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In Search of a Beginning: My Life with Graham Greene
For more than 30 years, Yvonne Cloetta shared her life with Graham Greene. After years of tormented love affairs and dangerous exploits, the novelist found solace and understanding with this remarkable Frenchwoman, which assuaged his famously melancholic nature yet allowed him to create some of his greatest work. Greene knew that the time might come when Cloetta's privacy would be invaded, and his advice was to either refuse to speak or to tell the truth. This Cloetta has done, most eloquently, with the help of family friends and biographer Marie-Françoise Allain. What emerges is the most intimate and revelatory portrait of Greene that we have.
209 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2005
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About the author
Yvonne Cloetta
2 booksYvonne Cloetta was Graham Greene's companion for 32 years from 1959.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 4, 2020
A soliloquy from the Frenchwoman who was his companion for the last 32 years, told in interview format with a close family friend.
This is fair journalism overall but it's repetitive, bounces around chronologically which I found irritating, & avoids the really difficult questions, like why was he so attracted, and attractive, to women with functional families and erstwhile long-term marriages, both Catherine Walston and Yvonne Cloetta?
To be fair to Yvonne, Graham's writing output during their relationship was somewhat less celebrated, compared to his previous literature. From the little I have read, I wonder if his best fiction was borne of psychological anguish, as well as physical danger, with his war-time novels reigning supreme? When he started to become more settled, & less conflicted, his complacency afflicted his writing. That he revelled in long solo trips to Central America to recreate those circumstances in the earlier years of their relationship leads me to suspect that he was aware of this motivation?
However, I have read neither of his own biographies or his own attempts at autobiography, so this could be dismissed as mere speculation? Overall, I am still left with a sense of a mid-century British writer who was of the top echelon in the 20th century pantheon of English literature, whose appeal transcended the class hierarchy, and easily flowed into film & stage with equal success.
That he failed to win a Nobel prize was, perhaps, due to his non-conformity, his avoidance of media appearances & his refusal to be obsequious to the awards hierarchy. Then, of course, he also maintained his friendship with Kim Philby, the Russian double agent, with whom he had worked during WW2.
Fortunately, his behaviour, typical of an iconoclast, has allowed him to leave some superb literature, which appears to have aged well. I was glad to have read this, despite its faults, but probably to understand that Graham faced his terminal illness with equanimity, which was surely what he deserved.
This is fair journalism overall but it's repetitive, bounces around chronologically which I found irritating, & avoids the really difficult questions, like why was he so attracted, and attractive, to women with functional families and erstwhile long-term marriages, both Catherine Walston and Yvonne Cloetta?
To be fair to Yvonne, Graham's writing output during their relationship was somewhat less celebrated, compared to his previous literature. From the little I have read, I wonder if his best fiction was borne of psychological anguish, as well as physical danger, with his war-time novels reigning supreme? When he started to become more settled, & less conflicted, his complacency afflicted his writing. That he revelled in long solo trips to Central America to recreate those circumstances in the earlier years of their relationship leads me to suspect that he was aware of this motivation?
However, I have read neither of his own biographies or his own attempts at autobiography, so this could be dismissed as mere speculation? Overall, I am still left with a sense of a mid-century British writer who was of the top echelon in the 20th century pantheon of English literature, whose appeal transcended the class hierarchy, and easily flowed into film & stage with equal success.
That he failed to win a Nobel prize was, perhaps, due to his non-conformity, his avoidance of media appearances & his refusal to be obsequious to the awards hierarchy. Then, of course, he also maintained his friendship with Kim Philby, the Russian double agent, with whom he had worked during WW2.
Fortunately, his behaviour, typical of an iconoclast, has allowed him to leave some superb literature, which appears to have aged well. I was glad to have read this, despite its faults, but probably to understand that Graham faced his terminal illness with equanimity, which was surely what he deserved.
January 17, 2010
Good memoir written in unusual format (Q's and A's)
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews