splays on occasion that hallmark of English public school, the he silt of the head and closing of eyes when pronouncing the i few words of some sentences ~ a manner most often in trast to what he is saying, for his expressions tend toward THE ART OF FICTIO able and his wit may move from cosy to scorpion-dy in less ra twinkle. Many have remarked that his celebrated deafness (Published in The Paris Review, 1958) I roar or falter according to his spirit and situation; at any rate will not use 2 hearing-aid, for reasons of his own, though no “This interview may have been conducted in ‘the autho bur it was also a written collaboration, the script passing back ¢ Green writes at night and in many longhand draft. between Groen and Southern. ‘No, there is no real trouble is novels, by date of publication, are: Blindness (1926), Living interview" Southem wrote to conclude, “Thee is some ), Party Going (1939), Pack My Bag (r940), Caught (1943)+ gecininary ncaon emong the salt ove ie HG ing (1948)« Back (1946), Concluding (1948), Nothing (1950), “aunty”, but nothing concrete ee ciel his autobiographical novel, Pack My Bag, he has described Henry Green is the pseudonym of H. V. Yorke, the ee, Birmingham industrialist whom W. H. Auden has the best English novelist alive ‘Mr Green wrote his first novel, Blindness, while stil oy at Eton, and this has been followed by nine mot life otherwise, he has noted: rose isnot tobe read aloud but to oneself at night, andi is quick as poetry, but rather a gathering web of insinsations ich go further than names however shared can evet £0. should be a long intimacy between strangers with no appeal to what both may have known It should slowly Iwas bom in 199s ina large house by the banks: to feclings unexpressed, it should in the end draw tears seve, in England, and within the sound ofthe ofthe stone ‘Abbey Church at Tewkesbury. Some children ate to school: I went at six and three-quarters and did ancient trade-compliment, to an author whose technique Twas twenty-two, by which time Twas at Oxf ly developed, has been to call him a ‘writer's write’ holidays were all fishing. And chen there was \Groca has been refered to asa “write swriter's weiter I was sent at twelve and a half ro Eton and al fh practitioners ofthe eraft have ad only ro alk with him became what eas then called an aestete, that is Fly on the subjec to know that his methods were not consciously dressed to shock, I stayed that way fo be reveled to them, either then oat any other time. I From Onfoed I went into che family busines, a Ais reason ~atempring to delve past his steely reticence ~ ‘works in the Midlands, with its iron and brass ie ofthe questions in the interview would seem unduly Tchine shops. After working through from: presumptuous eventually came to the top where for the time be [Green lives in London, in a house in Knightsbridge, with marzed, living in London, with one son fal and charming wife named Dig, The following con ‘Me Green is a tall, gracious, and imposingly jon was recorded there, one winter night, in the author's with a warm strong voice and very quick eye! study. a4INTERVIEWER INTERVIEWER Now you have a body of work, ten novels, which m: Isee. consider the most elusive and enigmatic in contempor ture ~ and yourself, professionally, or as a personali Mx GREEN the less so. I'm wondering if these ewo mysteries are coincidental? Yes, it's best they shouldn't know about one. And one should ce be known by sight. You have however been photographed from the rear. MR GREEN ‘What's that? I'm a trie hard of hearing. INTERVIEWER ‘And a wag said: ‘I'd know that back anywhere.” ‘Wel, 'm referring to such things as your use of pseu your refusal to be photographed, and so on, May Lask the for it? INTERVIEWER (ve heard it remarked that your work is ‘too sophisticated” for rican readers, in that it offers no scenes of violence ~ and SEEN subtle, in that its message is somewhat veiled. What do you I didn't want my business associates to know I wrote Most of them do now though. . . know I mean, not write) goodness. MR GREEN Unlike the wilds of Texas, there is very lite violence over A bit of child-killing of course, but no straight-shootin’. fifty, one ceases to digest; as someone once said: ‘I just 1: my food now.’ Most of us walk crabwise to meals and thing else. The oblique approach in middle age isthe safest ig. The unusual at this period is to get anywhere at all ~ God vn! INTERVIEWER ‘And has this affected your relationships with them? MR GREEN Yes, yes, oh yes~ why some years ago a group at our hham works put in a penny each and bought a copy of a tine ~ Living. And as I was going round the icon-fou day, a lonm-moulder said to me: ‘Tread your book, Hent did you like it?’ Tasked, rightly appeehensive. He replied: think much of it, Henty." Too awful Then you know, with a customer, at the end of a which has deteriorated into a compromise painful co bot he may sy: "suppose you are going to purths in 20 INTERVIEWER ‘And how about ‘subtle’? MR GREEN don’e follow. Suttee, as I understand it, is the suicide ~ now. jdden ~ of a Hindu wife on her husband’s flaming bier. T t want my wife to do that when my time comes ~ and with, at respect, as T know her, she won't... « 236 237INTERVIEWER I'm sorry, you misheard me; I said, ‘subtle was too subtle. INTERVIEWER 1d like to ask you some questions now about the work itself j've described your novels as ‘non-representational’. 