Bluejake

I've mentioned before that Graham Greene is one of my favorite authors. I started reading him back during college, when we realized that Morrissey was singing about characters from Brighton Rock on Now My Heart is Full, the first track off his 1994 album Vauxhall and I. Greene wrote dozens of books- many of them very good, some not so good. He wrote children's books and film criticism and short stories and screenplays, including one for The Third Man. His themes are pretty attractive to someone feeling a little lost in their twenties- faith, human frailty, betrayal, love- almost always mixed together. Doomed affairs are one of his obsessions- explored in different ways in The Heart of the Matter, The End of the Affair, and The Quiet American. Greene lived a long and adventurous life- travelling, spying for the crown, working strange African diplomatic missions. His books aren't all sad- Our Man in Havana was very funny, and many of his books have a grim humor about them.

As he is one of my favorite authors, I knew eventually I'd have to face another one of his lingering themes: anti-semitism. Especially in his early works, and in a lot of his film criticism, Jews are presented as caricatures- greedy, hook-nosed, disloyal, base. I just finished Stamboul Train, and the main character, Myatt, is repeatedly described as greasy and beady-eyed. He flaunts his wealth, is desperate for acceptance, and eventually marries for money. This is not to say that he is all bad. Much of the story is told from his point of view, and Greene does not paint a flattering portrait of the characters that abuse him because of his race. Myatt is also capable of fits of generosity- saving a show girl who has passed out, lending her his room on the train.

The debate over Greene's anti-semitism raged in the NY Review of Books about seven years ago. Many people argued that he was just presenting an honest portrayal of people in England at the time, and that any perceived anti-semitism was just a trait of the character in the novel, and not of the author. Now, this is an interesting argument, but one that is not entirely convincing. I think Greene probably was somewhat anti-semitic- but this was balanced out by his sympathy for all people- especially those that are stepped on and abused. His ambivalence produced characters like Myatt- caricatures to be sure, but sympathetic ones. I'm willing to give Greene a chance- I mean, if you judged whether or not to read a novel based on the personality flaws of the author, that would rule out most of modern literature.

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