Traveling in Greeneland Graham Greene Studies Volume 1 158

Falk: Traveling in Greeneland Graham Greene Studies Volume 1 158 of ninety (he actually passed the milestone Traveling three months later), including one with my Creative Non-Fiction Writing class, who in Greeneland were clearly fascinated by his life as a jour- nalist in some of the world’s hottest spots Quentin Falk as the bullets were flying. For his part, you could see how, in between teenager stories More than thirty years after the publica- of four-masted ship voyages during wartime tion of my first book,Travels in Greeneland: and a recital of various dictator oppres- The Cinema of Graham Greene (and even sions, he still retained perhaps his fondest more poignantly at the Silver Anniversary memory for his long friendship with Greene. of Greene’s death,) I now find myself in, of As Greene’s latest biographer, his name- all places, America’s Deep South, heart of sake Professor Richard Greene, puts it the Bible Belt, writing the great man’s name in an elegant Introduction to Seeds of and dates on a white board in a classroom Fiction: Diederich was “a guide and polit- at the campus of the University of North ical adviser” to the author, more than Georgia (UNG), about seventy or so miles 20 years his senior, as well as being, in from Atlanta. Greene’s words, “a figure of quiet heroism” Writing and talking about Greene, with who endured imprisonment and exile on whom I had a short but fascinating acquain- account of his fearless journalism. tance in 1983/84, has not only brought me Although I did not realize it at the time, here, for the third time, to this rather beau- my first association with Graham Greene’s tiful institution, sited picturesquely near the more immediate family actually began when start of the 2,150-mile-long Appalachian I was about fourteen or fifteen. Concerned Trail, but also helped to introduce me to the especially about my lack of height, my father wider Greene “family” of friends, fans, and took me to see the country’s leading endo- academics who have kept the flame lit for, crinologist, Dr. Raymond Greene, none arguably, the finest of twentieth—century other than Graham’s older brother. Possibly English novelists. taller than his younger brother, the good That “family” became further, and very doctor—also a very accomplished mountain- happily, extended for me in these halls of eer—was very encouraging, said something academe with the arrival as Spring began about slow-maturing bones, told us “not to of Bernard Diederich, this year’s Visiting worry,” and sent us on our way. Some pills Author at UNG (I had that honor in 2013), may also have been involved. At 17, I grew whose brilliant and revealing—albeit much seven inches in the next year and a half. too belated—memoir, Seeds of Fiction, about I cannot remember whether I ever told “Greene’s Adventures in Haiti and Central his brother this either when we first met in America 1954-1983,” to coin the book’s sub- Antibes in 1983 or, eighteen months later, title, gave me new and revealing insights at our brief reunion for an interview on into the great man’s colorful life and times. stage at the National Film Theatre (NFT) I had the privilege of moderating three on London’s South Bank to celebrate both Q&As for Diederich, whose amazing recall the publication of my book and Greene’s and quiet humor belied a man on the cusp impending 80th birthday. Also neither of Published by Nighthawks Open Institutional Repository, 2017 1 Graham Greene Studies, Vol. 1 [2017], Art. 21 159 Traveling in Greeneland us knew that the NFT occasion was being Then, in 1998, a summons arrived out of secretly if crudely filmed—flagrantly without the blue from the organizers of the inau- Greene’s permission—from the projection gural Graham Greene Festival asking if I booth for, eventually, a wider television would like to introduce a screening of The audience around the writer’s Centenary in Third Man (incidentally, two years before 2004, thirteen years after his death. it would be voted The Greatest British Film As for maintaining any sort of association of the Century in a new millennium poll after our collaboration on Greeneland, that of film critics arranged by the British Film never really seemed to be even remotely Institute (BFI); Brighton Rock was number in the cards, remembering that Norman 15). The venue, in the impressive 22-story Sherry was still—to Greene’s increasing Kodak UK headquarters, situated just off annoyance—dogging his footsteps before the the town’s famous “Magic Roundabout,” publication nearly five years later of what was the first—and actually smallest—of a would be the first of three huge volumes of number of theatres, which would, over the authorized biography. succeeding years, host Festival screenings. As I wrote in the fourth and most recent The following year, we were back