time, too, that a woman should write of Graham Greene."
Hazzard is a writer of elegance and reserve. Her book is slender, the times with Greene are neither numerous nor lengthy, but one sees Greene through her lens and learns of life on Capri as well and others who knew him there. She is never gossipy, not one to exploit. The book starts out compellingly, then seems to focus on Greene less intensely as other characters and situations, tangentially related to Greene, take more of center stage. Worth reading for a glimpse into his later life, when still he put in his 350 words a day, and because it will drive you back to his work. If you're like me, you'll want to hear him in his own words, his best and truest self being his novels, and the way to feel closest to the man and his work is to read them.
I liked these passages early on in her book, and had hoped to find more of them:
"That longing for peace which Graham invoked throughout his life, in published and in private writings, seemed, on the other hand, a fantasy of transfiguration. Anyone who knew him--and he knew himself best of all--was aware that peace was the last thing he desired. It was literally the last thing, synonymous--as often in his fiction--with death. ...Graham's recurring suicidal impulse--that flirting with fatality in adolescence and in his terrible prewar journeys, and in later expeditions to battle zones around the world--was countered or complemented by a defiant entanglement with life; and by a nearly nineteenth century energy of intention that enabled him to come through, and to write." (14).
and:
"Malcolm Muggeridge wrote of Graham: 'Whatever his circumstances, he has this facility for seeming always to be in lodgings, and living from hand to mouth. Spiritually, and even physically, he is one of nature's displaced persons.' He was not attached, through habit or memory, or aesthetically, to the rooms and houses and neighborhoods of his life, and could throw them over at will. Familiarity bred restlessness or rejection. Even in a chosen setting, such as the Rosaio, he retained the quality of wanderer." (22).
Hazzard is a writer of elegance and reserve. Her book is slender, the times with Greene are neither numerous nor lengthy, but one sees Greene through her lens and learns of life on Capri as well and others who knew him there. She is never gossipy, not one to exploit. The book starts out compellingly, then seems to focus on Greene less intensely as other characters and situations, tangentially related to Greene, take more of center stage. Worth reading for a glimpse into his later life, when still he put in his 350 words a day, and because it will drive you back to his work. If you're like me, you'll want to hear him in his own words, his best and truest self being his novels, and the way to feel closest to the man and his work is to read them.
I liked these passages early on in her book, and had hoped to find more of them:
"That longing for peace which Graham invoked throughout his life, in published and in private writings, seemed, on the other hand, a fantasy of transfiguration. Anyone who knew him--and he knew himself best of all--was aware that peace was the last thing he desired. It was literally the last thing, synonymous--as often in his fiction--with death. ...Graham's recurring suicidal impulse--that flirting with fatality in adolescence and in his terrible prewar journeys, and in later expeditions to battle zones around the world--was countered or complemented by a defiant entanglement with life; and by a nearly nineteenth century energy of intention that enabled him to come through, and to write." (14).
and:
"Malcolm Muggeridge wrote of Graham: 'Whatever his circumstances, he has this facility for seeming always to be in lodgings, and living from hand to mouth. Spiritually, and even physically, he is one of nature's displaced persons.' He was not attached, through habit or memory, or aesthetically, to the rooms and houses and neighborhoods of his life, and could throw them over at will. Familiarity bred restlessness or rejection. Even in a chosen setting, such as the Rosaio, he retained the quality of wanderer." (22).
June 15, 2015
I've long been an admirer of G.G.'s fiction, but Norman Sherry's 3vol. brique never attracted my interest. This seemed just the ticket--an elegant, brief view of G.G.'s life seen through the prism of friendship and the dwindling literary expat community on Capri (CAPree, let's say it together now...). The portrait is somewhat entirely in character. Greene came to Capri to get away from it all, and, despite purchasing a home on the island, never had any real 'interest' in the island and its culture or traditions. He was just sort of...there to escape and to write. Hazzard writes beautifully, but, as at least one other reviewer has mentioned, the effect is to draw you back to the works themselves. There are brief appearances of the final dregs of expat lit circles most memorably Norman Douglas in his final decline, but the overall vibe is ascetic. Coming off of Michael Mewshaw's irresistible Gore Vidal memoir Sympathy for the Devil: Four Decades of Friendship with Gore Vidal, one leaves G.G. wishing he'd jettisoned all the Catholic baggage somewhere over the Mediterranean...
June 8, 2013
I was torn on this one. It's an Elaine 4, and probably an anyone else 3. I have a passion for Southern Italian islands and tales of expat life in a golden age that whenever it was was before my time. More importantly, Shirley Hazzard and Graham Greene are two of a very small pantheon of literary gods that I absolutely worship. So, it's as if this odd little rambling and nostalgic book was a cocktail mixed just for me. As always, Hazzard's turns of phrase and trenchant observations enchant - so much so that I now have a reading list of now quasi-forgotten early-mid 20th century writers who washed up on Capri at one point or another, simply because Hazzard's allusions to them make them seem enticing. And she captures an intimate, loving if quite brutally honest, portrait of Greene. Capri itself (in a relatively unspoiled rustic state when there were still verdant farms and good simple trattorias) is so lovingly depicted that you can see, smell and taste it, and wish that you had not only a plane ticket but a time machine, so you could immediately go eat at pre-buffet-table Gemma's, and see a donkey stroll by... But the book is also a bit of a jumble - loosely connected anecdotes involving Italian and English intellectuals who Hazzard or Greene either knew on Capri, or knew of on Capri (clearly a wide scope).
