WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.080 Welcome back to The Deep Dive. Today, we are 00:00:03.080 --> 00:00:06.019 not just looking at a biography. We're trying 00:00:06.019 --> 00:00:08.580 to get inside the head of a living, breathing 00:00:08.580 --> 00:00:10.859 paradox. That's a great way to put it. We're 00:00:10.859 --> 00:00:15.400 unpacking a life that, honestly, it feels less 00:00:15.400 --> 00:00:18.500 like one man's journey and more like a collision 00:00:18.500 --> 00:00:21.940 of four or five completely different people all 00:00:21.940 --> 00:00:24.600 inhabiting the same skin. Yeah, all fighting 00:00:24.600 --> 00:00:27.160 for control at the same time. It's a fascinating 00:00:27.160 --> 00:00:29.280 mess of a life, isn't it? I mean, if you tried 00:00:29.280 --> 00:00:30.739 to write a character like this in fiction, an 00:00:30.739 --> 00:00:32.320 editor would probably tell you it's too unbelievable. 00:00:32.640 --> 00:00:34.740 Right. Pick a lane. Yeah. This character isn't 00:00:34.740 --> 00:00:37.000 coherent. Exactly. It's too crowded. Too many 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:39.140 contradictions. Mess is definitely the right 00:00:39.140 --> 00:00:41.780 word. We were talking about the literary giant, 00:00:42.020 --> 00:00:45.240 Graham Greene. And I was reading through the 00:00:45.240 --> 00:00:46.780 source material you sent over, which, by the 00:00:46.780 --> 00:00:48.840 way, is a mountain of paper. It is a lot, I know. 00:00:48.859 --> 00:00:50.500 And I found this description from The Nation 00:00:50.500 --> 00:00:54.000 that just stopped me cold. They described him 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:57.340 as a stranger with no shortage of calling cards. 00:00:58.280 --> 00:01:00.179 And when you look at what those cards actually 00:01:00.179 --> 00:01:01.979 say, I mean, it just doesn't make any sense. 00:01:02.039 --> 00:01:04.439 The math doesn't add up. No, the pieces don't 00:01:04.439 --> 00:01:06.040 fit the puzzle. Not at first glance, anyway. 00:01:06.239 --> 00:01:08.319 It's like you have a jigsaw puzzle, but the pieces 00:01:08.319 --> 00:01:10.920 are from three different boxes. Exactly. Just 00:01:10.920 --> 00:01:12.280 look at the resume we're dealing with today. 00:01:12.459 --> 00:01:15.700 He was a devout Catholic. Or at least wrestled 00:01:15.700 --> 00:01:18.459 profoundly with Catholicism. Right. A devout 00:01:18.459 --> 00:01:21.819 Catholic, yet a lifelong serial adulterer who 00:01:21.819 --> 00:01:24.480 seemed completely incapable of faithfulness. 00:01:24.640 --> 00:01:28.859 He was a spy for MI6, literally working for the 00:01:28.859 --> 00:01:31.340 British government. Yet he was a close personal 00:01:31.340 --> 00:01:34.219 friend to communist revolutionaries. Like Fidel 00:01:34.219 --> 00:01:36.760 Castro, of all people. Fidel Castro. And then 00:01:36.760 --> 00:01:38.959 there's the writing. He wrote these highbrow, 00:01:38.959 --> 00:01:41.180 serious literary novels that scholars obsess 00:01:41.180 --> 00:01:45.019 over and dissect in universities. But he also 00:01:45.019 --> 00:01:48.519 churned out what he himself called. Pulpy thrillers. 00:01:48.519 --> 00:01:50.480 The entertainments, yeah. The kind of book you'd 00:01:50.480 --> 00:01:52.500 buy at an airport newsstand just to kill a few 00:01:52.500 --> 00:01:54.939 hours on a flight. It makes no sense. He was 00:01:54.939 --> 00:01:57.700 a man of masks. And I think the key to understanding 00:01:57.700 --> 00:01:59.400 Greene and what we're going to try to do today 00:01:59.400 --> 00:02:02.319 is to realize that for him, these weren't actually 00:02:02.319 --> 00:02:04.239 contradictions. I don't think he saw them that 00:02:04.239 --> 00:02:05.859 way. What do you mean? I don't think he switched 00:02:05.859 --> 00:02:08.620 masks because he was fake. He wore them all at 00:02:08.620 --> 00:02:11.060 once because he lived in the gray areas. He was 00:02:11.060 --> 00:02:14.110 comfortable, maybe even thrived. In the kind 00:02:14.110 --> 00:02:16.889 of ambiguity that drives most people crazy. The 00:02:16.889 --> 00:02:19.409 gray areas. Yeah. That's interesting. Critics 00:02:19.409 --> 00:02:22.379 actually have a name for this. specific vibe 00:02:22.379 --> 00:02:25.479 he created, right? This sort of universe he built. 00:02:25.539 --> 00:02:27.979 They do. They call it Greenland. Greenland. It 00:02:27.979 --> 00:02:30.219 sounds like a theme park. It does, but I'm guessing 00:02:30.219 --> 00:02:32.400 the rides are terrible. Oh, the rides are terrifying 00:02:32.400 --> 00:02:34.680 and the safety inspections are completely non 00:02:34.680 --> 00:02:37.719 -existent. That's a perfect description. Greenland 00:02:37.719 --> 00:02:40.300 isn't a physical place on a map, though it's 00:02:40.300 --> 00:02:43.000 usually set in these poor, hot, tropical countries. 00:02:43.400 --> 00:02:46.620 It's a psychological landscape. It's seedy. It's 00:02:46.620 --> 00:02:49.080 violent. It's usually hot, humid, and dusty. 00:02:49.819 --> 00:02:52.259 And the people People in Greenland are always, 00:02:52.379 --> 00:02:54.780 always grappling with a world that is falling 00:02:54.780 --> 00:02:57.360 apart both outside on the streets, usually due 00:02:57.360 --> 00:03:00.360 to some coup or war, and more importantly inside 00:03:00.360 --> 00:03:02.939 their own souls. So definitely not a vacation 00:03:02.939 --> 00:03:06.139 spot. Definitely not. But it's where he did his 00:03:06.139 --> 00:03:08.479 best work. And that's really our mission for 00:03:08.479 --> 00:03:11.719 this deep dive. We want to explore how a man... 00:03:12.030 --> 00:03:15.129 plagued by bipolar disorder and a just crushing 00:03:15.129 --> 00:03:17.770 sense of boredom became, as the writer William 00:03:17.770 --> 00:03:21.030 Golding put it, the ultimate chronicler of 20th 00:03:21.030 --> 00:03:24.250 century man's consciousness and anxiety. I love 00:03:24.250 --> 00:03:26.210 that quote, the ultimate chronicler of anxiety. 00:03:26.590 --> 00:03:29.550 I mean, that feels so relevant even now, maybe 00:03:29.550 --> 00:03:32.550 more than ever. Absolutely. Just to set the table 00:03:32.550 --> 00:03:34.550 for you, the listener, we are pulling from a 00:03:34.550 --> 00:03:37.129 massive stack of sources today. We've got biographical 00:03:37.129 --> 00:03:40.069 records, critical essays, summaries of his bibliography, 00:03:40.169 --> 00:03:42.789 historical context on the many, many wars he 00:03:42.789 --> 00:03:44.750 covered. We're going to travel from his traumatic 00:03:44.750 --> 00:03:47.430 childhood in Berkhamstead to the jungles of Vietnam 00:03:47.430 --> 00:03:49.669 and Sierra Leone. And along the way, we'll have 00:03:49.669 --> 00:03:52.189 to unpack his very complicated faith, his time 00:03:52.189 --> 00:03:54.409 of espionage, and the controversies that, and 00:03:54.409 --> 00:03:56.289 this is a big one, that kept him from winning 00:03:56.289 --> 00:03:58.449 the Nobel Prize. There is a lot to get through. 00:03:58.650 --> 00:04:01.319 There really is. So let's unpack this. Because 00:04:01.319 --> 00:04:03.180 to understand the spy and the writer and the 00:04:03.180 --> 00:04:05.319 Catholic, we have to start with the boy. And 00:04:05.319 --> 00:04:08.430 honestly... His childhood sounds less like a 00:04:08.430 --> 00:04:11.150 happy memory and more like the origin story of 00:04:11.150 --> 00:04:13.990 a supervillain. Or at least a very, very damaged 00:04:13.990 --> 00:04:16.689 antihero. That's a better way to put it. It certainly 00:04:16.689 --> 00:04:19.310 wasn't an idyllic English upbringing, despite 00:04:19.310 --> 00:04:21.569 how it might have looked on paper. He was born 00:04:21.569 --> 00:04:25.410 in 1904 in Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire. His father, 00:04:25.490 --> 00:04:27.829 Charles Green, was the housemaster of Berkhamstead 00:04:27.829 --> 00:04:29.990 School. And then later he became the headmaster. 