The Lost Childhood and Other Essays by Graham Greene

The Lost Childhood and Other Essays Reviews

• 
  Amit Mishra

  I love reading Graham Green. His touches of humour reflection can be witnessed in any of his works. His writing style was a bit clumsy to understand. Though he tries to keep the things quite easy and simple ultimately it ends up with scholarly writing.
  His book 'The Lost Childhood and Other Essays' depicts the sketches of some novelist and some characters. He has discussed them in a detailed manner. He has also done some post-script thing that is a reallly wonderful thing to read for the critical perspective.
  Undoubtedly, Graham Greene's books are full wit and wisdom that reflects some genuinely in a nutshell.
• 
  Zoeb

  I had already read and enjoyed Greene's writings on politics, war, revolution, travel and cinema and so, it was just a matter of time till I would finally peruse his collection of literary essays and articles as well. Those who have even read only a fragment of his work would surely have realised that literature was always a crucial ingredient of his fiction and non-fiction writer - this is, after all, the man whose fictional man in Havana, who was inventing his own fictions, was using a book code from Lambs' tales of Shakespeare and this is also the intrepid traveler holed up in a bad hotel room in one of the interior states of Mexico reading Trollope's "Doctor Thorne" and finding much enjoyment and excitement in its brilliantly orchestrated fictional suspense. From his deft choice of epigrams from everyone, be it Thomas Hardy or any of the great English poets or even "The Little Duke", to his love for second-hand bookshops (further inspiring me to continue with my book-hunting adventures on a much more relentless scale), Greene was as interested in savouring literature as he was in savouring vice and danger and this slim collection of essays, that I picked up in a yellowing old edition from my favourite pavement bookshops in Bombay, takes us on a whirlwind tour of his literary fascination and his thoughts and opinions on the past and changing scene of English literature.
  
  And if that sounds like a mouthful, trust Greene to make even something normally didactic as a literary essay as entertaining, candid and informative as a personal story or even a piece of excellent prose as much as his novels and short stories. "The Lost Childhood and Other Essays" is never wholly concerned about deconstructing technique or style of the books and authors that Greene holds up for scrutiny; instead, these essays bring to life the excitement, apprehension and even the moments of miraculous discovery that a reader feels on reading a book by a said author for the first time and even rereading a book in a whole new light.They lead us to the bookshelves from where we can find new books and authors and they also compel us to rediscover and revisit the books and authors that we have discovered in our own childhood and youth.
  
  As to be expected, the ensemble features pieces on his favourite storytellers namely Henry James, Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Dickens and Beatrix Potter, all brilliantly written, touched with lively wit and even rich psychological insights into these writers and also comprehensive and lucid in their summary. He explores the many dimensions of James and while praising his storytelling qualities, is critical of his failed plays; he insists on giving Stevenson more credit for the darkness and maturity to be found in his later works; he judges "Oliver Twist" as a superior work than "The Pickwick Papers" and praises Dickens' skill at portraying darkness and he even is full of admiration for the clipped style of Beatrix Potter and her skill at creating villainous characters. He further goes on to praise Mauriac's quality of realistic characterisation and even Conrad's philosophical query into men driven by uncontrollable destinies.
  
  These beautifully judged and balanced essays are a joy to read, full of the warm affection that the writer had for these well-known names. But what even amazes one are his equally profound and precise essays on many writers and authors about whom we would not have known much. He casts a brilliant spotlight on the stories of Walter De La Mare whom he thinks as the same as Stevenson and M.R.James, he distinguishes Fielding from Sterne, criticizes Leon Bloy and Anthony Hope and he further goes ahead in expressing his full admiration and support for Ford Madox Ford and even controversial writers such as Herbert Read and Frederick Rolfe. His interest even goes beyond these authors to even other lesser-known figures such as Eric Gill, Francis Parkman and even George Darley and to each of the fascinating topics, Greene gives the same kind of penetrating insight and judicious objectivity that he was always known for as a writer.
  
