[gmw]

So, as I mentioned earlier, the introduction to my edition by Monica Ali, was less than inspiring. Why they insist on including this sort of stuff (full of spoilers etc.) at the front, rather than at the back where it belongs, I do not know. But to my point...

Monica says:

Greene, of course, must donate flesh (and vital organs) to Bendrix. How else should a writer go about creating a writer?

Say what? How does she think a writer creates characters that are not writers?

Greene may have donated elements of his own self to Bendrix, or he may have donated someone else's (I'm pretty sure Greene must have known one or two other writers), or Bendrix might be made up from assorted pieces of many people (this seems most likely).

Monica does go on to say:

But this does not make Bendrix the man (as opposed to the writer) Greene’s alter-ego.

But if she can acknowledge this, why must she assume Greene has donated his own flesh to the character? It is possible, but it is not something we can safely assume.

That said, I do think that a large degree of obsessiveness is part of a writer's make up. So I'm guessing Greene may have been well qualified to write about obsession.


I have little doubt, from what I've read, that some of Greene's personal experience has contributed to this story, but I think it is too large a leap to go from that to assuming it is autobiographical. Even authors that do it less obviously than this must draw from experience - we all do, in whatever it is we do - but imagination means it may end up fiction rather than biography.

Also, I hope it's not closely autobiographical because I'd rather think better of Graham Greene than I do Maurice Bendrix.

No, I think Bendrix was a construct. One of five different exaggerated characters (four men all watching one woman struggling with, and eventually for, her life) that Greene created to thrash out his own problems with religion. And it failed, he resolved nothing (or nothing that he reveals in this novel). As far as I can see, he exposes nothing new to add to the debate, so all this novel has is the struggle. The struggle might make for compelling reading if I had sympathy for any of the protagonists, but I did not.