00:04:30.149 --> 00:04:32.769 And this, for me, is where it gets really, really 00:04:32.769 --> 00:04:36.339 interesting. Graham Green, the boy. attended 00:04:36.339 --> 00:04:39.019 the school where his father was the boss. That 00:04:39.019 --> 00:04:42.720 is the absolute crux of the early conflict. Imagine 00:04:42.720 --> 00:04:45.379 the split loyalty. If you are a young boy, your 00:04:45.379 --> 00:04:48.019 entire world is school. And in the British public 00:04:48.019 --> 00:04:50.639 school system of the early 20th century, there's 00:04:50.639 --> 00:04:53.259 this really strict divide. It's tribal. It's 00:04:53.259 --> 00:04:56.040 completely tribal. It's us versus them, the students 00:04:56.040 --> 00:04:58.839 versus the authority, the boys versus the masters. 00:04:58.980 --> 00:05:01.319 And Green is physically the embodiment of the 00:05:01.319 --> 00:05:03.600 authority. He's the headmaster's son. He sleeps 00:05:03.600 --> 00:05:06.600 on the wrong side of the line. Exactly. He described 00:05:06.600 --> 00:05:10.329 it as living behind the Green Bay's door. On 00:05:10.329 --> 00:05:12.709 one side of that door was his family, the rulers, 00:05:12.910 --> 00:05:15.589 the establishment. On the other side were the 00:05:15.589 --> 00:05:18.920 boys. The ruled, the anarchists, the ones he 00:05:18.920 --> 00:05:20.920 had to live with every day. So every time he 00:05:20.920 --> 00:05:22.680 walks through that door, he's crossing enemy 00:05:22.680 --> 00:05:25.240 lines. He becomes a double agent. It's his first 00:05:25.240 --> 00:05:28.040 taste of espionage. If he sided with the boys, 00:05:28.160 --> 00:05:30.579 he was betraying his father. If he sided with 00:05:30.579 --> 00:05:33.000 his father, he was a traitor and a spy to his 00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:36.100 peers. He couldn't win. So before he ever joined 00:05:36.100 --> 00:05:38.819 MI6, before he ever wrote a single word about 00:05:38.819 --> 00:05:41.920 espionage, he was living it. At, what, 12, 13 00:05:41.920 --> 00:05:44.060 years old, he was already living a double life. 00:05:44.240 --> 00:05:46.259 That has to mess with your head. Oh, it did. 00:05:46.649 --> 00:05:49.149 profoundly. The psychological toll was immense. 00:05:49.350 --> 00:05:51.709 The sources described severe, relentless bullying. 00:05:51.870 --> 00:05:53.810 Because he was the headmaster's son, the other 00:05:53.810 --> 00:05:55.629 boys didn't trust him an inch. They were convinced 00:05:55.629 --> 00:05:57.910 he was a snitch. He was a mole. He was a mole. 00:05:58.050 --> 00:06:00.550 So he was completely isolated. The sources used 00:06:00.550 --> 00:06:03.769 the term profoundly depressed. But it's interesting. 00:06:03.870 --> 00:06:06.329 In his own autobiography, Green didn't just describe 00:06:06.329 --> 00:06:09.529 it as sadness. He described it as a deep existential 00:06:09.529 --> 00:06:13.930 boredom, a gray fog that just settled over everything 00:06:13.930 --> 00:06:16.660 and wouldn't lift. Boredom seems like such a 00:06:16.660 --> 00:06:18.800 mild word for what he describes later, though. 00:06:18.860 --> 00:06:20.899 I mean, it got dangerous, didn't it? You have 00:06:20.899 --> 00:06:22.879 to talk about the suicide attempts. It got very, 00:06:22.939 --> 00:06:25.120 very dark. And we aren't talking about, you know, 00:06:25.120 --> 00:06:27.300 what some might dismiss as cries for help. We 00:06:27.300 --> 00:06:30.899 are talking about actual calculated brushes with 00:06:30.899 --> 00:06:32.879 death. What kind of things are we talking about? 00:06:33.079 --> 00:06:35.660 He wrote about taking a huge number of aspirin 00:06:35.660 --> 00:06:37.959 tablets before going swimming in the school pool, 00:06:38.160 --> 00:06:41.040 hoping he'd get a cramp and drown. He tried drinking 00:06:41.040 --> 00:06:43.779 hay fever drops to poison himself. He tried eating 00:06:43.779 --> 00:06:46.819 a bunch of deadly nightshade. But the most famous 00:06:46.819 --> 00:06:49.240 image, and it's one that haunts his biography 00:06:49.240 --> 00:06:51.480 and his fiction, is the Russian roulette. This 00:06:51.480 --> 00:06:53.680 is in his autobiography, right? A sort of life. 00:06:54.019 --> 00:06:56.720 That's the one. He claims that as a teenager, 00:06:56.899 --> 00:06:59.259 he found his older brother's service revolver. 00:06:59.629 --> 00:07:02.189 And he would take it, load a single bullet, spin 00:07:02.189 --> 00:07:04.470 the cylinder, put the gun to his head, and pull 00:07:04.470 --> 00:07:06.870 the trigger. That is, I mean, why? What was the 00:07:06.870 --> 00:07:09.889 goal? Was he actively trying to die? That's the 00:07:09.889 --> 00:07:12.430 complex part. And it's so revealing about his 00:07:12.430 --> 00:07:14.569 psychology. He said he wasn't necessarily trying 00:07:14.569 --> 00:07:17.230 to die. He was trying to feel something. Anything. 00:07:17.529 --> 00:07:19.490 He was trying to break through the boredom. Exactly. 00:07:19.790 --> 00:07:22.750 He was trying to shock his system out of that 00:07:22.750 --> 00:07:26.009 crushing gray fog. He described the moment the 00:07:26.009 --> 00:07:28.689 hammer clicked on an empty chamber as this incredible 00:07:28.689 --> 00:07:31.250 rush of adrenaline, a moment where the world 00:07:31.250 --> 00:07:34.389 suddenly came into sharp focus and he felt, for 00:07:34.389 --> 00:07:37.209 the first time all day, truly alive. It's an 00:07:37.209 --> 00:07:39.829 addiction to the brink of death. He needed the 00:07:39.829 --> 00:07:42.970 threat of annihilation just to feel normal. Precisely. 00:07:42.970 --> 00:07:45.350 It's a terrifying coping mechanism, and it's 00:07:45.350 --> 00:07:47.550 a theme that never leaves him, this idea of finding 00:07:47.550 --> 00:07:50.769 life on the dangerous edge. Thankfully, his parents 00:07:50.769 --> 00:07:52.550 actually noticed something was seriously wrong. 00:07:53.500 --> 00:07:56.220 In 1920, when he was 16, they did something that 00:07:56.220 --> 00:07:58.399 was, for that time and for that social class, 00:07:58.620 --> 00:08:01.220 almost unheard of. Completely radical. They sent 00:08:01.220 --> 00:08:03.759 him to London for psychoanalysis. Yeah. You have 00:08:03.759 --> 00:08:06.060 to remember, this is 1920. Freud is still this. 00:08:07.079 --> 00:08:10.300 This scary, controversial new idea for the British 00:08:10.300 --> 00:08:13.100 establishment. Sending your kid to an analyst 00:08:13.100 --> 00:08:15.160 back then is like sending your kid to a wizard 00:08:15.160 --> 00:08:17.819 today. This is a radical step. Absolutely radical. 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:20.360 He spent six months living in his analyst's home 00:08:20.360 --> 00:08:22.759 in Kensington. And it's important to note, it 00:08:22.759 --> 00:08:25.220 didn't cure him. He battled what we now call 00:08:25.220 --> 00:08:27.819 bipolar disorder his whole life. But it gave 00:08:27.819 --> 00:08:30.980 him a vocabulary. It taught him to analyze his 00:08:30.980 --> 00:08:33.440 own mind, to look at his dreams, to understand 00:08:33.440 --> 00:08:36.600 his subconscious. It gave him the tools. to become 00:08:36.600 --> 00:08:39.059 the writer he would be. Did it change his school 00:08:39.059 --> 00:08:41.139 life when he went back? It changed the logistics, 00:08:41.460 --> 00:08:43.980 which was key. He returned to Berkhamsted as 00:08:43.980 --> 00:08:47.139 a day student, not a boarder, so he could escape 00:08:47.139 --> 00:08:49.259 the dormitories, which took him out of the immediate 00:08:49.259 --> 00:08:51.379 line of fire for the bullying. But the damage 00:08:51.379 --> 00:08:54.000 was done. He was an outsider. He had seen the 00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:56.000 world from a different angle than everyone else. 00:08:56.240 --> 00:08:59.080 And that sense of isolation, it seems to have 00:08:59.080 --> 00:09:02.600 followed him to university. He goes to Oxford 00:09:02.600 --> 00:09:06.139 Balliol College. to study history and this is 00:09:06.139 --> 00:09:08.360 the roaring 20s you know this is the great gatsby 00:09:08.360 --> 00:09:11.519 era parties flappers jazz you'd think this would 00:09:11.519 --> 00:09:13.399 be the time he'd break out of his shell you would 00:09:13.399 --> 00:09:17.929 think but no not green His contemporary, Evelyn 00:09:17.929 --> 00:09:20.289 Waugh, who was a bit of a party animal at the 00:09:20.289 --> 00:09:22.429 time and later became a famous writer himself, 00:09:22.789 --> 00:09:25.669 noted that Green looked down on us. He said Green 00:09:25.669 --> 00:09:28.350 didn't share in their revelry at all. He was 00:09:28.350 --> 00:09:29.990 just the guy in the corner. He was the guy in 00:09:29.990 --> 00:09:32.549 the corner watching, judging, feeling miserable 00:09:32.549 --> 00:09:35.049 while everyone else drank champagne. The sources 00:09:35.049 --> 00:09:37.629 say he suffered from periodic bouts of depression 00:09:37.629 --> 00:09:40.990 even there. The gray fog followed him. He was 00:09:40.990 --> 00:09:43.669 also flirting with politics in a way that seems... 