Again, a peculiar and obscure book - but delightful for what it is, and the eccentric tastes to which it speaks.
Again, a peculiar and obscure book - but delightful for what it is, and the eccentric tastes to which it speaks.
March 26, 2016
One winter morning in the late 1960s, the Australian novelist Shirley Hazzard met - par hasard, in a cafe - the aging Graham Greene on the fabled island of Capri, just off the Neapolitan coast. What ensued was a friendship à quatre that endured over three decades - the quatre consisting of the two novelists and their respective partners (the Frenchwoman Yvonne Cloetta and the American writer Francis Steegmuller).
This may be a slim volume, but it is a work of exceptional beauty. In crystalline prose, Hazzard, who is a writer of some note herself, captures the natural wonder that is Capri and the prickly personality of the gnomish novelist perched in his eyrie. Graham Greene doesn't really come off all that well, cantankerous old misogynistic bastard that he was - and Hazzard makes a telling late comparison against that other Italian exile Harold Acton (best known today for his aphorism re power and corruption). Nonetheless, there is genuine affection and admiration in Hazzard's portrait, exasperated though she often was by Greene's unpredictable moods and uncharitable behaviour.
The other star of the show is the island of Capri itself, whose jewel-like setting in the Gulf of Naples has drawn a fascinated crowd from the Emperor Tiberius downwards. A host of figures from literature and history flit across the pages - Axel Munthe and Norman Douglas, Lenin and Gorky, Rilke and Bunin, Turgenev, DH Lawrence, Compton Mackenzie, Robert Penn Warren and the Italian fascist writer Curzio Malaparte. Hazzard touches also on local oddities like the Dottoressa Moor and Count Fersen, and in the latter half sketches a superb historical survey of the island across the centuries. But above all else looms the shadow of the recluse-emperor from two millennia ago who ruled his vast dominions, guarded and suspicious, from a mountain fastness that still overlooks the wine-dark sea.
Books don't come much more bijou than this, but when the topic is so engrossing, the writing so eloquent and intimidatingly erudite, the gratified reader can only call out: "More please."
This may be a slim volume, but it is a work of exceptional beauty. In crystalline prose, Hazzard, who is a writer of some note herself, captures the natural wonder that is Capri and the prickly personality of the gnomish novelist perched in his eyrie. Graham Greene doesn't really come off all that well, cantankerous old misogynistic bastard that he was - and Hazzard makes a telling late comparison against that other Italian exile Harold Acton (best known today for his aphorism re power and corruption). Nonetheless, there is genuine affection and admiration in Hazzard's portrait, exasperated though she often was by Greene's unpredictable moods and uncharitable behaviour.
The other star of the show is the island of Capri itself, whose jewel-like setting in the Gulf of Naples has drawn a fascinated crowd from the Emperor Tiberius downwards. A host of figures from literature and history flit across the pages - Axel Munthe and Norman Douglas, Lenin and Gorky, Rilke and Bunin, Turgenev, DH Lawrence, Compton Mackenzie, Robert Penn Warren and the Italian fascist writer Curzio Malaparte. Hazzard touches also on local oddities like the Dottoressa Moor and Count Fersen, and in the latter half sketches a superb historical survey of the island across the centuries. But above all else looms the shadow of the recluse-emperor from two millennia ago who ruled his vast dominions, guarded and suspicious, from a mountain fastness that still overlooks the wine-dark sea.
Books don't come much more bijou than this, but when the topic is so engrossing, the writing so eloquent and intimidatingly erudite, the gratified reader can only call out: "More please."
May 29, 2012
Recollections from the 1960s until Graham Greene's death - walks and talks with Greene and the author and her husband, Francis Steegmuller, of Greene's works, of writers, writing, ideas, during a 30-year period on the island of Capri. An actual appreciation of Greene's books is not necessary. It's Hazzard's writing that matters here -- and the history of the island, its literary culture, the unique perspective of the author, with descriptions and photographs -- make this memoir magical. There's even a picture of Leonide Massine's property, Isola Lunga, later bought by Rudolph Nureyev, if anyone cares. Hazzard is extraordinary.
September 6, 2011
3 and 1/2 stars
Recommended for those already interested in Graham Greene, the island of Capri (its historical and natural aspects) or the writing of Shirley Hazzard, which is beautiful, as always.
Reading about such people (including other literary friends of Hazzard and her husband who visit the island), I am reminded of how much there is to know in this world and how little of it I do know.
Recommended for those already interested in Graham Greene, the island of Capri (its historical and natural aspects) or the writing of Shirley Hazzard, which is beautiful, as always.
Reading about such people (including other literary friends of Hazzard and her husband who visit the island), I am reminded of how much there is to know in this world and how little of it I do know.
December 11, 2013
Shirley Hazzard's writing is sublime. Smooth as silk. She writes with such charm and grace, and encapsulates broad events into a succinct, condensed few lines so smoothly and eloquently. Perfect for reflecting in a memoir on fellow writer and long-time friend, Graham Greene. Shirley Hazzard draws a portrait that because of its subtleness in showing many and various aspects of Greene's character, I feel I wouldn't want to know too much more about the man. I don't think I want to read a biography on him, not at least until I've read a good number of his novels.
Near the end of the memoir Shirley Hazzard says of Greene, "No two encounters with Graham were ever the same, he saw to that."
There is a lot to interest in this memoir. There's a good description of Capri and its history. It has long been a magnet for writers and artists.
Shirley Hazzard relays the friendship between Greene and the "Dottoressa Moor", Dr. Elisabeth Moor. The "Impossible Woman" who was the acknowledged source for the character in Travels With My Aunt. Hazzard gives a glimpse of how Greene was energised by difficult people, he was one himself, all material for his writing.
Near the end of the memoir Shirley Hazzard says of Greene, "No two encounters with Graham were ever the same, he saw to that."
There is a lot to interest in this memoir. There's a good description of Capri and its history. It has long been a magnet for writers and artists.
Shirley Hazzard relays the friendship between Greene and the "Dottoressa Moor", Dr. Elisabeth Moor. The "Impossible Woman" who was the acknowledged source for the character in Travels With My Aunt. Hazzard gives a glimpse of how Greene was energised by difficult people, he was one himself, all material for his writing.
March 28, 2023
This book left me with a vicarious nostalgia for a place and a person who, in the way they are written, both now only exist in the past: 20th century Capri and Graham Greene, an anomalous author who in his personal and political life was both inflammatory and endearing. I am surprised by the degree to which Hazzard’s writing moved me, especially since I read this book with no prior knowledge of Greene or his literary works. You finish the memoir with a small snapshot of a man in the later years of his life, memorialised both in the written word, something he dedicated his life to, and in the rich history of Capri, a place he obstinately refused to admit a fondness for, yet returned to consistently and grounded himself in across his lifetime.
November 8, 2020
For over 40 years, Graham Greene owned a small house on the tiny island of Capri, just off the coast of Italy. He would visit there twice a year, staying for a month or so, and he would do what he loved best, write and write and write. Oddly enough, he never wrote about the island. For him, it was a haven from the outside world.
There he met fellow writer, Shirley Hazzard and her husband, and they immediately formed a bond that would last until Greene's death. It was not always an easy friendship, as they would experience his volatile temper and irrational outbursts on many occasions. The next day, Greene would invariably apologise and they would all move on to other topics, usually books and poetry and politics. Hazzard claims that she made very few notes after their conversations, but this book leads me to believe otherwise. One wonders what Greene would've thought of it. While he liked to judge others, he hated when he himself was under the microscope. My guess is that he would've saw this book as a betrayal. But I suppose it's also the price of fame, which I think he would've understood.
So what are the revelations about Greene in this book? I suppose the biggest for me was that he was so incurious about art, music, architecture and the natural beauty around him. Apparently, the beautifual views offered on the island were wasted on him. He was just there to relax and write. I find that disappointing, but then, I shouldn't be too surprised that he had his limitations, for we all do.
Apparently, he also had a fondness for practical jokes. Luckily, this book doesn't go into detail about that tiresome subject.
His great strengths were his intellect, his memory, his love for travel, and, most of all, his love for literature. Reading it and writing it were his great passions. For that, I can forgive him most anything.
The book itself is slim and stuffed with filler. (comments about the island and other artists who stayed there). But it's the first memoir I've read that discusses Greene, so for that I am grateful.
There he met fellow writer, Shirley Hazzard and her husband, and they immediately formed a bond that would last until Greene's death. It was not always an easy friendship, as they would experience his volatile temper and irrational outbursts on many occasions. The next day, Greene would invariably apologise and they would all move on to other topics, usually books and poetry and politics. Hazzard claims that she made very few notes after their conversations, but this book leads me to believe otherwise. One wonders what Greene would've thought of it. While he liked to judge others, he hated when he himself was under the microscope. My guess is that he would've saw this book as a betrayal. But I suppose it's also the price of fame, which I think he would've understood.
So what are the revelations about Greene in this book? I suppose the biggest for me was that he was so incurious about art, music, architecture and the natural beauty around him. Apparently, the beautifual views offered on the island were wasted on him. He was just there to relax and write. I find that disappointing, but then, I shouldn't be too surprised that he had his limitations, for we all do.
Apparently, he also had a fondness for practical jokes. Luckily, this book doesn't go into detail about that tiresome subject.