1 wonder you'd mind defining that term? MR GREEN Oh, subtle. How dull! MR GREEN, 'Non-representational” was meant to represent a picture which not a photograph, nor a painting on @ photograph, nor, in logue, a tape-recording. For instance the very deaf, as I am, the most astounding things all round them, which have fin fact, been said. This enlivens my replies until, through nearing, a new level of communication is reached. My charac- ‘misunderstand each other more than people do in real life, they do so less than I, Thus when writing, I ‘represent’ very ely what I see (and I'm not seeing so well now) and what 1 (which is little) bue I say i is ‘non-representational’ becatse jpnot necessarily what others see and hear. INTERVIEWER +. yes, well now I believe that two of your nx and Pack My Bag, are said to be ‘autobiographical’, MR GREEN, Yes, those two ate mostly autobiographical. But are about myself, they are not necessarily accurate they aren't photographs. After all, no one knows wh hhe just tries to give some sort of picture of his ti cat to fight its image in the mirror, INTERVIEWER ‘The critic Alan Pryce-Jones has compared you t and called you an ‘odd, haunted, ambiguous know thar? ind yet, as I underseand this theory, its success docs not nnd upon any actual sensory differences between people talk- but rather upon psychological or emotional differences sen them as readers, isn't that s0? I'm referring to the serious MR GREEN of this theory in communicative writing, was in the same house with him at Eton. He than me, so he saw through me perhaps. MB GREEN ple strike sparks off each other, that is what I try to note ip, But mark well, they only do this when they are talking ther. Afer all we don’t write letters now, we telephone. lone of these days we are going to have TV sets which lonely. Je can talk to and get answers back, Then no one will read. INTERVIEWER Do you find critical opinion expressed about or interesting? MR OREN Invariably useless and uninteresting - when it ‘or weeklies which giveso litle space nowadays, called Edward Stokes who has written a book a Knowsall too much. [believe the Hogarth Press is it, And then the Fench translator of Loving, he insome French monthly. Both ofthese are valu Ml that is your erabwise approach, MR GREEN ‘your question, yes. And to stop one’s asking why I don’t 2x8 239write plays, my answer is I'd rather have these spark and white than liable o interpretation by actors and the ‘of a piece. Do you consider that all your novels have been done: opresentational’? MR GREEN Yes, they all of course represent a selection of mat Chinese classical painters used to leave out the middle Until Nothing and Doting 1 teied to establish the mos scene by a few but highly pointed descriptions. Since tried to keep everything down to bare dialogue and fo Jifficult, You see, to get back to what you asked a mor ‘when you referred to the emotional differences betw = what one writes has to be all things to all men. If enough to enough readers they stop reading and the ‘won't publish any more. To disprove my own rule I' very fuinny three-act play and no one will put it on, INTERVIEWER I'm sorry to hear that, but now what about the role: in the novel? Just the old nursery-chyme — ‘Something and spice things nice, isi? Surely the artist must entercan. a very bad way indeed if one can't laugh. Laughter characters in a novel. And if you can make the reader apt to get careless and go on reading, So you asthe chance to get something into him. INTERVIEWER I see, and what might that something be? 240 MR GREEN Here weapproach the crux of the matter which, ike all hilarious, ings, is almost indescribable, To me the purpose of artis to pro- \ce something alive, in my case, in print, but witha separate, and f course one hopes, with an everlasting life on its own, INTERVIEWER And the qualities then of a work-of-art . MMR GREEN To be alive, To have a rea life ofits own. The miracle is that should live in the person who reads it, And ifit is real and true docs, for five hundred years, for generation after generation. slike having a baby, but in print. [fi’s really good, you can’t jp its living. Indeed once the thing is printed, you simply nnot strangle it, as you could a child, by putting your bands und its ltele wet neck. What would you say goes into creating this life, into making thing real and true? Getting oneself straight. To get what one produces to have a life ofits own, low this page of manuscript you were good enough to show = what stage of the finished work does this represent? MR GREEN robably a very early draft INTERVIEWER this draft I see that the dialogue has been left untouched, reas every line in the scene otherwise has been completely, ieten. 