00:09:45.070 --> 00:09:47.210 Pretty confusing, given his background. I mean, 00:09:47.230 --> 00:09:48.830 he's an upper middle class boy at Oxford, but 00:09:48.830 --> 00:09:51.309 he's looking left. Way left. He was searching 00:09:51.309 --> 00:09:53.389 for something to believe in, for a structure. 00:09:53.629 --> 00:09:56.350 In 1922, he briefly joined the Communist Party 00:09:56.350 --> 00:09:58.429 of Great Britain. Really? I didn't know that. 00:09:58.570 --> 00:10:00.629 For a very short time. He even tried to get an 00:10:00.629 --> 00:10:03.210 invitation to visit the new Soviet Union. It 00:10:03.210 --> 00:10:05.690 didn't happen, but it shows you how he was looking 00:10:05.690 --> 00:10:09.460 for a cause. any cause to impose on the chaos 00:10:09.460 --> 00:10:12.779 of his own mind. He needed a system. It's funny. 00:10:12.820 --> 00:10:14.679 He published a book of poetry at Oxford called 00:10:14.679 --> 00:10:17.779 Babbling April. Which was very poorly received, 00:10:17.860 --> 00:10:20.399 we should note. Right. Not a success. So he's 00:10:20.399 --> 00:10:23.580 a failed poet, a depressed student, a communist 00:10:23.580 --> 00:10:27.340 sympathizer, and a social outcast. It's hard 00:10:27.340 --> 00:10:30.000 to see the literary giant forming here yet. If 00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:32.059 you met him at a party in 1924, you probably 00:10:32.059 --> 00:10:34.059 wouldn't think, this guy's going to define the 00:10:34.059 --> 00:10:35.740 century. You would probably think this guy needs 00:10:35.740 --> 00:10:38.860 a drink and a hug, or maybe just a drink. But 00:10:38.860 --> 00:10:41.340 the formation happens in the next phase. And 00:10:41.340 --> 00:10:43.519 it happens, as it so often does in literature, 00:10:43.700 --> 00:10:46.639 because of a woman. Ah, yes, the unlikely convert. 00:10:47.179 --> 00:10:49.960 Let's get into section two here. Faith, love, 00:10:50.159 --> 00:10:52.600 and the Catholic agnostic. Because Green is so 00:10:52.600 --> 00:10:55.039 famous for being a Catholic writer, but he didn't 00:10:55.039 --> 00:10:57.360 grow up with any of that. No, not at all. He 00:10:57.360 --> 00:11:00.799 was an agnostic, bordering on atheist. But while 00:11:00.799 --> 00:11:03.179 he was at Oxford, he started corresponding with 00:11:03.179 --> 00:11:06.179 a woman named Vivian Daryl Browning. And the 00:11:06.179 --> 00:11:09.120 way they met is so perfect. She had written to 00:11:09.120 --> 00:11:11.019 him to correct a point he'd made about Catholic 00:11:11.019 --> 00:11:13.039 doctrine in something he'd published. I love 00:11:13.039 --> 00:11:14.840 that. The first interaction is her telling him, 00:11:14.879 --> 00:11:17.820 you're wrong about my religion, here's why. And 00:11:17.820 --> 00:11:20.899 he falls for her. Head over heels. He was intrigued 00:11:20.899 --> 00:11:24.470 by her certainty, her passion. he met her and 00:11:24.470 --> 00:11:27.210 he decided he wanted to marry her but she was 00:11:27.210 --> 00:11:30.370 a devout catholic so in a very green -like move 00:11:30.370 --> 00:11:32.710 he decided he needed to understand her beliefs 00:11:32.710 --> 00:11:35.149 if he was going to be with her so it wasn't a 00:11:35.149 --> 00:11:36.769 spiritual lightning bolt it was an intellectual 00:11:36.769 --> 00:11:39.250 exercise completely it was homework he actually 00:11:39.250 --> 00:11:41.740 set up debates with the priest, Father George 00:11:41.740 --> 00:11:43.679 Trollope. And he went in there to argue against 00:11:43.679 --> 00:11:46.440 the faith. Yes. Green argued on the grounds of 00:11:46.440 --> 00:11:49.879 dogmatic atheism. He wanted to be convinced. 00:11:50.120 --> 00:11:52.419 He went in there thinking he could dismantle 00:11:52.419 --> 00:11:55.240 the priest's arguments one by one. And interestingly, 00:11:55.500 --> 00:11:57.919 the argument that finally won him over wasn't 00:11:57.919 --> 00:12:00.539 some proof that God definitely existed. What 00:12:00.539 --> 00:12:03.500 was it then? It was that the if surrounding God's 00:12:03.500 --> 00:12:07.279 existence became, in his words, less improbable. 00:12:07.710 --> 00:12:10.490 That is such a guarded way to find faith. The 00:12:10.490 --> 00:12:13.169 if became less improbable. It's not I saw the 00:12:13.169 --> 00:12:16.029 light. It's statistically I can no longer rule 00:12:16.029 --> 00:12:17.830 this out. It fits him perfectly, doesn't it? 00:12:17.889 --> 00:12:19.950 It's a conversion of the intellect lived in the 00:12:19.950 --> 00:12:23.149 shadows and the doubt. He was baptized in 1926 00:12:23.149 --> 00:12:26.950 and he married Vivian in 1927. But later in life, 00:12:26.990 --> 00:12:28.929 he would refer to himself not as a Catholic, 00:12:28.970 --> 00:12:32.730 but as a Catholic agnostic. A Catholic agnostic. 00:12:32.809 --> 00:12:34.809 What does that even mean? It means he lived in 00:12:34.809 --> 00:12:37.139 the doubt. He believed that doubt was an essential 00:12:37.139 --> 00:12:39.440 part of faith. If you are absolutely certain 00:12:39.440 --> 00:12:43.539 about God, 100%, you don't need faith. Faith 00:12:43.539 --> 00:12:45.919 is the leap you take despite the doubt. And he 00:12:45.919 --> 00:12:48.000 was always doubting. And speaking of living in 00:12:48.000 --> 00:12:50.759 doubt. His marriage to Vivian wasn't exactly 00:12:50.759 --> 00:12:53.240 a fairy tale, was it? No, not even close. They 00:12:53.240 --> 00:12:55.139 had two children, Lucy and Francis, but Green 00:12:55.139 --> 00:12:58.159 was, by his own admission, just not cut out for 00:12:58.159 --> 00:13:00.480 domestic life. The routine, the stability, the 00:13:00.480 --> 00:13:03.620 quiet, it triggered that old boredom. That gray 00:13:03.620 --> 00:13:06.799 fog came back. He said something absolutely brutal 00:13:06.799 --> 00:13:10.159 to her in a letter, didn't he? He did. He wrote 00:13:10.159 --> 00:13:13.259 that he had a character profoundly antagonistic 00:13:13.259 --> 00:13:16.440 to ordinary domestic life. That's a brutal thing 00:13:16.440 --> 00:13:18.759 to tell your spouse. It's not you. It's my fundamental 00:13:18.759 --> 00:13:21.379 nature that can't stand being here. And then 00:13:21.379 --> 00:13:23.600 he added the line that explains everything about 00:13:23.600 --> 00:13:26.759 him as a writer. Unfortunately, the disease is 00:13:26.759 --> 00:13:30.080 also one's material. Wow. He viewed his restlessness, 00:13:30.259 --> 00:13:33.779 his infidelity, his misery as essential to his 00:13:33.779 --> 00:13:36.179 writing. He believed that if he settled down 00:13:36.179 --> 00:13:38.659 and became a happy suburban dad, the art would 00:13:38.659 --> 00:13:41.279 stop. He needed the edge. He needed the sin. 00:13:41.620 --> 00:13:44.779 So he left the family in 1947. But they never 00:13:44.779 --> 00:13:46.899 divorced. Never. In accordance with Catholic 00:13:46.899 --> 00:13:49.299 teaching, Vivian refused to grant a divorce. 