His great strengths were his intellect, his memory, his love for travel, and, most of all, his love for literature. Reading it and writing it were his great passions. For that, I can forgive him most anything.
The book itself is slim and stuffed with filler. (comments about the island and other artists who stayed there). But it's the first memoir I've read that discusses Greene, so for that I am grateful.
October 27, 2013
If you've never read Shirley Hazzard, then you haven't lived (as a reader). Her writing is exquisite. There are very few writers like her in this world. I sometimes wish I could live inside her skin and be gifted with a mind like hers. Her sentences are absolutely divine. I find myself reading much more slowly than I normally do and I find that I reread a fair amount of these sentences, either for the pure pleasure of it or because they are brim with meaning and I want to squeeze out every last drop.
I've been wanting to read this memoir of Graham Greene for a long time..Hazzard is charitable toward Greene, it seems to me. At least, I imagine from her writing that he was quite a difficult man, but that she feels fortunate to have known him. It's not as if she has a great deal of material about him, this book is light in substantive reminiscences but it is like poetry, in that so much is conveyed in the details she provides. She is a very careful writer.
She's not only remembering Greene, however, she's also depicting the island itself, some bits of history, some bits about other literary figures who have taken up residence there or come for extended stays.
If you want a comprehensive biography of Greene, obviously this is not the book for you. But if you're a fan of Shirley Hazzard, or of luxuriously well-written prose, you will love this book.
I've been wanting to read this memoir of Graham Greene for a long time..Hazzard is charitable toward Greene, it seems to me. At least, I imagine from her writing that he was quite a difficult man, but that she feels fortunate to have known him. It's not as if she has a great deal of material about him, this book is light in substantive reminiscences but it is like poetry, in that so much is conveyed in the details she provides. She is a very careful writer.
She's not only remembering Greene, however, she's also depicting the island itself, some bits of history, some bits about other literary figures who have taken up residence there or come for extended stays.
If you want a comprehensive biography of Greene, obviously this is not the book for you. But if you're a fan of Shirley Hazzard, or of luxuriously well-written prose, you will love this book.
October 24, 2023
Pretty thin but exquisitely written
September 27, 2020
Hazzard is an exceptional writer and her ability to quote authors and poets is impressive. However, her constant literary allusions and her very catty, nasty descriptions of women become tiresome. She and her husband seem to invite themselves into the lives of those around them with an expectation of attention and approval (and even lunch in the case of showing up to Leonard Massine’s house to grill him at length for a book about his contemporary). Hazzard depicts Greene as a loner, a grizzled man with little appreciation for Capri which I can only imagine is not true in reality. This is a book of assumptions and presumptions wrapped in very sleek language and masterly depictions of landscape and atmosphere. I wanted to love this but it feels like a barely disguised knife to the guts of a man who deserved better than to be depicted as a miserable, woman-fearing miser and Hazard and her bloodless husband as wonderfully worldly, perfectly agreeable authors and people. They are foreigners on Capri as much as Greene and to take the higher ground as if they belong there any more naturally than he is pretentious and irrational. Read this but also read Greene. This is far from a full view of Greene and his life.
March 17, 2019
I bought this after Susan Hill highly recommended it in her memoir, 'Jacob's Room is Full of Books'. It is beautifully written but served to make me realise, once more, that I will never be an intellectual. I was in awe at Hazzard's memory for poetry and ability to hold her own in any conversation. I remember Richard Burton describing Elizabeth Taylor at work, in that she never appeared to be doing much in front of the camera until all was revealed, every evening, in the rushes. So it is with Hazzard's writing which seems dainty and, even, grand while absolutely providing a solid, all-encompassing and worthy embrace of her subject. A vital warts and all account of Graham Greene based on twenty-five years of friendship that was confined to holidaying and/or working on Capri. Steeped in nostalgia, it is written after two of the main characters have died and Capri has undergone many changes.
April 24, 2014
Recently I spent 20 days in Italy and one of the many places I visited was the visually stunning island of Capri. This coupled with my interest and admiration for the intrepid novelist Graham Greene made me an ideal reader for Shirley Hazzard's memoir about Greene's time on the island, Greene On Capri (2000). It seems that Hazzard and her husband the writer Francis Steegmuller, were friends of Greene and often met with him during his extended stays on the island. Hazzard mixes in lines from his books, references to other books on Greene, some history of the island in general with personal reminisces of the man. It's not a comprehensive biography and has some superfluous information, but overall it gives a specific and nuanced look at a complex, difficult but talented man.
July 4, 2023
I admire Graham Greene's work but knew little of him as a person. I know more now, but kind of wish I didn't. Hazzard tells about meeting Graham Greene on Capri in the sixties, where she and her husband went a couple of times a year to write, and where Greene owned a villa. The three of them struck up a friendship that lasted until Greene's death in 1991. She describes Greene as complex and supremely intelligent, but also as mean and sexist. He was often rude to Hazzard and dismissive of women generally, which is evident in some of his novels. I suppose I had chocked this up to the times he lived in, but in Hazzard's telling he seemed to know exactly what he was doing and that the hurtful things he said were not inadvertent.
