Subject
Fw: Graham Greene & the needy Nabokov?
From
Date
Body
EDNOTE. A CLARIFICATION. My question mark after needy (?) Nabokov seems to
have triggered several responses. My punctuation mark was whimsical. It is
quite true that at the time Greene showered praise on the Olympia edition of
LOLITA, Nabokov was relatively unknown and certainly not affluent. He was ,
however, a tenured professor at Cornell -- modestly paid, to be sure, as
were almost all faculty at that time, but hardly starving in a garret. What
caught my fancy was the change of meaning of the word "needy" which has
entered the whelm of psychobabble in the sense of "emotionally insecure,
demanding, etc." --- a sense that is that utterly bizarre in connection wit
Nabokov.
------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kenny, Glenn" <gkenny@hfmus.com>
To: "'D. Barton Johnson '" <chtodel@cox.net>
Sent: Sunday, April 11, 2004 8:37 PM
Subject: RE: Graham Greene & the needy Nabokov?
> In response to the question mark in the subject line "Graham Greene and
the
> needy Nabokov?": Well, I certainly doubt that, as Alan Taylor impies,
Graham
> Greene ever lent VN any money, the passionate and constant support Greene
> lent to "Lolita" prior to its British and U.S. publications was probably,
in
> the long run, better than money.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: D. Barton Johnson
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Sent: 4/11/04 4:54 PM
> Subject: Graham Greene & the needy Nabokov?
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded Message ----------
>
> Date: Sunday, April 11, 2004 1:46 PM -0400
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> http://www.sundayherald.com/41138
>
> 's Goddess
>
> Books: In search of a beginning: my life with Graham Greene by Yvonne
>
> Cloetta as told to Marie-Francoise Allain (Bloomsbury, ?16.99) Reviewed
> by
>
> Alan Taylor
>
> Unlike the majority of writers today, Graham Greene was never seen in
>
> public, gave very few interviews and abhorred literary festivals,
> signings
>
> in bookshops and similar distractions. But when a new book by him was
>
> published, it was an event because Greene was that rare animal, an
> author
>
> who was critically acclaimed and phenomenally popular.
>
> Inevitably, among his peers this was a cause of some resentment and
>
> jealousy. Anthony Burgess, for example, took against him after they met
> in
>
> Antibes. After Burgess?s piece appeared in The Observer, Greene had
> joked:
>
> ?Burgess put words in my mouth which I had to look up in the
> dictionary.?
>
> In response, Burgess, who always insisted on having the last word,
> compared
>
> Greene unfavourably to Evelyn Waugh who, he said, ?had more charity?.
>
> He was not alone in his criticism. John le Carr?, with whom Greene
> shared a
>
> passion for espionage, said he was ?a 1930s writer?, while Piers Paul
> Read,
>
> whose father Herbert was one of Greene?s closest friends, accused him of
>
> ?living rather out of the real world?. Nor did Greene receive any kinder
>
> treatment from his biographers, including Michael Shelden, Norman Sherry
>
> and Selina Hastings, who seemed to go out of their way to emphasise his
>
> alleged cruelty to women, his coldness and his tantrums.
>
> Even friends, such as Shirley Hazzard, were not averse to sticking the
> boot
>
> in. In her memoir, Greene In Capri, Hazzard said Greene was mean because
>
> one night after dinner he insisted on catching a bus home rather than
> take
>
> a taxi. In fact, says Yvonne Cloetta, Greene used the bus as an excuse
> to
>
> avoid a prolonged evening of Hazzard?s company.
>
> Cloetta was Greene?s mistress for more than 30 years, from 1959 until he
>
> died in 1991. When they met he was 55 and she was 36, blonde, gamine,
>
> French, chain-smoking, married with children. She was, a female friend
> of
>
> Greene?s once told me, ?the perfect mistress.? Each day, she would
> arrive
>
> at his flat in Antibes around noon, when he?d finished writing, and go
> to a
>
> nearby restaurant for lunch.
>
> They would spend the afternoon together, walk her cocker spaniel, and
> she
>
> would leave around seven, having prepared him a suppertime snack. They
>
> never married or lived together, but there?s no doubt Greene was
> besotted
>
> by her. He dedicated Travels With My Aunt to her; ?For HHK? it reads,
> the
>
> initials standing for ?Healthy, Happy Kitten?, Cloetta?s nickname.
>
> Her book, which is in effect a long interview with Marie-Fran?oise
> Allain,
>
> is a corrective to much that has been written posthumously about the
>
> novelist. Cloetta, who died three years ago, refers constantly to her
>
> ?carnet rouge?, in which she recorded conversations between herself and
> her
>
> lover and which he himself annotated.
>
> A very different picture of Greene thus emerges from that previously
>
> painted by others. He is, in Cloetta?s tinted vision, a man of high
>
> principle, affectionate, kind, modest, compassionate and generous,
> signing
>
> away royalties to good causes and helping needy writers such as Muriel
>
> Spark, Vladimir Nabokov, RK Narayan, as well as the likes of Charlie
>
> Chaplin.