00:13:49.539 --> 00:13:52.879 So they remained married on paper until he died 00:13:52.879 --> 00:13:55.620 in 1991, despite him living a completely separate 00:13:55.620 --> 00:13:57.679 life for over 40 years. And he didn't just live 00:13:57.679 --> 00:13:59.500 a separate life. He had some very, very significant 00:13:59.500 --> 00:14:01.940 other relationships. We have to talk about Catherine 00:14:01.940 --> 00:14:04.470 Walston. Katherine Walston was the great muse. 00:14:04.750 --> 00:14:08.509 Their affair began in 1946. She was the American 00:14:08.509 --> 00:14:11.389 wife of a very wealthy British landowner and 00:14:11.389 --> 00:14:14.669 future peer, Harry Walston. This wasn't a casual 00:14:14.669 --> 00:14:18.169 fling. This was a deep, passionate, obsessive, 00:14:18.169 --> 00:14:20.690 soul -tearing relationship that lasted for years. 00:14:21.009 --> 00:14:23.679 And this relationship is... widely considered 00:14:23.679 --> 00:14:26.259 the direct inspiration for one of his greatest 00:14:26.259 --> 00:14:28.960 and most heart -wrenching novels, The End of 00:14:28.960 --> 00:14:31.220 the Affair. Oh, that book is intense. If you 00:14:31.220 --> 00:14:32.840 haven't read it, it's not your typical romance 00:14:32.840 --> 00:14:35.320 novel. It's about a writer, Maurice Bendrix, 00:14:35.500 --> 00:14:37.700 who has an affair with a married woman, Sarah, 00:14:37.879 --> 00:14:40.779 and he becomes intensely jealous. But he's not 00:14:40.779 --> 00:14:42.559 just jealous of her husband. He becomes jealous 00:14:42.559 --> 00:14:45.220 of God. Exactly. That's the twist. During the 00:14:45.220 --> 00:14:47.519 Blitz in London, a bomb hits the building they're 00:14:47.519 --> 00:14:50.399 in, and Bendrix is seemingly killed. Sarah, in 00:14:50.399 --> 00:14:52.379 that moment, makes a bargain with... god she 00:14:52.379 --> 00:14:55.100 prays let him be alive and i'll give him up bendrick 00:14:55.100 --> 00:14:57.360 stirs he's alive and she feels bound by this 00:14:57.360 --> 00:15:00.200 vow she ends the affair so bendrix feels that 00:15:00.200 --> 00:15:03.070 god is the rival who stole her away It's a love 00:15:03.070 --> 00:15:05.289 triangle where one of the participants is God. 00:15:05.490 --> 00:15:08.769 It's incredibly personal. It explores this idea 00:15:08.769 --> 00:15:11.950 that human love and divine love are somehow these 00:15:11.950 --> 00:15:15.529 competing, warring forces. It's raw. And you 00:15:15.529 --> 00:15:18.169 can feel the real pain from his affair with Catherine 00:15:18.169 --> 00:15:21.129 Walston on every single page. And that book really 00:15:21.129 --> 00:15:23.529 solidifies what critics call his gold standard 00:15:23.529 --> 00:15:25.610 of Catholic novels. We're talking about books 00:15:25.610 --> 00:15:27.470 like Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory, 00:15:27.750 --> 00:15:29.629 The Heart of the Matter, and of course, The End 00:15:29.629 --> 00:15:31.950 of the Affair. These aren't nice Sunday. school 00:15:31.950 --> 00:15:34.350 stories. They are gritty and dark. Right. And 00:15:34.350 --> 00:15:36.549 he hated being called a Catholic novelist. He 00:15:36.549 --> 00:15:38.870 really resisted that. He felt it pigeonholed 00:15:38.870 --> 00:15:41.090 him. So what did he prefer? He preferred to be 00:15:41.090 --> 00:15:42.870 called a novelist who happened to be Catholic. 00:15:43.110 --> 00:15:45.389 His characters are not saints. They're sinners. 00:15:45.710 --> 00:15:48.610 They are whiskey priests, adulterers, teenage 00:15:48.610 --> 00:15:51.370 gangsters. In the heart of the matter, the protagonist, 00:15:51.750 --> 00:15:54.389 Scobie, is a colonial police officer in West 00:15:54.389 --> 00:15:57.830 Africa who is so overwhelmed by pity and responsibility 00:15:57.830 --> 00:16:00.500 that he commits suicide. A mortal sin in the 00:16:00.500 --> 00:16:02.919 church. But he does it out of a warped sense 00:16:02.919 --> 00:16:05.379 of love, trying to spare his wife and his mistress 00:16:05.379 --> 00:16:08.240 pain. He explores the sin that comes from a good 00:16:08.240 --> 00:16:10.820 place. The damnation that comes from trying to 00:16:10.820 --> 00:16:13.179 do the right thing. Precisely. And the church 00:16:13.179 --> 00:16:15.600 wasn't exactly thrilled with this kind of depiction, 00:16:15.740 --> 00:16:17.940 were they? No, not at all. Ah. The power and 00:16:17.940 --> 00:16:20.980 the glory. which is about a drunk, rogue priest 00:16:20.980 --> 00:16:23.799 on the run in Mexico who has an illegitimate 00:16:23.799 --> 00:16:27.039 child, was actually condemned by the Holy Office 00:16:27.039 --> 00:16:29.120 at the Vatican. They felt it was scandalous, 00:16:29.120 --> 00:16:32.240 it was too messy, too human. They wanted their 00:16:32.240 --> 00:16:35.320 priests to be paragons of virtue and fiction, 00:16:35.440 --> 00:16:38.659 not broken men. But here is this surprising twist. 00:16:39.559 --> 00:16:43.580 Years later, in the 1960s, Greene had a private 00:16:43.580 --> 00:16:46.779 audience with Pope Paul VI. Yes. By this time, 00:16:46.799 --> 00:16:49.139 Greene was a literary celebrity, and the Pope 00:16:49.139 --> 00:16:50.919 told him that he had read some of his novels. 00:16:51.740 --> 00:16:54.059 Greene, being Greene, immediately brought up 00:16:54.059 --> 00:16:56.120 the condemnation of the power and the glory. 00:16:56.340 --> 00:16:58.480 What did the Pope say? I can't imagine. The Pope 00:16:58.480 --> 00:17:00.919 told him, essentially, Mr. Greene, some parts 00:17:00.919 --> 00:17:03.039 of your novels will always offend some Catholics. 00:17:03.320 --> 00:17:05.859 And then he said, but you should ignore the criticism. 00:17:06.259 --> 00:17:08.700 Wow. That's basically papal permission to keep 00:17:08.700 --> 00:17:10.640 being edgy. Keep doing what you're doing, Graham. 00:17:10.740 --> 00:17:12.259 Don't worry about the guys in the back office. 00:17:12.880 --> 00:17:15.799 In a way, yes, it validated Green's entire perspective 00:17:15.799 --> 00:17:18.460 that the church is a hospital for sinners, not 00:17:18.460 --> 00:17:21.839 a museum for saints. But it is interesting that 00:17:21.839 --> 00:17:25.339 as Green got older, his focus did shift. The 00:17:25.339 --> 00:17:27.720 explicit theological battles faded a bit and 00:17:27.720 --> 00:17:29.960 his work became more humanistic, more political. 00:17:30.220 --> 00:17:33.039 But that underlying sense of the struggle of 00:17:33.039 --> 00:17:36.720 the soul never really left. Okay, so we have 00:17:36.720 --> 00:17:38.700 the struggle of the soul. Now let's talk about 00:17:38.700 --> 00:17:41.720 the struggle of nations, section three. The Spy 00:17:41.720 --> 00:17:44.359 Who Wrote. Because while he was writing these 00:17:44.359 --> 00:17:47.500 heavy theological novels, he was also working 00:17:47.500 --> 00:17:49.579 for British intelligence. And this isn't just 00:17:49.579 --> 00:17:52.359 he knew a guy, he was in it. Yes, and this wasn't 00:17:52.359 --> 00:17:54.559 just research for a book, not at first. In 1941, 00:17:54.859 --> 00:17:57.500 during World War II, his sister Elizabeth recruited 00:17:57.500 --> 00:18:00.519 him into MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service. 00:18:00.839 --> 00:18:02.279 That's always the family connections with the 00:18:02.279 --> 00:18:04.119 British upper class, isn't it? Oh, my sister 00:18:04.119 --> 00:18:06.559 just popped by and got me a job as a spy. It 00:18:06.559 --> 00:18:09.740 was an old boys network, absolutely. He was posted 00:18:09.740 --> 00:18:13.299 to Sierra Leone in West Africa. And again, this 00:18:13.299 --> 00:18:15.339 feeds directly into the Greenland aesthetic. 00:18:15.900 --> 00:18:18.799 Sierra Leone in the early 40s wasn't some high 00:18:18.799 --> 00:18:20.559 -tech spy center like you see in the movies. 00:18:20.779 --> 00:18:24.660 It was hot, humid, and mostly defined by boredom. 00:18:24.700 --> 00:18:26.519 What was he actually doing there? What was his 00:18:26.519 --> 00:18:29.559 mission? Officially, he was monitoring shipping, 00:18:29.920 --> 00:18:32.039 looking out for diamond smuggling that might 00:18:32.039 --> 00:18:34.539 be aiding the Axis powers, and keeping an eye 00:18:34.539 --> 00:18:36.559 on the neighboring Vichy French territories. 