Hazzard's writing is excellent as I knew it would be, but I'm confused about why exactly she valued Greene's company. He lived an active and peripatetic life, and dinners with him were apparently never dull, but I'm disappointed that she let him get away with some pretty egregious remarks (this in reference to critics and commentators): "They're wounded people. I feel that one has to give them special attention, because of their huge disappointment. One has to be specially nice to them...As one is to Indians and women."
Hazzard and Greene both came from privileged backgrounds and hung out with a group of entitled and relatively well off folks. Greene did not mix much with the native residents of Capri and lacked curiosity about them. The picture is of a brilliant and well traveled man who liked adventure, and the conversation and company of other writers. He had a cold demeanor and it felt like Hazzard had to dig to find his good points.
Hazzard does a wonderful job of evoking the beauty and atmosphere of Capri during a time when it was not yet overdeveloped and overrun with tourists, and still attracted expat and vacationing writers who wanted a peaceful place to work. I will continue to read her and Greene's work, and perhaps seeing them as two flawed and very human writers will make this a richer experience.
Hazzard's writing is excellent as I knew it would be, but I'm confused about why exactly she valued Greene's company. He lived an active and peripatetic life, and dinners with him were apparently never dull, but I'm disappointed that she let him get away with some pretty egregious remarks (this in reference to critics and commentators): "They're wounded people. I feel that one has to give them special attention, because of their huge disappointment. One has to be specially nice to them...As one is to Indians and women."
Hazzard and Greene both came from privileged backgrounds and hung out with a group of entitled and relatively well off folks. Greene did not mix much with the native residents of Capri and lacked curiosity about them. The picture is of a brilliant and well traveled man who liked adventure, and the conversation and company of other writers. He had a cold demeanor and it felt like Hazzard had to dig to find his good points.
Hazzard does a wonderful job of evoking the beauty and atmosphere of Capri during a time when it was not yet overdeveloped and overrun with tourists, and still attracted expat and vacationing writers who wanted a peaceful place to work. I will continue to read her and Greene's work, and perhaps seeing them as two flawed and very human writers will make this a richer experience.
December 5, 2020
The combination of fine writing, interesting characters, and broad historical/literary knowledge, makes this an excellent book. Shirley Hazzard's work is consistently well written. The location sits at a locus of literary and history. And Graham Greene fascinates.
There are many excellent reviews of the book in Goodreads. I really can't add to them. Read the reviews by WILLIAM2 and Jessica, just preceding mine, sum it up perfectly.
My only negative comment about the book: it wasn't long enough – I wanted it to go on.
There are many excellent reviews of the book in Goodreads. I really can't add to them. Read the reviews by WILLIAM2 and Jessica, just preceding mine, sum it up perfectly.
My only negative comment about the book: it wasn't long enough – I wanted it to go on.
May 27, 2021
A glimpse of a bygone era...writers sitting around in Capri taking about other writers. Interesting window into Greene as well...and not very positive, although her affection is evident.
November 2, 2023
A literary memoir by Shirley Hazard focused on her and her
husband's (Francis Steegmuller) socializing with Graham Greene on the isle of Capri. Tiberius, Rilke, and Henry James are among the many that came through the island over the centuries. While providing some insights into Greene, this is primarily a literary work. Greene seems to be a very prickly character. I recommend sticking to Greene's novels. I have read and recommend Hazard on the UN. I have not read her fiction.
husband's (Francis Steegmuller) socializing with Graham Greene on the isle of Capri. Tiberius, Rilke, and Henry James are among the many that came through the island over the centuries. While providing some insights into Greene, this is primarily a literary work. Greene seems to be a very prickly character. I recommend sticking to Greene's novels. I have read and recommend Hazard on the UN. I have not read her fiction.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 1, 2021
I have read all three volumes (2,200 pages) of Norman Sherry’s over-whelming biography of Graham Greene. But, in this slim volume by Shirley Hazzard, I feel like I finally got to “know” the real Graham Greene (in only 149 pages). There is something magical about Hazzard’s writing and the intimate way she recounts her experiences with Greene in their annual gatherings over the years on the Isle of Capri. I could not help but feel covetous. I wish I could have been there, just listening in.
Hazzard also gives a remarkable literary “history” of Capri, with allusions to the bizarre number of luminaries who lived there or visited regularly – from Norman Douglas, of course, to Sir Harold Acton.
It is quite lovely to have a woman’s view of Greene. Hazzard is usually kind in her tales and references, but she also pulls no punches. In this, she seems more clear-eyed than Sherry’s general fawning. She says (on p. 39): Repeatedly singled out as a writer of his ‘era,’ Graham, even so, long eluded literary chronology. His best work, with its disarming blend of wit, event, and lone fatality, has not staled; and he himself, always ready, with eager skepticism, for life’s next episode, did not seem to ‘date.’ However, in one respect – his attitudes to women – he remained rooted, as man and writer, in his early decades…Their narrative frequently centred on the difficulty of being a moody, clever, thin-skinned – and occasionally alcoholic – literate man who commands the devotion of a comely, plucky, self-denying younger woman. These were demonstrable elements of educated life in Britain between the sexes and between the wars, and they lingered in Graham’s fiction even after, briefly ‘orientalised’ in The Quiet American.”