>
> She even excuses his association with Kim Philby, who spied for the
>
> Russians and whose betrayal led to the deaths of many British agents.
> For
>
> Greene, it seems, it was not a case of ?your country right or wrong?,
>
> rather an insistence on personal loyalty. If he had to choose between a
>
> friend or his country, chances are he would have backed the former.
>
> But that is perhaps too simplistic and Greene was clearly not that.
> Before
>
> he met Cloetta his love life was complicated, and unsavoury. The list of
>
> his former mistresses was formidable. He used to take one of them,
>
> Catherine Walston, to brothels, with her disguised as a man or a boy.
>
> Cloetta hints at nothing of that sort involving her. In that respect she
> is
>
> a model of discretion, even declaring that Greene only ever spoke well
> of
>
> the women he?d been involved with previously. She, too, is largely
>
> circumspect, but she is also capable of sticking in a stiletto, noting
> that
>
> one of his mistresses ? ?Poor woman? ? had become very fat. As she says,
>
> ?it?s fairly unusual to harm someone without intending to do so?.
>
> Even to Cloetta, however, Greene remained an enigma. ?Was he as
> ?complex?
>
> and ?mysterious? as all that?? asks Allain. ?For me,? replies Cloetta,
>
> avoiding the question, as she is adept at doing, ?the real mystery of
>
> Graham Greene lay in the power and variety of his creative imagination.
>
> Occasionally, I used to take his head in my hands and say to him, ?How
> do
>
> you manage to imagine all these characters in this head of yours?? And
> he
>
> replied, ?They don?t come from there; they come from my bowels?.?
>
> He, like she, knew how not to answer when he didn?t like the question.
> But
>
> that?s no crime. In an age when writers are more seen and heard than
> ever
>
> before, Greene?s ascetic regime has much to recommend it. His needs were
>
> modest, his circle of friends small. Writing was torture but he knew it
> was
>
> what he must do. It was like an incurable addiction.
>
> While he was writing a book he would not countenance any interruption
> that
>
> was not of his own making. He guarded his privacy and locked himself
> away.
>
> John Updike said he was ?trapped in loneliness?. But it was necessary
> for
>
> Greene to function as a writer and that is all he ever really wanted to
> do.
>
> Everything else, one suspects, even his relationship with Cloetta,
>
> passionate as it was, was secondary.
>
> 11 April 2004
>
> Glasgow
>
> [Image: "click"]
>
> __________________________________________________
>
> Get rid of annoying pop-up ads with the new MSN Toolbar ? FREE!
>
> ---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
>
>
>
>
>
> D. Barton Johnson
>
> NABOKV-L
>
have triggered several responses. My punctuation mark was whimsical. It is
quite true that at the time Greene showered praise on the Olympia edition of
LOLITA, Nabokov was relatively unknown and certainly not affluent. He was ,
however, a tenured professor at Cornell -- modestly paid, to be sure, as
were almost all faculty at that time, but hardly starving in a garret. What
caught my fancy was the change of meaning of the word "needy" which has
entered the whelm of psychobabble in the sense of "emotionally insecure,
demanding, etc." --- a sense that is that utterly bizarre in connection wit
Nabokov.
------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kenny, Glenn" <gkenny@hfmus.com>
To: "'D. Barton Johnson '" <chtodel@cox.net>
Sent: Sunday, April 11, 2004 8:37 PM
Subject: RE: Graham Greene & the needy Nabokov?
> In response to the question mark in the subject line "Graham Greene and
the
> needy Nabokov?": Well, I certainly doubt that, as Alan Taylor impies,
Graham
> Greene ever lent VN any money, the passionate and constant support Greene
> lent to "Lolita" prior to its British and U.S. publications was probably,
in
> the long run, better than money.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: D. Barton Johnson
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Sent: 4/11/04 4:54 PM
> Subject: Graham Greene & the needy Nabokov?
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded Message ----------
>
> Date: Sunday, April 11, 2004 1:46 PM -0400
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> http://www.sundayherald.com/41138
>
> 's Goddess
>
> Books: In search of a beginning: my life with Graham Greene by Yvonne
>
> Cloetta as told to Marie-Francoise Allain (Bloomsbury, ?16.99) Reviewed
> by
>
> Alan Taylor
>
> Unlike the majority of writers today, Graham Greene was never seen in
>
> public, gave very few interviews and abhorred literary festivals,
> signings
>
> in bookshops and similar distractions. But when a new book by him was
>
> published, it was an event because Greene was that rare animal, an
> author
>
> who was critically acclaimed and phenomenally popular.
>
> Inevitably, among his peers this was a cause of some resentment and
>
> jealousy. Anthony Burgess, for example, took against him after they met
> in
>
> Antibes. After Burgess?s piece appeared in The Observer, Greene had
> joked:
>
> ?Burgess put words in my mouth which I had to look up in the
> dictionary.?
>
> In response, Burgess, who always insisted on having the last word,
> compared
>
> Greene unfavourably to Evelyn Waugh who, he said, ?had more charity?.