00:18:36.940 --> 00:18:39.619 But mostly, he was just sitting in a tin shack, 00:18:39.880 --> 00:18:42.579 sweating. That sounds miserable. He said he relieved 00:18:42.579 --> 00:18:44.900 the boredom by hunting for cockroaches. Hunting 00:18:44.900 --> 00:18:47.220 cockroaches? Literally. He would keep a running 00:18:47.220 --> 00:18:49.599 tally of how many he killed in a certain time 00:18:49.599 --> 00:18:52.299 frame. It just speaks to that theme of crushing 00:18:52.299 --> 00:18:55.220 boredom again. But the most significant part 00:18:55.220 --> 00:18:57.750 of his MI6 career wasn't what he did in Africa 00:18:57.750 --> 00:19:00.450 it was who his supervisor was back in London. 00:19:00.650 --> 00:19:02.009 And this is where it gets really interesting. 00:19:02.109 --> 00:19:05.109 Kim Philby. Kim Philby. For those who don't know 00:19:05.109 --> 00:19:07.829 the name, Philby is perhaps the most famous or 00:19:07.829 --> 00:19:11.089 infamous Soviet double agent in history. He was 00:19:11.089 --> 00:19:14.289 a core member of the Cambridge Five, a high ranking 00:19:14.289 --> 00:19:17.029 British intelligence officer on track to run 00:19:17.029 --> 00:19:19.309 the whole service, who was secretly funneling 00:19:19.309 --> 00:19:21.930 everything to Moscow the entire time. And Green 00:19:21.930 --> 00:19:24.150 wasn't just his subordinate. He was his friend. 00:19:24.269 --> 00:19:26.109 They were close friends. They drank together. 00:19:26.289 --> 00:19:29.480 They talked shop. Green admired Philby's intellect 00:19:29.480 --> 00:19:32.599 and his charm. So when Philby was finally unmasked 00:19:32.599 --> 00:19:34.859 as a traitor and defected to the Soviet Union 00:19:34.859 --> 00:19:38.259 in 1963, that must have completely crushed Green. 00:19:38.420 --> 00:19:41.039 A total betrayal. You would think so. That was 00:19:41.039 --> 00:19:42.880 the reaction of almost everyone else in the intelligence 00:19:42.880 --> 00:19:45.299 community. They were furious. They wanted Philby's 00:19:45.299 --> 00:19:47.940 head on a platter. But Green didn't denounce 00:19:47.940 --> 00:19:50.269 him. He didn't. He defended him. It's more complex 00:19:50.269 --> 00:19:52.809 than that. Green had resigned from MI6 in 1944, 00:19:53.150 --> 00:19:55.910 long before the big reveal, but he remained loyal 00:19:55.910 --> 00:19:58.450 to Philby personally. He even wrote the introduction 00:19:58.450 --> 00:20:01.349 to Philby's memoir, My Silent War, which was 00:20:01.349 --> 00:20:04.630 published in 1968 from Moscow. That is wild. 00:20:04.769 --> 00:20:06.750 I mean, why would he support a man who committed 00:20:06.750 --> 00:20:09.470 high treason, who betrayed his country and sent 00:20:09.470 --> 00:20:12.099 agents to their deaths? It goes back to Green's 00:20:12.099 --> 00:20:14.640 core philosophy. He believed in the primacy of 00:20:14.640 --> 00:20:17.440 personal relationships over abstract ideologies 00:20:17.440 --> 00:20:19.920 or loyalties to the state. There's a famous line 00:20:19.920 --> 00:20:22.769 often attributed to him. In human relationships, 00:20:23.029 --> 00:20:25.769 kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths. 00:20:26.329 --> 00:20:28.130 Kindness and lies are worth more than truth. 00:20:28.470 --> 00:20:31.349 For him, personal loyalty was the ultimate virtue. 00:20:31.609 --> 00:20:34.309 He felt that if you betray a friend for a cause, 00:20:34.450 --> 00:20:36.509 even a cause like your country, you've lost your 00:20:36.509 --> 00:20:39.609 humanity. He chose the man over the flag. That 00:20:39.609 --> 00:20:41.950 is so complicated. It's almost the gangster's 00:20:41.950 --> 00:20:43.809 code. Yeah. Never rat on your friends no matter 00:20:43.809 --> 00:20:46.410 what. It is, but it certainly informed his fiction. 00:20:46.869 --> 00:20:50.039 His spy novels are not James Bond. James Bond 00:20:50.039 --> 00:20:52.980 is a patriotic fantasy. Green's world is one 00:20:52.980 --> 00:20:55.880 of deep cynicism. Right. James Bond saves the 00:20:55.880 --> 00:20:58.160 world. Green's characters just try to survive 00:20:58.160 --> 00:21:00.119 the bureaucracy and their own mistakes. Look 00:21:00.119 --> 00:21:02.259 at the Ministry of Fear, the human factor, and 00:21:02.259 --> 00:21:05.380 especially Our Man in Havana. Our Man in Havana 00:21:05.380 --> 00:21:08.059 is hilarious. It's one of my favorites. It's 00:21:08.059 --> 00:21:10.779 about a struggling vacuum cleaner salesman, a 00:21:10.779 --> 00:21:13.920 guy named Wormald, who gets recruited as a spy 00:21:13.920 --> 00:21:17.099 in pre -revolution Cuba. Right. And Wormald has 00:21:17.099 --> 00:21:19.519 no sources. He knows nothing. about anything 00:21:19.519 --> 00:21:22.900 but he desperately needs the money for his daughter 00:21:22.900 --> 00:21:25.440 so he just starts making up reports and the drawings 00:21:25.440 --> 00:21:28.460 the drawings are the best part he draws diagrams 00:21:28.460 --> 00:21:31.740 of giant futuristic looking vacuum cleaner parts 00:21:31.740 --> 00:21:34.799 and tells mi6 they are secret weapon installations 00:21:34.799 --> 00:21:37.799 hidden in the mountains and mi6 believes him 00:21:38.089 --> 00:21:40.549 They swallow it whole. They are so desperate 00:21:40.549 --> 00:21:42.849 for information, so convinced of their own importance 00:21:42.849 --> 00:21:44.950 that they believe these ridiculous drawings. 00:21:45.569 --> 00:21:48.390 Green is mercilessly mocking the seriousness 00:21:48.390 --> 00:21:51.529 of the spy game. He's exposing the absurdity 00:21:51.529 --> 00:21:53.529 of it all, this idea that intelligence agencies 00:21:53.529 --> 00:21:55.990 are all knowing, when often they're just chasing 00:21:55.990 --> 00:21:58.069 ghosts created by people who want a paycheck. 00:21:58.369 --> 00:22:00.390 That cynicism had to come directly from his time 00:22:00.390 --> 00:22:03.490 in MI6. He saw the incompetence firsthand. Absolutely. 00:22:03.589 --> 00:22:06.170 He knew the game was often ridiculous. So we've 00:22:06.170 --> 00:22:08.359 got the spy, we've got... the Catholic. Now let's 00:22:08.359 --> 00:22:11.019 talk about the traveler. Section four, travels 00:22:11.019 --> 00:22:15.960 in Greenland. We touched on this idea of Greenland 00:22:15.960 --> 00:22:19.380 earlier, the seedy, tropical, morally ambiguous 00:22:19.380 --> 00:22:22.079 setting. But Green actually hated that term, 00:22:22.140 --> 00:22:24.500 didn't he? He detested it. He argued that he 00:22:24.500 --> 00:22:26.960 wasn't inventing some seedy nightmare world. 00:22:27.140 --> 00:22:29.980 He was just reporting accurately as a journalist. 00:22:30.240 --> 00:22:32.920 He'd say things like, this is Indochina. This 00:22:32.920 --> 00:22:35.619 is Sierra Leone carefully and accurately described. 00:22:36.170 --> 00:22:38.289 He felt that if critics thought it was a nightmare 00:22:38.289 --> 00:22:41.250 world, maybe the critics were just too sheltered 00:22:41.250 --> 00:22:43.690 to see reality. That's exactly it. He thought 00:22:43.690 --> 00:22:45.529 the West was asleep, living in a comfortable 00:22:45.529 --> 00:22:47.710 bubble, and he was trying to wake them up to 00:22:47.710 --> 00:22:49.609 how the rest of the world actually lived and 00:22:49.609 --> 00:22:51.390 suffered. And he certainly wasn't sheltered. 00:22:51.450 --> 00:22:53.730 He went to some of the most dangerous, unstable 00:22:53.730 --> 00:22:57.410 places on Earth. He was a disaster tourist before 00:22:57.410 --> 00:22:59.970 that was even a thing. He actively sought out 00:22:59.970 --> 00:23:03.470 the dangerous edge. In 1935, he went to Liberia. 00:23:03.490 --> 00:23:05.769 This was his first major trip outside Europe. 