241MR GREEN, 1 think if you checked with other fragments of ‘would find as many the other way around, the dial and the rest left untouched. Here the rewriting has been done in entire sent than in words or phrases ~ i that generally the way ‘Yes, because I copy everything out afresh. I make in the manuscript and then copy them out. And in I make further alterations, INTERVIEWER How much do you usually write before you begin The first twenty pages over and over again ~ bee idea you have to get everything into them. So as | go the book develops, I have to go back to that beginni again, Otherwise I rewrite only when I read where: in the book and I find something so bad I can't go. ppt it right, ‘When you begin to write something, do you bi ‘certain characterin mind, or rather with 2 certain situa Situation every time. Is that necessarily the opening situation ~ or perhaps give me an example; what was the basic situation, a to you, for Loving? got the idea of Loving from a manservant in the Fire Service ig the war. He was serving with me in the ranks and he told he had once asked the elderly butler who was over him what old boy most liked in the world. The reply was: ‘Lying in ‘on a summer morning, with the window open, listening to chucch bells, eating buttered toast with cumty fingers.” I saw book in a fash. ell, now after getting. your initial situation in mind, then ut thought do you give to plot beyond it? MR GREEN Ws all a question of length; that is, of proportion. How much allow to this or that is what makes a book now. It was not Jn the days of the old three-decker novel. As to plotting oF king ahead, I don’t in a novel. IIe it come page by page, fdy, and carry it in my head. When I say carry I mean the tons — that is, the length. This is the exhaustion of creating, rds the end of the book your head is literally bursting. But nd write outa scheme or plan and you will only depart from ly way you have a chance to set something living jo one, it seems, has been able to satisfactorily relate your to any source of influence, I recall that Mr Pritchett has to place it in the tradition of Sterne, Carroll, Firbank, and nia Woolf ~ whereas Mr Toynbee wished to relate it 10 ®, Thomas Wolfe, and Henry Miller. Now, are there styles forks that you feel have influenced yours? ally don’t know. As far as I'm consciously aware I forget hing I read at once including my own stuff, But I have a jondous admiration for CélineINTERVIEWER feel there are certain aspects of your work, the which aren't easily drawn into question because I don’t to cover them. I would like to ty fo state one howe if you fel i is cozeect or can be clarified. I's so Pritchett seems to hint at when he describes you a8 ‘gist pot making people out of blots’, and it has to degree to which you've developed the ‘non-exis principle, The reader does not simply forget that author behind the words, but because of some ann 8 seeming ‘discrepancy’ in the story must, in fac, 10m that there one, This reminding is accompanied by with the author because ofthese apparent oversights and his ‘filings to see the particular significance of ings. The irsitation gives way then «0 a feeling of superiority in that he, the reader, sees more in thes the author does ~ so that all ofthis now belongs to fi author is dismissed, even perhaps with a slight only the work remains, alone now with this reader to take over, Ths, inthe spell of his own imaginal acters and story come alive in an almost ineredib beyond anything achieved by conventional meth Now this is 2 principle that occurs in Kafkals undeveloped way, but is obscured because the si strongly fantasy. I occurs in a very pure form Kafka’s Journals ~ if one assumes that they were to the contrary, writen tobe eed, then itis quite a ‘of course, very funny and engaging indeed, Pim that is the source of this principle for you, or if i with what Tsay about if? 1 don't agree about Katka’s Journals, which 1 and still don't oF can't follow. But if you are trying co write something which own, which is alive, of course the author must feat of the picture, I hate the portraits of d triptychs. And if the novel is alive of course the i aM tated by discrepancies — life, afterall, is one discrepancy after other. INTERVIEWER Do you believe that a writer should work toward the develop- wnt of a particular style? Ma GREEN He can’t do anything else, His style is himself, and we are all us changing every day ~ developing, we hope! We leave our rks behind us like a snail, INTERVIEWER So the writer's style develops with him. MR GREEN Surely, But he must take care not to let it go too far ~ like the ir Henry James or James Joyce. Because it then becomes a ivate communication with himself, ike a man making cat's les with spider's webs, a sort of Melanesian gambit INTERVIEWER ‘onceming your own style and the changes it has undergone, like to read a sample paragraph - from Living, written in 1928 jad ask you something about it, This paragraph occurs, you Wy pethaps recall, as the description of a gitl’s dream ~ a ng-class git] who wants more chan anything else a home, above all, a child. ‘Then clocks in that town all over town struck 3 and bells in lurches there ringing started rushing sound of bell like wings jing under roof of sky, so these bells rang. But women jod, reached up children drooping to sky, sharp boned, these ynien wailed and their noise rose and ate the noise of bells ing. like t0 ask about the style here, about the absence of jon articles 4, an, and the ~ there being but one in the 2swhole paragraph, which is fairly representative of th this omission of articles throughout Living based on lar theory? MMR GREEN I wanted to make that book as taut and spare as fit the proletarian life I was then leading. So I hit on the articles. I still think it effective, but would not do: ‘may now seem, I'm aftaid, affected. INTERVIEWER Do you think chat an elliptical method like that has other than, as you say, suggesting