The Books in My Life

Abstract

Said the great conductor Herbert Von Karajan about his arch-rival Leonard Bernstein (and it was a compliment he paid to few fellow musicians): ‘He’s full of music.’ The same kind of compliment could be paid to Greene: he’s full of literature. When reading a book of his, one feels as if one is reading several books, so packed are they with allusions, parallels and evocations: they breathe the air of a cultured man steeped in the literature of his and earlier times. It is one of the reasons for the deceptive richness of his novels, the revelation of a depth that goes beyond fascinations of plot and character in the thriller mode. Entertaining and individualistic, Greene also carries with him the resonance of an older and distinguished literary tradition. He not only absorbed what he observed for future use in his novels but also absorbed what he read. As important to his literary biography as the life in his books were the books in his life.

The influence of early books is profound. So much of the future lies on the shelves: early reading has more influence on conduct than any religious teaching.

— Graham Greene¹

On one point, and perhaps only one point, do Graham Greene’s accounts of his own life carry the ring of truth, and that is when they deal with the books and the authors that influenced him. It is as though this, and this alone, is too important not to be entirely accurate. All the rest may when necessary be twisted and turned, dramatized, edited out, cut, exaggerated, run together or, as the case may be, respected in order to make a better or at least a more coherent story. But books — the centre, after all, of any writer’s life — are sacred.

— Anthony Mockler²