00:23:05.930 --> 00:23:08.329 And he didn't just stay in the capital. He trekked 00:23:08.329 --> 00:23:12.569 350 miles through the interior on foot. It resulted 00:23:12.569 --> 00:23:15.250 in his first great travel book, Journey Without 00:23:15.250 --> 00:23:18.069 Maps. He almost died of a fever. He had no real 00:23:18.069 --> 00:23:20.769 map, barely any supplies. It was a test of endurance, 00:23:21.049 --> 00:23:23.369 a way to face down that boredom again. And then 00:23:23.369 --> 00:23:26.299 Mexico in 1938. This was a crucial trip. He went 00:23:26.299 --> 00:23:28.619 specifically to observe the Mexican government's 00:23:28.619 --> 00:23:31.039 brutal anti -Catholic secularization campaign 00:23:31.039 --> 00:23:34.400 under President Callas and later Cardenas. They 00:23:34.400 --> 00:23:36.180 were hunting down priests, closing churches, 00:23:36.299 --> 00:23:39.160 executing believers. It was a full blown persecution. 00:23:39.359 --> 00:23:41.839 And this trip gave him the raw material for his 00:23:41.839 --> 00:23:44.680 masterpiece. It did. It resulted in the nonfiction 00:23:44.680 --> 00:23:47.039 book The Lawless Roads. But more importantly, 00:23:47.240 --> 00:23:50.059 it provided the setting. the characters and the 00:23:50.059 --> 00:23:52.359 whole atmosphere for the power and the glory. 00:23:52.539 --> 00:23:54.759 It's amazing how he would go to a place as a 00:23:54.759 --> 00:23:57.500 journalist, just soak up the atmosphere and then 00:23:57.500 --> 00:24:00.119 metabolize that experience into a classic novel. 00:24:00.299 --> 00:24:02.599 He did it again and again. He treated his life 00:24:02.599 --> 00:24:05.660 as research. In the early 1950s, he went to Vietnam, 00:24:05.920 --> 00:24:08.400 what was then French Indochina. He spent his 00:24:08.400 --> 00:24:11.480 winters there between 1951 and 1955. What was 00:24:11.480 --> 00:24:14.019 he doing? He was a war correspondent. He met 00:24:14.019 --> 00:24:15.940 with generals. He went on patrols with the French 00:24:15.940 --> 00:24:18.759 army. He smoked opium. He saw the colonial war 00:24:18.759 --> 00:24:21.519 collapsing from the inside. And he wrote The 00:24:21.519 --> 00:24:25.140 Quiet American. The Quiet American is... frighteningly 00:24:25.140 --> 00:24:27.339 prophetic. I mean, if you want to understand 00:24:27.339 --> 00:24:29.180 why the Vietnam War happened, you don't read 00:24:29.180 --> 00:24:31.599 a history book. You read this novel. It really 00:24:31.599 --> 00:24:34.960 is. And it was published in 1955, years before 00:24:34.960 --> 00:24:38.160 the full scale U .S. involvement. But the main 00:24:38.160 --> 00:24:40.859 American character, Alden Pyle, he represents 00:24:40.859 --> 00:24:43.700 this dangerous American innocence. He's young. 00:24:43.839 --> 00:24:45.720 He's from Harvard. He's full of theories about 00:24:45.720 --> 00:24:49.900 democracy and third force. He wants to save Vietnam. 00:24:49.960 --> 00:24:51.819 But he doesn't understand Vietnam at all. Not 00:24:51.819 --> 00:25:10.250 in the slightest. And because of his And the 00:25:10.250 --> 00:25:17.509 list of dangerous places just goes on. He also 00:25:17.509 --> 00:25:20.390 went to Haiti during the reign of Papa Doc Duvalier. 00:25:20.779 --> 00:25:23.740 A truly terrifying time. The Tonton's Makuts 00:25:23.740 --> 00:25:26.640 militia was terrorizing the population. These 00:25:26.640 --> 00:25:30.000 guys in dark sunglasses, wielding machetes, using 00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:32.920 voodoo folklore to scare people into submission. 00:25:33.200 --> 00:25:35.660 Green wrote the novel the comedians set there, 00:25:35.779 --> 00:25:38.380 and he also wrote a scathing article called Nightmare 00:25:38.380 --> 00:25:41.019 Republic, exposing the brutality of the regime. 00:25:41.759 --> 00:25:44.619 Did Duvalier respond? Oh, yes. Papa Doc was so 00:25:44.619 --> 00:25:47.079 angry, he had his government -issue pamphlets 00:25:47.079 --> 00:25:49.559 attacking Greene personally. That's when you 00:25:49.559 --> 00:25:51.420 know you've made it as a raider, when a dictator 00:25:51.420 --> 00:25:53.859 writes a hit piece on you. I guess so. And he 00:25:53.859 --> 00:25:56.779 went to leper colonies in the Congo. For a burnt 00:25:56.779 --> 00:25:59.480 -out case. He traveled the Congo Basin in 1959. 00:25:59.960 --> 00:26:02.359 He was obsessed with the fringes of human experience. 00:26:02.460 --> 00:26:04.920 He wanted to see where society and the human 00:26:04.920 --> 00:26:07.359 spirit broke down. We have to talk about his 00:26:07.359 --> 00:26:09.720 politics here because his travels often aligned 00:26:09.720 --> 00:26:12.420 with his very strong anti -Americanism. He was 00:26:12.420 --> 00:26:15.359 deeply critical of the U .S. Greene was a fierce 00:26:15.359 --> 00:26:18.400 critic of American imperialism. He saw the U 00:26:18.400 --> 00:26:21.400 .S. as a clumsy, often destructive force that 00:26:21.400 --> 00:26:23.759 frequently propped up brutal dictators in the 00:26:23.759 --> 00:26:26.259 name of anti -communism. He thought the U .S. 00:26:26.259 --> 00:26:28.759 was profoundly hypocritical. And this led him 00:26:28.759 --> 00:26:31.650 to some... Well, some very controversial friendships. 00:26:31.950 --> 00:26:35.730 Like Fidel Castro. Yes. In 1957, before the revolution, 00:26:36.049 --> 00:26:38.549 Green actually acted as a secret courier for 00:26:38.549 --> 00:26:41.390 Castro's rebels. This is a crazy story. Wait, 00:26:41.430 --> 00:26:44.349 what? He was visiting Cuba, and he used his status 00:26:44.349 --> 00:26:47.660 as this famous, slightly... bumbling British 00:26:47.660 --> 00:26:50.940 writer to get past government checkpoints. He 00:26:50.940 --> 00:26:53.119 transported warm clothing for Castro's rebels 00:26:53.119 --> 00:26:55.180 who were hiding out in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. 00:26:55.420 --> 00:26:57.539 So the famous British novelist was running supplies 00:26:57.539 --> 00:26:59.799 for the Cuban Revolution. He was. He literally 00:26:59.799 --> 00:27:02.380 smuggled supplies to the revolution. And after 00:27:02.380 --> 00:27:04.980 Castro succeeded in 1959, he and Castro remained 00:27:04.980 --> 00:27:07.819 friends. He visited Cuba frequently. Castro gave 00:27:07.819 --> 00:27:09.960 him a painting that Green hung in his home until 00:27:09.960 --> 00:27:12.640 he died. So was he just a blind follower? Did 00:27:12.640 --> 00:27:14.660 he ever criticize Castro once he was in power? 00:27:15.019 --> 00:27:17.519 Oh, he did. He wasn't a blind ideologue. Despite 00:27:17.519 --> 00:27:20.140 their friendship, he questioned Castro's increasing 00:27:20.140 --> 00:27:23.660 authoritarianism. He had this famously cynical, 00:27:23.779 --> 00:27:26.440 but probably accurate, quote, All successful 00:27:26.440 --> 00:27:29.700 revolutions, however idealistic, probably betray 00:27:29.700 --> 00:27:32.359 themselves in time. That is such a nuanced view. 00:27:32.440 --> 00:27:34.759 All revolutions betray themselves. It's the view 00:27:34.759 --> 00:27:37.440 of a man who has read a lot of history and seen 00:27:37.440 --> 00:27:39.900 a lot of human nature. He always supported the 00:27:39.900 --> 00:27:42.119 underdog, but he knew that once the underdog 00:27:42.119 --> 00:27:45.059 won, they could easily become the new oppressor. 00:27:45.160 --> 00:27:47.519 He was always on the side of the victim, whoever 00:27:47.519 --> 00:27:49.680 that victim happened to be at the moment. Okay, 00:27:49.740 --> 00:27:52.140 so let's pivot to how he actually got all this 00:27:52.140 --> 00:27:55.779 down on paper. Section 5. The writer's craft 00:27:55.779 --> 00:27:59.039 and career. He was so prolific. But he had this 00:27:59.039 --> 00:28:01.220 really weird way of categorizing his own books, 00:28:01.319 --> 00:28:03.599 right? He did. At least initially, he divided 00:28:03.599 --> 00:28:06.660 his books into two categories, novels and entertainments. 