the tautness and § a particular situation? sox cree I don’t know, suppose the more you leave out, the highlight what you leave in ~ not true of taking the ‘of a sandwich, of course - but ifone kept a dary, 0 want a minute-to-minute catalogue of one's dread INTERVIEWER Well, that was written in 1928 ~ were you ingly that style by Ulysces? Mn GREEN No. There's no ‘stream of consciousness’ in any. that I can remember ~ I did not read Ulysses until finished. INTERVIEWER ‘That was your second novel, and that novel seem stylistically from the first and from those that follo all of which, while ‘inimitably your own’, s0 to striking diversity in tone and style, Of them though, [ and Pack My Bag have a certain similatity, as have: Concluding. Then again, Nothing and Doting might similar in that, for one thing at least, they're both 246 what would you say, ninety-five per cent? .. . ninety-five cent dialogue, Nothing and Doting are about the upper classes ~ and so is Pack Bag, but itis nostalgia in this one, and too, in Back, which about the middle class, Nostalgia has to have its own style. thing and Doring are hard and sharp; Back and Pack My Bag, i. INTERVIEWER You speak of ‘classes’ now, and I recall that Living has been icribed as the ‘best proletarian novel ever written’. Is there to jur mind then a social-avwareness responsibility for the writer arcise? 'No, no. The writer must be disengaged or else he is writing tics. Look at the Soviet writers. [just wrote what I heard and saw, and, as I've told you, the ers in my factory thought it rotten. It was my very good nnd Christopher Isherwood used that phrase you've just ed and I don't know that he ever worked in a factory. cerning the fature ofthe novel, what do you think isthe look for the Joycean-type introspective style, and, on the er hand, for the Kafka schoo!? MR GREEN think Joyce and Kafka have said the last word on each of two forms they developed. There's no one to follow them. y're like cats which have licked the plate clean. You've got ilream up another dish if you're to be a writer. }o you believe that films and television wall radically alter the at of the novel?Te might be better o ask if novels will continue [es impossible for a novelist not to look out for nowadays. It isn't that everything has been donk the critical analyses that book received, no one called attention the absurdity of one of the basic situations: that of English fants in an Irish household, Now isn’t that fundamental sita- jon, and the absence of any reference to it throughout the book, nothing has been done as ye, save Fielding, and he ended to be purely absurd? it all. Itis simply that the novelist is a communicat therefore be interested in any form of communication dictate toa gir] now, you use a recording apparan any more, they have blackouts; in Geneva you don't by cutting his throat, you blow a poisoned dart the and zing you've got him. Media change. We don't hat chapels like Cocteau, but at the same time we must ‘on the lookout for the new ways MR GREEN ; ‘The British servants in Eire while England is at war is Raunce’s nice and one meant to be satrcally funny. Te is a crack at the sued Southern Irish and atthe same time a swipe atthe British vants, who yet remain human beings. But itis meant to tor- do that woman and her daughter-in-law, the employes. As 10 the rest, the whole of life now is of course absurd ~ iarious sometimes, as told you ealis, but basically absurd INTERVIEWER ‘What do you say about the use of symbolism? INTERVIEWER [And have you ever heard of an actual case of an Irish household. MB GREEN jing staffed with English servants? ‘You can't escape it ean you? What after all is one to oneself in print? Does the reader feel a dread of anyt they all fel a dread for different things? Do they al ently? Surely the only way to cover all these readers what is called symbolism q MR GREEN Not that comes quickly to mind, no, Well, now what is it that you're writing on at present? INTERVIEWER Teseems that you've used the principle of non-existent in conjunction with another ~ chat since identified with and called the absurd For a situation to be, in this it genuinely absurd, it must be convincingly arrived at, and: not be noticed by readers as being at all out ofthe ordina interviewer it would seem normal for a young man, upon the deat I believe you're considered an authority on that ~and, having father, to go down and take over the family’s ironcf eid Caught, 1can understand that you would be. What's chs in Living: or to join the service in war-time, i caibe ealledt return from the war, as in Back ~ and yet, in abrape tel ike these, the situations and relationships which rst ae sure to be, despite any dramatic or beautiful moments, ‘mentally absurd. In your work I believe this reached s Point of refinement in Loving as to be indiscernible ~ f Mm GREEN I've been asked to do a book about London during the blitz, nd Pm into that now. MR GREEN London and Fire, 1940 248 49INTERVIEWER ‘And it is not fiction? ‘No, it's an historical account of that period. INTERVIEWER ‘Then this will be your first full-length work of ng Yes, quite intenvieweR 1 see, London and Fire, 1940~ a commissioned bis Wel, well I dace say you'll have to give up the approach for this onc. What’ the first sentence? MR GREEN, "My “London of 1940”... opens in Cork, 1938) INTERVIEWER I see. 250