Fülszöveg
Graham Greene writes: 'An autobiography is only
"a sort of life" - it may contain less errors
of fact than a biography, but it is of necessity
even more selective : it begins later and it ends
prematurely. If one cannot close a book of memories on
the deathbed, any conclusion must be arbitrary,
and I have preferred to finish this essay
with the years of failure which followed the
acceptance of my first novel. . .
In another sense too a book like this can only be
a "sort of life", for in the course of sixty-six years
I have spent almost as much time with imaginary
characters as with real men and women . . .
There is â fashion today among many of my
contemporaries to treat the events of their past
with irony. It is a legitimate method of self-defence.
"Look how absurd I was when I was young"
forestalls cruel criticism but it falsifies history.
We were not Eminent Georgians. Those emotions were real
when we felt them. Why should we be more ashamed
of them than of...
Tovább
Fülszöveg
Graham Greene writes: 'An autobiography is only
"a sort of life" - it may contain less errors
of fact than a biography, but it is of necessity
even more selective : it begins later and it ends
prematurely. If one cannot close a book of memories on
the deathbed, any conclusion must be arbitrary,
and I have preferred to finish this essay
with the years of failure which followed the
acceptance of my first novel. . .
In another sense too a book like this can only be
a "sort of life", for in the course of sixty-six years
I have spent almost as much time with imaginary
characters as with real men and women . . .
There is â fashion today among many of my
contemporaries to treat the events of their past
with irony. It is a legitimate method of self-defence.
"Look how absurd I was when I was young"
forestalls cruel criticism but it falsifies history.
We were not Eminent Georgians. Those emotions were real
when we felt them. Why should we be more ashamed
of them than of the indifference of old age?
I have tried, however unsuccessfully, to live again
the "follies and sentimentalities and exaggerations
of the distant time, and to feel them,
as I felt them then, without irony.'
Cover design by Derek Birdsall -
For copyright reasons this edition is not for sale in the U.S.A.
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