00:28:06.839 --> 00:28:08.180 What's the difference? What did that mean to 00:28:08.180 --> 00:28:11.059 him? In his mind, the novels were the serious 00:28:11.059 --> 00:28:14.440 literary works like The Power and the Glory or 00:28:14.440 --> 00:28:16.579 The End of the Affair. These were the books that 00:28:16.579 --> 00:28:19.880 dealt with the heavy themes. God, sin, redemption, 00:28:20.200 --> 00:28:23.980 the big stuff. The entertainments were the thrillers, 00:28:23.980 --> 00:28:27.220 the mysteries like The Ministry of Fear or Our 00:28:27.220 --> 00:28:30.559 Man in Havana. He wanted to signal to the reader 00:28:30.559 --> 00:28:33.049 what they were getting. This one is for serious 00:28:33.049 --> 00:28:35.190 thinking. This one is for fun on a train. But 00:28:35.190 --> 00:28:37.569 the lines got really blurry over time. Very blurry. 00:28:37.750 --> 00:28:39.990 For example, Travels With My Aunt is technically 00:28:39.990 --> 00:28:42.710 a novel, but it is extremely funny and light. 00:28:43.009 --> 00:28:45.450 On the other hand, The Confidential Agent was 00:28:45.450 --> 00:28:47.490 an entertainment, but it deals with heavy moral 00:28:47.490 --> 00:28:50.529 themes of loyalty and betrayal. Eventually, the 00:28:50.529 --> 00:28:52.109 publishers just started putting them all together 00:28:52.109 --> 00:28:53.950 because, frankly, the quality was consistently 00:28:53.950 --> 00:28:56.309 high. He couldn't write a bad sentence, even 00:28:56.309 --> 00:28:57.950 when he was just trying to write a simple thriller. 00:28:58.130 --> 00:29:01.130 And his style was so... Viewable. I mean, it's 00:29:01.130 --> 00:29:03.130 no surprise so many of his books became movies. 00:29:03.349 --> 00:29:05.769 He was incredibly cinematic. You have to remember, 00:29:05.890 --> 00:29:08.470 he started his career as a film critic. He understood 00:29:08.470 --> 00:29:11.309 the language of the camera. Between 1933 and 00:29:11.309 --> 00:29:14.750 2013, the sources say there were 62 film and 00:29:14.750 --> 00:29:18.049 TV titles based on his work. And then, of course, 00:29:18.150 --> 00:29:20.650 there is the ultimate example, The Third Man. 00:29:20.910 --> 00:29:24.849 The classic film noir. The zither music. Orson 00:29:24.849 --> 00:29:27.730 Welles as Harry Lyme. It's such a unique case. 00:29:27.950 --> 00:29:30.589 He didn't write the book and then sell the film 00:29:30.589 --> 00:29:32.849 rights, which is the normal way. He wrote the 00:29:32.849 --> 00:29:35.309 novella specifically as raw material so that 00:29:35.309 --> 00:29:37.049 he could then write the screenplay for the film. 00:29:37.349 --> 00:29:39.809 That's completely backwards. It is. He worked 00:29:39.809 --> 00:29:41.890 hand in glove with the director, Carol Reed. 00:29:42.049 --> 00:29:43.970 He knew exactly what he was doing with the medium 00:29:43.970 --> 00:29:46.490 of film. He wasn't just a novelist who was dabbling. 00:29:46.670 --> 00:29:49.630 Speaking of film, we have to touch on the Shirley 00:29:49.630 --> 00:29:52.390 Temple lawsuit. This is one of the weirdest and 00:29:52.390 --> 00:29:55.009 frankly. Funniest anecdotes in his entire biography. 00:29:55.329 --> 00:29:58.750 It is truly bizarre. So in 1937, Green was writing 00:29:58.750 --> 00:30:00.950 film reviews for a magazine called Night and 00:30:00.950 --> 00:30:03.589 Day. He reviewed the new film Wee Willie Winky, 00:30:03.710 --> 00:30:05.589 starring the biggest child star in the world, 00:30:05.730 --> 00:30:07.650 Shirley Temple. She was nine years old at the 00:30:07.650 --> 00:30:11.369 time. Okay. Sounds innocent enough. Well, Green 00:30:11.369 --> 00:30:13.410 wrote in his review that her performance displayed 00:30:13.410 --> 00:30:16.329 a dubious coquetry, which appealed to middle 00:30:16.329 --> 00:30:20.420 -aged men and clergymen. He was... not so subtly, 00:30:20.500 --> 00:30:22.700 accusing the studio of marketing a nine -year 00:30:22.700 --> 00:30:25.839 -old child in a sexualized way. Oh boy. That 00:30:25.839 --> 00:30:29.539 is a very heavy accusation to make in 1937. 20th 00:30:29.539 --> 00:30:33.200 Century Fox was, shall we say, not amused. They 00:30:33.200 --> 00:30:36.859 sued him and the magazine for libel, and Green 00:30:36.859 --> 00:30:39.599 lost. The magazine went bankrupt because of the 00:30:39.599 --> 00:30:41.960 massive legal fees, and Green actually had to 00:30:41.960 --> 00:30:44.400 flee to Mexico to avoid the fallout and the payment. 00:30:44.700 --> 00:30:46.420 So wait a minute. Are you telling me the reason 00:30:46.420 --> 00:30:48.339 he went to Mexico, the trip that directly led 00:30:48.339 --> 00:30:50.339 to his masterpiece, The Power and the Glory, 00:30:50.519 --> 00:30:52.500 was because he got sued by Shirley Temple Studio? 00:30:53.279 --> 00:30:55.440 Indirectly, yes. It was the catalyst that pushed 00:30:55.440 --> 00:30:58.019 him out of the UK at that exact moment. Fate 00:30:58.019 --> 00:31:00.940 works in strange ways. If Shirley Temple hadn't 00:31:00.940 --> 00:31:02.720 been in that movie, we might not have the greatest 00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:05.279 Catholic novel of the 20th century. That is absolutely 00:31:05.279 --> 00:31:07.279 incredible. Now, what about his actual writing 00:31:07.279 --> 00:31:09.660 process? Was he the type to wait for inspiration 00:31:09.660 --> 00:31:12.460 to strike? Was he a chaotic genius writing in 00:31:12.460 --> 00:31:15.299 bursts? Absolutely not. He was disciplined to 00:31:15.299 --> 00:31:18.380 a fault. It was almost monastic. He wrote every 00:31:18.380 --> 00:31:20.960 day in a small black letter notebook with a black 00:31:20.960 --> 00:31:23.299 fountain pen. And he had a very strict quota. 00:31:23.819 --> 00:31:27.519 500 words a day. Just 500? That seems surprisingly 00:31:27.519 --> 00:31:30.279 manageable. It is manageable, but he did it every 00:31:30.279 --> 00:31:32.859 single day no matter what. And here is the kicker. 00:31:33.440 --> 00:31:36.539 Once he hit 500 words, he stopped. Even if he 00:31:36.539 --> 00:31:38.440 was on a roll? Even if he was in the middle of 00:31:38.440 --> 00:31:40.539 a scene. Some sources say even if he was in the 00:31:40.539 --> 00:31:42.480 middle of a sentence, he would put the notebook 00:31:42.480 --> 00:31:44.559 away and not look at it again for the rest of 00:31:44.559 --> 00:31:46.960 the day. But why? That seems counterintuitive. 00:31:47.200 --> 00:31:49.319 His friend and publisher Michael Korda described 00:31:49.319 --> 00:31:52.539 it as a daily penance. It wasn't about creative 00:31:52.539 --> 00:31:55.259 flow, it was about control. It was a way for 00:31:55.259 --> 00:31:58.019 him to manage his bipolar disorder. If he wrote 00:31:58.019 --> 00:32:00.880 too much, he might trigger a manic episode. If 00:32:00.880 --> 00:32:02.759 he wrote too little, he might sink into a depression. 00:32:03.539 --> 00:32:06.859 500 words was the exact dose of medicine he needed 00:32:06.859 --> 00:32:09.900 to stay sane and productive. Penance. That's 00:32:09.900 --> 00:32:11.779 such a Catholic way to view your own writing. 00:32:11.859 --> 00:32:14.079 It's not a joy, it's a difficult duty you have 00:32:14.079 --> 00:32:15.880 to perform every day to clear your conscience. 00:32:16.319 --> 00:32:18.960 And it worked. Over a long career, that daily 00:32:18.960 --> 00:32:22.279 penance produced over 25 novels, plus plays, 00:32:22.440 --> 00:32:25.500 essays, and screenplays. So with all this incredible 00:32:25.500 --> 00:32:27.339 output, all this critical acclaim, all these 00:32:27.339 --> 00:32:30.079 movie deals, Why didn't he win the Nobel Prize 00:32:30.079 --> 00:32:33.140 for Literature? Let's get into Section 6, the 00:32:33.140 --> 00:32:35.880 final acts. He was shortlisted so many times. 00:32:36.099 --> 00:32:38.079 He was a perennial candidate. The sources list 00:32:38.079 --> 00:32:43.720 1961, 1966, 1967, 1974, 1975. Pretty much every 00:32:43.720 --> 00:32:46.099 year in the 60s and 70s, the press would gather 00:32:46.099 --> 00:32:48.420 outside his house in October waiting for the 00:32:48.420 --> 00:32:50.700 announcement. He was always on the list. So what 00:32:50.700 --> 00:32:52.839 happened? Was he just unlucky? Did they just 00:32:52.839 --> 00:32:55.960 prefer other writers? Well... There appears to 00:32:55.960 --> 00:32:58.359 be a specific villain in this particular story, 00:32:58.500 --> 00:33:00.880 a man named Arthur Lundqvist. And who was he? 00:33:00.980 --> 00:33:02.880 He was a very influential member of the Swedish 00:33:02.880 --> 00:33:04.759 Academy, the small group that decides the winner. 