I won’t spoil it for you, but you need to read this book just to hear the wonderful tale of how Shirley Hazzard and Graham Greene first met – and became life-long friends.
I have few books that I want to read again. This is one of them. It is a superb example of literary history and memoir. Her nearly last line: “When friends die, one’s own credentials change: one becomes a survivor.”
Hazzard also gives a remarkable literary “history” of Capri, with allusions to the bizarre number of luminaries who lived there or visited regularly – from Norman Douglas, of course, to Sir Harold Acton.
It is quite lovely to have a woman’s view of Greene. Hazzard is usually kind in her tales and references, but she also pulls no punches. In this, she seems more clear-eyed than Sherry’s general fawning. She says (on p. 39): Repeatedly singled out as a writer of his ‘era,’ Graham, even so, long eluded literary chronology. His best work, with its disarming blend of wit, event, and lone fatality, has not staled; and he himself, always ready, with eager skepticism, for life’s next episode, did not seem to ‘date.’ However, in one respect – his attitudes to women – he remained rooted, as man and writer, in his early decades…Their narrative frequently centred on the difficulty of being a moody, clever, thin-skinned – and occasionally alcoholic – literate man who commands the devotion of a comely, plucky, self-denying younger woman. These were demonstrable elements of educated life in Britain between the sexes and between the wars, and they lingered in Graham’s fiction even after, briefly ‘orientalised’ in The Quiet American.”
I won’t spoil it for you, but you need to read this book just to hear the wonderful tale of how Shirley Hazzard and Graham Greene first met – and became life-long friends.
I have few books that I want to read again. This is one of them. It is a superb example of literary history and memoir. Her nearly last line: “When friends die, one’s own credentials change: one becomes a survivor.”
January 4, 2013
Shirley Hazzard begins this memoir of Graham Greene quite simply:
"On a December morning of the late 1960s, I was sitting by the windows of the Gran Caffee in the piazzetta of Capri, doing the crossword in The Times."
But don't be fooled! This is not a simple memoir. As the blurb on the backs says: "Shirley Hazzard is highly observant and alarmingly intelligent; she is also erudite, precise and morally scrupulous."
This is a fascinating book that I just couldn't put down. Rather than chronologically recreate the friendship as it began and finally ended, Hazzard takes us on a lively journey around Capri. We sit at the Gran Caffe where Hazzard first met the famous author. Greene was at a nearby table and couldn't remember the last line of a poem by Robert Browning. Hazzard, passing by Greene's table supplied the last line and so began the friendship.
There are visits to Greene's house Il Rosaio, encounters in the streets of Capri, meals at the restaurant Gemma, and a wonderful excursion to Villa Jovis. Hazzard very skillfully weaves her way through Greene's work, his friendships, the life of an artist living on Capri and other famous residents of the island. Through all these different subjects Hazzard touches on, the reader is always brought back to the enigmatic and often very difficult Greene.
Hazzard brilliantly evokes all the contrary aspects of him. Here is a taste:
"Anne Fleming wrote of Evelyn Waugh: 'He liked things to go wrong.' There was a srong element of that in Graham - the inclination or compulsion to foment trouble, to shake up tameness and disturb the peace. Like Waugh, Graham was an arbiter and inflicter: things should go wrong, but only on his terms."
I would highly recommend this to all Greene fans. After reading this book I now want to read Greene's The Heart of the Matter and a book he much admired - The Viper of Milan by Marjorie Bowen which he read as a child. I've also marked to read Elizabeth Bowen's (a great friend of Greene's)novel The Heat of the Day - Hazzard's favourite by that author.
"On a December morning of the late 1960s, I was sitting by the windows of the Gran Caffee in the piazzetta of Capri, doing the crossword in The Times."
But don't be fooled! This is not a simple memoir. As the blurb on the backs says: "Shirley Hazzard is highly observant and alarmingly intelligent; she is also erudite, precise and morally scrupulous."
This is a fascinating book that I just couldn't put down. Rather than chronologically recreate the friendship as it began and finally ended, Hazzard takes us on a lively journey around Capri. We sit at the Gran Caffe where Hazzard first met the famous author. Greene was at a nearby table and couldn't remember the last line of a poem by Robert Browning. Hazzard, passing by Greene's table supplied the last line and so began the friendship.
There are visits to Greene's house Il Rosaio, encounters in the streets of Capri, meals at the restaurant Gemma, and a wonderful excursion to Villa Jovis. Hazzard very skillfully weaves her way through Greene's work, his friendships, the life of an artist living on Capri and other famous residents of the island. Through all these different subjects Hazzard touches on, the reader is always brought back to the enigmatic and often very difficult Greene.
Hazzard brilliantly evokes all the contrary aspects of him. Here is a taste:
"Anne Fleming wrote of Evelyn Waugh: 'He liked things to go wrong.' There was a srong element of that in Graham - the inclination or compulsion to foment trouble, to shake up tameness and disturb the peace. Like Waugh, Graham was an arbiter and inflicter: things should go wrong, but only on his terms."
I would highly recommend this to all Greene fans. After reading this book I now want to read Greene's The Heart of the Matter and a book he much admired - The Viper of Milan by Marjorie Bowen which he read as a child. I've also marked to read Elizabeth Bowen's (a great friend of Greene's)novel The Heat of the Day - Hazzard's favourite by that author.
September 10, 2008
I read this during the late summer of 2008 as it was selected by our Thursday evening book group for our return from hiatus in September of that year. We read this alongside Hazzard's short novel, The Bay of Noon. Her portrait of Greene is focused, and in comparison with the earnest but elephantine biography by Norman Sherry, is brief and economical. Yet she is able to convey far more in it of the inner man, and the sense it provides of the outer man is more vivid as well. It is a model not merely of memoir but of the writer's craft. We enjoyed the literary portraits and the descriptions of Capri as well. This was an unexpected delight.
February 5, 2009
We learn that Graham Greene was soemtimes surly and imperious as well as witty and insightful. We learn of the friendship that Ms. Hazzard and her husband strike up with Greene and their many meals at Gemma (good food, even if not transcendant). We learn about other interesting characters on Capri and even learn a little bit about Capri life and politics. I found Ms. Hazzard's writing style to be more fluid here then in her book on Naples. All interesting, but seems to lack a true urge to move the reader through the book.
May 11, 2013
I love Shirley Hazzard's writing. This was a fond, yet honest account of her friendship with a complex man in a setting that itself changed over the years.
July 11, 2021
Until I saw a comment about one of her books recently on Twitter, I had never to my shame heard of Shirley Hazzard. Something about the opening paragraph of Bay of Noon that was being referenced in the tweet appealed and I immediately ordered her first book The Evening of the Holiday, Bay of Noon (yet to arrive) and also Greene on Capri.
I had of course heard of Graham Greene and had read several of his books. I thought of him with reverence and awe and was keen to read a book written about him by someone who knew him well. I also wanted to read about his time on Capri having fallen in love with the island after a day trip a couple of years ago which revolved around a walk up to Villa Jovis so I was delighted that a similar excursion by Hazzard, Greene and their respective partners was described in the book.
This book has left me with three thoughts (apart from wanting to visit Capri again if only to visit the Anacapri side of the island to see Rosaio and then dine at Gemma). Firstly, it’s always fascinating to observe a hero described so acutely and with their flaws. Ms Hazzard clearly loved him and respected him enormously but was unafraid to reference his churlishness and occasional tempers as well as his restlessness and seeming inability to settle anywhere. He loved women but was frustrated by their hold over him and didn’t give a woman “good marks for pert answers”. He hated to be wrong and was unable to acknowledge mistakes, a clear sign of an ego no doubt carried along by his success. I’ve come to dislike the term flawed character (and it is me who has introduced it here) as it is often used to describe people posthumously and we are all flawed characters. To be flawed is human or to be human is to be flawed. I’m sure it was deliberate that Ms Hazzard describes close to the end of the book a meeting she and her husband, the endearing Francis, had with their contemporary Harold Acton whose conviviality appears to contrast sharply with Greene’s behaviour.
Secondly what stands out is what a stunning writer Hazzard was. Her prose so elegant that the reader wants to linger over rather than rush through the words. She describes Capri wonderfully and I look forward to reading everything of hers. I couldn’t help wondering whether she’d have had greater success if born at a different time and I also wondered whether she at times privately resented Greene’s success which far outshone her own; as lovers of her work would no doubt attest, she should not have lived so much in his shadow. Perhaps the mistake is mine and she was better known than I have given her credit for.
Last but not least, I was delighted to learn that Greene was a liberal user of exclamation marks in his letters which has resolved a question I have often asked myself when I use them. Is it immature to emphasise words in such a way (I’ve worked with people who always include them after saying thanks!). I feel now secure in using exclamation marks but will endeavour to use them judiciously!
I had of course heard of Graham Greene and had read several of his books. I thought of him with reverence and awe and was keen to read a book written about him by someone who knew him well. I also wanted to read about his time on Capri having fallen in love with the island after a day trip a couple of years ago which revolved around a walk up to Villa Jovis so I was delighted that a similar excursion by Hazzard, Greene and their respective partners was described in the book.