in edition of Greeneland, serendipitously pub- Hemel Hempstead where I introduced a lished a couple of years ago by the University screening of . well, perhaps not surpris- of North Georgia Press (now with the addition ingly, Brighton Rock, part of a four-pronged of a new chapter and a thoughtful Afterword focus on the novel at that Festival, including by my latest boss, UNG English Department talks on “Darkest Greeneland” by Professor Head, Dr. Joyce Stavick), if I had hoped Cedric Watts and “The Making of The Film” for “some obvious sign of approval [for my by Maire McQueeney, who also led a guided book], I was to be disappointed.” In a polite day visit of the town itself. but fairly terse letter about arrangements Over the next fifteen years, in a variety ahead of our NFT date, Greene added in a of venues ranging from the Elgiva Centre, P.S., “Please, if your book is to be reprinted in Chesham to The Civic Centre, Berkhamsted paperback, correct the mistake on page 4 or via The Rex Cinema and the school’s own it will be endlessly repeated. Brighton Rock Deans’ Hall, I had a succession of ever sold 8,000 not 80,000 copies.” Clearly the delightful late autumn Festival assignments, British taxman, who had apparently driven introducing various films in the Greene Greene into his French exile from 1966, still canon. These included the remakes of The cast a very long shadow. Quiet American, The End of the Affair, The Happily, the book enjoyed some decent Honorary Consul, Across the Bridge, Dr. reviews at publication and, sometime later, Fischer of Geneva, and England Made Me. even inclusion on a major Film Book of the Even more memorable, certainly from Year Award shortlist—no, it did not win, my point of view, were various close sadly—before it began to recede from my encounters with articulate filmmakers memory as I took on, irregularly, new book who had embarked on their own travels projects, principally more conventional, in Greeneland, explaining to me in front showbiz-related biographies in between of very appreciative audiences, the plea- the bread-and-butter of film reviewing and sures and potential pitfalls of adapting various magazine editorships. Greene’s work for the cinema and television: https://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/ggs/vol1/iss1/21 2 Falk: Traveling in Greeneland Graham Greene Studies Volume 1 160 writer-director Peter Duffell (England him,” Greene told me. “I felt the book just Made Me), the late writer-producer Richard wouldn’t survive his touch.” Broke (Dr. Fischer), and, on two occasions, However, I personally still like to fanta- separated by more than a decade, producer size from time to time just what Hitch might Stephen Woolley (The End of the Affair), have fashioned from titles like The Ministry not to mention fine British actors such as of Fear, A Gun for Sale, or even The Tenth Ian Hart and Greta Scacchi. Man. Criminality and conscience, indeed. Away from the Festival, our paths would I write this during my final days of indirectly cross again some years after lately acquired academe in North Georgia Greene had died when I was commis- wondering what Greene, with his often sioned to write a new biography of Alfred mordant views of many matters American, Hitchcock. The more I researched Hitch’s might have made of the current “Race life, desperately trying to find something to for the White House,” which day-by-day say that had not been said a hundred times more resembles a chillingly tacky Reality before in numerous previous memoirs, the TV show. Yet, the dawning possibility that more I kept thinking what a perfect fit he America’s next Commander-in-Chief might and Greene would have made, and not just conceivably be a ruthless international because of their shared Catholic faith. businessman with strange hair, whose It was probably something to do with what even stranger policies make The Quiet another filmmaker, Neil Jordan, had sagely American’s Alden Pyle seem like a boy opined in his generous Foreword to the scout in comparison, is, happily for me at 2000 3rd edition of my book when he linked least, temporarily eclipsed—trumped?—by “those two poets of English criminality and one of Greene’s most outrageous creations, bad conscience,” while bemoaning their Augusta Bertram. “lack of contact.” Writing about the so-called I am “teaching,” as they say, both the “Master of Suspense” gave me a chance to book and film of Travels With My Aunt as re-examine Greene’s “strange miasma,” part of a Film and Literature course I have as Jordan put it, about the work of Alfred called ‘The Absurd’—an excuse for me to Hitchcock which began when he was review- punctuate appropriate texts like Swift’s A ing some of Hitch’s work in the Thirties: Modest Proposal, Kafka’s The Trial, and “How unfortunate it is that Mr.

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