GRAHAM GREENE " Our Man in Havana"

• GRAHAM GREENE TELLS ABOUT FRENCH HISTORY IN "OUR MAN IN HAVANA" (1958)

"...but the main source of the French intelligence at the time of Dreyfus was a charwoman who collected  the scraps out of the waste-paper baskets at the German Embassy.." (p.29)";;;I said I sympathized with the French officers in 1940 who looked after their families ; they didn't anyway put their careers first. " (p.217)

• GRAHAM GREENE HAD A PRESENTIMENT OF THE CUBAN CRISIS IN 1962 :"...Havana could be a key-spot. The Communists always go where there's trouble..." (p.47)"...They've become very active in Cuba - apparently with the help of the police. Our man in Havana has had a difficult time. His best agent, as you know, was killed, accidentallly of course, on his way to take aerial photographs of the constructions..." (p.146)"...Is there anything in Cuba important enough to interest a Secret Service ?  Of course we are only a small country, but we lie very close to the American coast. If a country is surrounded, as Russia is, it will try to punch a hole through from inside..."   (p.150). 

Napoleon als Italiaans bendeleider

SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE,

" DE ROMANOVS"

pag.340 :

"Napoleon Bonaparte, 

die zich tot eerste consul voor het leven had laten benoemen,

 combineerde het rationalisme van de Verlichting

en

de vrijheden van de Franse Revolutie 

met

het monarchistische conservatisme 

van een geboren autocraat 

en

de grenzeloze ambities van een Italiaanse bendeleider". 

"I cannot live without books" part II

EMILY BRÖNTE, "Wuthering Heights"

p.146 : 

"Catherine, what have you done ? 

Am I nothing to you, any more ? 

Do you love that wretch, Heathcliff ?"

 (...)

I don't want you, Edgar;

I'm past wanting you..

.Return to your books...

I'm glad you possess a consolation,

 for all you had in me is gone". 

p.343 :

"No books, 

I exclaimed.

 How do you contrive to live here without them ?

 If I may take the liberty to enquire 

- Though provided with a large library,,

I'm frequently very dull at the Grange

 - take my books away, 

and I should be desperate". 

"I cannot live without books"

ALDOUS HUXLEY, Brave New World (1932),

p.183 :

"Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness.

That's why I have te keep these books locked up in the safe.

They're smut. People would be shocked if ..."

p.50 :

"Accompanied by a campaign against the Past;

by the closing of museums, the blowing up of historical monuments 

(luckily most of them had 

already been destroyed during the Nine Years' War);

by the suppression of all books published before A.F.150".

p.93 :

"The spectacle of two young women

 giving the breast to their babies

made her blush and turn away her face.

She had never seen anything so indecent in her life".

EVELYN WAUGH, "Brideshead Revisited

EVELYN WAUGH AND ROMAN CATHOLICISM :

"Yesterday I asked him whether Our Lord had more than one nature.

 He said : Just as many  as you say, Father.

Then again I asked him :  Supposing the Pope looked up and saw a cloud and said "it's going to rain", would that be bound to happen ?

 O yes, Father. But supposing it didn't. He thought a moment and said, I suppose it would be sort of raining spiritually, only we were too sinful to see it. 

(...) 

He's absolutely determined to become a Catholic, mummy, and to herself she said : In her long history the Church must have had some pretty queer converts.

 I don't suppose all Clovis's army were exactly Catholic minded. 

One more won't hurt."

(...)

 I've had a long talk with a Catholic, a very pious, well educated one,

 and I've learned a thing or two : 

For instance, that you have to sleep with your feet pointing East because that's the direction of heaven, 

and if you die in the night you can walk there.

 Now I'll sleep with my feet pointing any way that suits Julia, 

but do  you expect a grown man to believe about walking to heaven ? 

And what about the Pope who made one of his horses a Cardinal ?" (pag.180, 181).

EVELYN WAUGH AND THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR :

"Franco's simply a German agent.

 They tried to  put him in to prepare air bases to bomb France. 

It would make the monarchy stronger than it's been since Tudor times. 

The people are with him. 

(...)

 Anyway, Franco will soon be skipping back to Morocco". (pag.257).