This book has left me with three thoughts (apart from wanting to visit Capri again if only to visit the Anacapri side of the island to see Rosaio and then dine at Gemma). Firstly, it’s always fascinating to observe a hero described so acutely and with their flaws. Ms Hazzard clearly loved him and respected him enormously but was unafraid to reference his churlishness and occasional tempers as well as his restlessness and seeming inability to settle anywhere. He loved women but was frustrated by their hold over him and didn’t give a woman “good marks for pert answers”. He hated to be wrong and was unable to acknowledge mistakes, a clear sign of an ego no doubt carried along by his success. I’ve come to dislike the term flawed character (and it is me who has introduced it here) as it is often used to describe people posthumously and we are all flawed characters. To be flawed is human or to be human is to be flawed. I’m sure it was deliberate that Ms Hazzard describes close to the end of the book a meeting she and her husband, the endearing Francis, had with their contemporary Harold Acton whose conviviality appears to contrast sharply with Greene’s behaviour.
Secondly what stands out is what a stunning writer Hazzard was. Her prose so elegant that the reader wants to linger over rather than rush through the words. She describes Capri wonderfully and I look forward to reading everything of hers. I couldn’t help wondering whether she’d have had greater success if born at a different time and I also wondered whether she at times privately resented Greene’s success which far outshone her own; as lovers of her work would no doubt attest, she should not have lived so much in his shadow. Perhaps the mistake is mine and she was better known than I have given her credit for.
Last but not least, I was delighted to learn that Greene was a liberal user of exclamation marks in his letters which has resolved a question I have often asked myself when I use them. Is it immature to emphasise words in such a way (I’ve worked with people who always include them after saying thanks!). I feel now secure in using exclamation marks but will endeavour to use them judiciously!
Read
June 18, 2019Beautiful. Much better than Pagan Light, but I don't regret reading the first. Jotted down a series of new writers to look up including Elizabeth Bowen and Patrick White. Good suggestion for a Graham Greene novel, The Man Within, and reminded me how much I love Shirley Hazzard. Leon Edel's collected letters of Henry James are worth looking up as well.
The anecdotes of overhearing conversation in cafes were memorable and well crafted in the narrative. She finishes a line of Browning that she overhears Greene struggling with in the cafe - this is how they meet. Then he calls out a young man for listening in on their conversation about Henry James, in a heartbreaking scene that Hazzard stylizes masterfully.
The anecdotes of overhearing conversation in cafes were memorable and well crafted in the narrative. She finishes a line of Browning that she overhears Greene struggling with in the cafe - this is how they meet. Then he calls out a young man for listening in on their conversation about Henry James, in a heartbreaking scene that Hazzard stylizes masterfully.
August 31, 2021
Another elegant and engrossing book by this outstanding writer. Her prose is intense and dense and surprising. I needed to look up meanings of words I knew, just to be sure I really understood the use of them in context.
Superb arresting descriptions of nature and people and houses and so many references to writers and artists snd others who crossed paths with Greene and the writer and her husband.
Deceptively small, this publication, but after many forays into the poetry and art and politics to which she refers, I managed to make it last a couple of weeks.
If only I had read it before I travelled to that part of the world.
Superb arresting descriptions of nature and people and houses and so many references to writers and artists snd others who crossed paths with Greene and the writer and her husband.
Deceptively small, this publication, but after many forays into the poetry and art and politics to which she refers, I managed to make it last a couple of weeks.
If only I had read it before I travelled to that part of the world.
November 12, 2021
Post WWII English writers, world travelers, and expatriates whose lives and musings intersect with Graham Greene and or the island of Capri. A well written book but I just do not swim in those waters and could not identify.
The author says « there is scant testimony, other than his (Greene’s) own, to suggest what it was to be habitually in his company, to walk with him in a street, to exchange opinions, literature, laughter,and something of one’s self; to observe his moods and responses; suffer his temper, and witness his attachments ; to see him grow old. »
This is that book. If you are interested in the above, this is the book for you. it’s all here!
The author says « there is scant testimony, other than his (Greene’s) own, to suggest what it was to be habitually in his company, to walk with him in a street, to exchange opinions, literature, laughter,and something of one’s self; to observe his moods and responses; suffer his temper, and witness his attachments ; to see him grow old. »
This is that book. If you are interested in the above, this is the book for you. it’s all here!
December 18, 2023
Reading this book is like watching a pretty documentary about fine dining on the plane. Lovely, relaxing, and skilful stuff. I might finally try Graham Greene now. I am definitely taking note of the correct pronunciation of Capri, and stealing the classy descriptions of wine. I mostly read this while eating breakfast.
It's worth noting that the 2000 Virago Press edition of Greene on Capri is beautiful – a little thin dark-green hardcover with perfect paper and typesetting. But not at all like one of those decorative books you buy in a museum gift shop.
I feel a bit bad about this review. Shirley Hazzard had a zero-tolerance policy on glibness. Sorry, Shirley!
It's worth noting that the 2000 Virago Press edition of Greene on Capri is beautiful – a little thin dark-green hardcover with perfect paper and typesetting. But not at all like one of those decorative books you buy in a museum gift shop.
I feel a bit bad about this review. Shirley Hazzard had a zero-tolerance policy on glibness. Sorry, Shirley!
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