00:33:04.900 --> 00:33:06.980 And Lundqvist reportedly said that the prize 00:33:06.980 --> 00:33:09.099 would be awarded to Graham Greene over My Dead 00:33:09.099 --> 00:33:11.559 Body. Whoa. Why did he hate him so much? What 00:33:11.559 --> 00:33:14.279 was the issue? It's up for debate. Some speculate 00:33:14.279 --> 00:33:16.619 it was because Green was too commercial. He was 00:33:16.619 --> 00:33:19.740 too popular. The Academy often prefers more obscure, 00:33:19.980 --> 00:33:23.200 pure literary figures. And Green was selling 00:33:23.200 --> 00:33:26.319 millions of paperbacks at the airport. That was 00:33:26.319 --> 00:33:28.940 seen as a bit vulgar. They were literary snobs. 00:33:28.940 --> 00:33:31.779 That's one theory. Others say it was his politics. 00:33:32.779 --> 00:33:35.480 Lundqvist, a leftist, didn't like his weirdly 00:33:35.480 --> 00:33:38.319 Catholic anti -communism or maybe his cynical 00:33:38.319 --> 00:33:41.299 worldview. But whatever the reason, it seems 00:33:41.299 --> 00:33:43.579 to have been a very personal vendetta by this 00:33:43.579 --> 00:33:46.960 one powerful member that blocked him year after 00:33:46.960 --> 00:33:49.359 year. That is just tragic, to be blocked from 00:33:49.359 --> 00:33:51.319 the highest honor in your field by one guy's 00:33:51.319 --> 00:33:53.500 personal taste. But Green didn't seem to let 00:33:53.500 --> 00:33:55.519 it stop him. He kept writing right up until the 00:33:55.519 --> 00:33:58.000 end. He did. He spent his later life in Switzerland 00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:00.940 in a small town called Corso, overlooking Lake 00:34:00.940 --> 00:34:03.619 Geneva. He left Britain partly for tax reasons, 00:34:03.740 --> 00:34:05.740 but also just to escape the fame and find some 00:34:05.740 --> 00:34:07.740 peace. And he had a very famous neighbor there. 00:34:07.859 --> 00:34:10.039 Charlie Chaplin. They became good friends in 00:34:10.039 --> 00:34:12.340 their old age. Can you just imagine the conversations? 00:34:12.619 --> 00:34:15.519 The master of silent comedy and the chronicler 00:34:15.519 --> 00:34:18.179 of 20th century anxiety just hanging out by the 00:34:18.179 --> 00:34:20.750 lake. I would pay an obscene amount of money 00:34:20.750 --> 00:34:23.510 to be a fly on the wall for that. But even in 00:34:23.510 --> 00:34:26.289 his late 70s, Green wasn't just resting on his 00:34:26.289 --> 00:34:28.909 laurels. He got involved in a real -life fight 00:34:28.909 --> 00:34:31.590 against the mafia. He did. It's incredible. In 00:34:31.590 --> 00:34:35.030 1982, when he was around 78 years old, he wrote 00:34:35.030 --> 00:34:38.889 and published a pamphlet called J 'Cuse. The 00:34:38.889 --> 00:34:42.590 dark side of Nice. Accused. Very dramatic. Borrowing 00:34:42.590 --> 00:34:45.449 from Emile Zola. Exactly. He was attacking organized 00:34:45.449 --> 00:34:47.650 crime and deep -seated corruption in the local 00:34:47.650 --> 00:34:50.150 government of Nice in the south of France. His 00:34:50.150 --> 00:34:51.789 daughter lived there, and she was having trouble 00:34:51.789 --> 00:34:53.909 with her ex -husband who allegedly had criminal 00:34:53.909 --> 00:34:56.849 connections. Green started investigating it like 00:34:56.849 --> 00:34:59.190 an old journalist. He claimed the mayor and the 00:34:59.190 --> 00:35:01.190 police were in bed with the mob. Did it work? 00:35:01.800 --> 00:35:03.579 Or did he just get himself in trouble? Well, 00:35:03.679 --> 00:35:06.340 he lost a libel lawsuit initially. The establishment 00:35:06.340 --> 00:35:09.559 closed ranks. But he was vindicated in the 1990s 00:35:09.559 --> 00:35:11.980 after he died. The very mayor he had accused 00:35:11.980 --> 00:35:14.199 ended up being imprisoned for corruption, just 00:35:14.199 --> 00:35:16.679 as Green had alleged. So even as an old man, 00:35:16.780 --> 00:35:18.780 he was still fighting, still speaking truth to 00:35:18.780 --> 00:35:21.760 power. He never lost that edge. He died in 1991 00:35:21.760 --> 00:35:26.539 at age 86 of leukemia. A quiet end to a very, 00:35:26.559 --> 00:35:29.619 very loud and restless life. So as we wrap up 00:35:29.619 --> 00:35:31.139 here, what does this all mean? We have to look 00:35:31.139 --> 00:35:33.780 at his legacy. William Golding called him the 00:35:33.780 --> 00:35:36.159 ultimate chronicler of 20th century anxiety. 00:35:37.159 --> 00:35:39.619 After everything we've talked about, that feels 00:35:39.619 --> 00:35:42.000 right. I think that stands up completely. Green 00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:44.639 had this unique ability to make evil palpable. 00:35:45.280 --> 00:35:47.780 He didn't write about abstract bad guys or monsters. 00:35:48.059 --> 00:35:50.400 He wrote about the evil inside us, the weakness, 00:35:50.559 --> 00:35:52.800 the betrayal, the doubt, the sin that comes from 00:35:52.800 --> 00:35:55.880 trying to do good. But, and this is key, he also 00:35:55.880 --> 00:35:57.800 always wrote about the possibility of redemption, 00:35:57.960 --> 00:36:00.639 however slight. He believed that even the worst 00:36:00.639 --> 00:36:02.860 sinner could find grace, often because of their 00:36:02.860 --> 00:36:05.320 sin, not in spite of it. And he did it all while 00:36:05.320 --> 00:36:07.519 being this walking, talking contradiction himself. 00:36:08.019 --> 00:36:10.559 That, for me, is the aha moment of his life. 00:36:10.719 --> 00:36:12.940 He proves that you don't have to be just one 00:36:12.940 --> 00:36:15.349 thing. You can be a sinner and a saint. You can 00:36:15.349 --> 00:36:17.869 be a patriot and a critic. You can be a cynic 00:36:17.869 --> 00:36:20.230 and a believer. He validates the complexity of 00:36:20.230 --> 00:36:22.369 the human experience. He gives all of us permission 00:36:22.369 --> 00:36:24.650 to be complicated. There's a quote from him that 00:36:24.650 --> 00:36:27.590 I think is a perfect final provocative thought 00:36:27.590 --> 00:36:30.829 for our listeners. He said, the other side of 00:36:30.829 --> 00:36:33.190 the problem is that I really don't want to survive 00:36:33.190 --> 00:36:36.559 myself. which has nothing to do with nukes, but 00:36:36.559 --> 00:36:39.059 with the body hanging around while the mind departs. 00:36:39.079 --> 00:36:41.739 He was terrified of losing that sharp, critical 00:36:41.739 --> 00:36:43.780 mind. He was afraid of becoming a vegetable. 00:36:44.300 --> 00:36:46.800 Thankfully for us, he left that mind on the page. 00:36:47.000 --> 00:36:49.920 It's still there, alive and kicking in every 00:36:49.920 --> 00:36:52.059 single one of his books. So here's the question 00:36:52.059 --> 00:36:55.119 for you listening right now. In our world today, 00:36:55.300 --> 00:36:58.099 a world of social media, where everyone is forced 00:36:58.099 --> 00:37:00.420 to pick a side, to be black or white, left or 00:37:00.420 --> 00:37:03.340 right. Cancel just celebrated. Is there still 00:37:03.340 --> 00:37:06.639 room for a Green -esque figure? Someone who can 00:37:06.639 --> 00:37:08.340 hold two opposing thoughts in their head at the 00:37:08.340 --> 00:37:11.179 same time and still function? Or have we lost 00:37:11.179 --> 00:37:13.139 the capacity for that kind of nuance? It's a 00:37:13.139 --> 00:37:15.079 question worth asking for sure. If you've never 00:37:15.079 --> 00:37:16.940 read him, I really encourage you to go pick up 00:37:16.940 --> 00:37:19.159 The Quiet American or watch the film of The Third 00:37:19.159 --> 00:37:22.760 Man. You will not regret it. Step into Greenland 00:37:22.760 --> 00:37:25.880 for a while. It's dark, but the view is absolutely 00:37:25.880 --> 00:37:27.920 incredible. Thanks for joining us on this deep 00:37:27.920 --> 00:37:28.219 dive.