>
> He was not alone in his criticism. John le Carr?, with whom Greene
> shared a
>
> passion for espionage, said he was ?a 1930s writer?, while Piers Paul
> Read,
>
> whose father Herbert was one of Greene?s closest friends, accused him of
>
> ?living rather out of the real world?. Nor did Greene receive any kinder
>
> treatment from his biographers, including Michael Shelden, Norman Sherry
>
> and Selina Hastings, who seemed to go out of their way to emphasise his
>
> alleged cruelty to women, his coldness and his tantrums.
>
> Even friends, such as Shirley Hazzard, were not averse to sticking the
> boot
>
> in. In her memoir, Greene In Capri, Hazzard said Greene was mean because
>
> one night after dinner he insisted on catching a bus home rather than
> take
>
> a taxi. In fact, says Yvonne Cloetta, Greene used the bus as an excuse
> to
>
> avoid a prolonged evening of Hazzard?s company.
>
> Cloetta was Greene?s mistress for more than 30 years, from 1959 until he
>
> died in 1991. When they met he was 55 and she was 36, blonde, gamine,
>
> French, chain-smoking, married with children. She was, a female friend
> of
>
> Greene?s once told me, ?the perfect mistress.? Each day, she would
> arrive
>
> at his flat in Antibes around noon, when he?d finished writing, and go
> to a
>
> nearby restaurant for lunch.
>
> They would spend the afternoon together, walk her cocker spaniel, and
> she
>
> would leave around seven, having prepared him a suppertime snack. They
>
> never married or lived together, but there?s no doubt Greene was
> besotted
>
> by her. He dedicated Travels With My Aunt to her; ?For HHK? it reads,
> the
>
> initials standing for ?Healthy, Happy Kitten?, Cloetta?s nickname.
>
> Her book, which is in effect a long interview with Marie-Fran?oise
> Allain,
>
> is a corrective to much that has been written posthumously about the
>
> novelist. Cloetta, who died three years ago, refers constantly to her
>
> ?carnet rouge?, in which she recorded conversations between herself and
> her
>
> lover and which he himself annotated.
>
> A very different picture of Greene thus emerges from that previously
>
> painted by others. He is, in Cloetta?s tinted vision, a man of high
>
> principle, affectionate, kind, modest, compassionate and generous,
> signing
>
> away royalties to good causes and helping needy writers such as Muriel
>
> Spark, Vladimir Nabokov, RK Narayan, as well as the likes of Charlie
>
> Chaplin.
>
> She even excuses his association with Kim Philby, who spied for the
>
> Russians and whose betrayal led to the deaths of many British agents.
> For
>
> Greene, it seems, it was not a case of ?your country right or wrong?,
>
> rather an insistence on personal loyalty. If he had to choose between a
>
> friend or his country, chances are he would have backed the former.
>
> But that is perhaps too simplistic and Greene was clearly not that.
> Before
>
> he met Cloetta his love life was complicated, and unsavoury. The list of
>
> his former mistresses was formidable. He used to take one of them,
>
> Catherine Walston, to brothels, with her disguised as a man or a boy.
>
> Cloetta hints at nothing of that sort involving her. In that respect she
> is
>
> a model of discretion, even declaring that Greene only ever spoke well
> of
>
> the women he?d been involved with previously. She, too, is largely
>
> circumspect, but she is also capable of sticking in a stiletto, noting
> that
>
> one of his mistresses ? ?Poor woman? ? had become very fat. As she says,
>
> ?it?s fairly unusual to harm someone without intending to do so?.
>
> Even to Cloetta, however, Greene remained an enigma. ?Was he as
> ?complex?
>
> and ?mysterious? as all that?? asks Allain. ?For me,? replies Cloetta,
>
> avoiding the question, as she is adept at doing, ?the real mystery of
>
> Graham Greene lay in the power and variety of his creative imagination.
>
> Occasionally, I used to take his head in my hands and say to him, ?How
> do
>
> you manage to imagine all these characters in this head of yours?? And
> he
>
> replied, ?They don?t come from there; they come from my bowels?.?
>
> He, like she, knew how not to answer when he didn?t like the question.
> But
>
> that?s no crime. In an age when writers are more seen and heard than
> ever
>
> before, Greene?s ascetic regime has much to recommend it. His needs were
>
> modest, his circle of friends small. Writing was torture but he knew it
> was
>
> what he must do. It was like an incurable addiction.
>
> While he was writing a book he would not countenance any interruption
> that
>
> was not of his own making. He guarded his privacy and locked himself
> away.
>
> John Updike said he was ?trapped in loneliness?. But it was necessary
> for
>
> Greene to function as a writer and that is all he ever really wanted to
> do.
>
> Everything else, one suspects, even his relationship with Cloetta,
>
> passionate as it was, was secondary.
>
> 11 April 2004
>
> Glasgow
>
> [Image: "click"]
>
> __________________________________________________
>
> Get rid of annoying pop-up ads with the new MSN Toolbar ? FREE!
>
> ---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
>
>
>
>
>
> D. Barton Johnson
>
> NABOKV-L
>