  The titular essay, "The Lost Childhood" is what opens this collection and it also sets the implicit tone of the collection in a sense. The essay is typical of Greene's personal essays and recollections and the autobiographical tone is what makes it even more special. Greene recollects how, in an early age, the books he read paved the future ahead for him, not only by leading him to the places that he would travel to someday, as in the case of Henry Rider Haggard's adventure novels but also in establishing his unique point of view in his writing - the stance of the fallen, the misunderstood, the guilty and the sinful. But throughout the collection, many of his pieces are directly concerned with childhood; several attempt at charting the childhood experiences of writers as diverse as James and Darley and how these were formative for them. But two essays, in particular, follow the pattern of the eponymous piece in portraying the full effect of childhood on literature. One, "The Burden Of Childhood" compares Hector Munro's vindictive wit as a form of expressing his vengeance on the stifled atmosphere of his boyhood with the cruel humour to be found in the stories of Kipling, yet another writer tormented in his boyhood. The second, much more charming and nostalgic, is about the popular pulp stories, rich with imagination, devoured by a generation of children growing up with the Second World War raging in the skies and how these helped these children escape the horrors of the day with never-ending tales of heroism and victory.
  
  Greene ends the collection with a PERSONAL POSTSCRIPT - six essays picked out seemingly at random from his other collections and yet what a wise, perceptive means they are to bring a collection of essays on reading, understanding and coming to terms with the pathos in every writer's heart and soul to an end. These six essays take one to new places and testify that Greene's knack for understanding and recording experiences, be it inside a Wellington bomber performing maneuvers or into the grime and grit of an old bookshop yielding such unexpected finds, is peerless as ever. That was never in doubt as this collection of essays, hugely entertaining, extremely informative and eye-opening in their insight and revelation, proves so glowingly.
• 
  Mike

  Having read Greene's novels, short stories, memoirs, travel writing, and plays - it's on to this collection of his literary criticism, which has been staring at me balefully from my shelf for several years. This book was published in 1950 ("for copyright reasons, not for sale in the U.S.A." warns the back cover), and it was an absolute delight to read. Greene is a sensitive and perceptive reader, and his essays on Henry James and Dickens and Stevenson are insightful and beautifully written. There are also a lot of essays, no less entertaining, on once-popular writers I had never heard of - if you want a savage take-down of the writer Leon Bloy, then this is the book for you! But his appreciation of Dorothy Richardson made me want to learn more about her - she wrote a popular 12-volume roman a clef from 1915 to 1938 that was hugely influential on Virginia Woolf and other modernists. To the library!
  For me, though, the biggest surprise in this collection were the personal essays. I've often felt that Greene was able to write interestingly about absolutely everything, with one exception - himself. His memoirs are notoriously flat and uninformative. What a delight, then to read these frank and funny essays. The title essay, about his reading habits as a child, is wonderful, and the last essay, about surviving the Blitz, is astonishingly moving. This collection really shows Greene at his best.
  Next up will be his volume of film criticism, which has been staring at me even more balefully for even longer....
  
• 
  Robert

  Reading essays by anyone has never been my favorite pastime. But, since I am now reading everything written by Graham Greene in chronological order in one year (you have to do SOMEthing in a pandemic!), the time had come to read “The Lost Childhood and Other Essays” by Greene – the first collection of his essays to be printed (1951). It was a little laborious to get through some of them, but, overall, I enjoyed it and the highlights were worth it.
  Part One consisted only of the essay “The Lost Childhood” and is a fun memory of his childhood reading and its effects on his own future writing.
  Part Two on “Novels and Novelists” can be tedious and dry (the ones on Henry James particularly so), but then you get Frederick Rolf (Baron Corvo) and Beatrix Potter and its fun again.
  It is the final section, “Personal Postscript,” that is not to be missed. The much-ballyhooed “The Revolver in the Corner Cupboard” we have seen and discussed before, but try out “Film Lunch” for a snarky kick. “Book Market” is a joy for any book collector.
  I would not recommend starting reading Greene with this book – but I don’t want to put it down either.
  
• 
  T P Kennedy

  A very mixed collection. There are one or two excellent autobiographical essays included here. Much of the rest consists of reviews of long forgotten books or accounts of the lives of now obscure authors. It's a book that is very much of its time and not that much of it translates to the 21st century.
• 
  Malcolm Frawley

  My reading challenge this year included a 'book of essays'. I didn't have to look too far. I acquired Penguin editions of dozens of Grahame Green books in the 1970s & had read all the novels & short stories but had never gotten around to this. These essays are largely reviews of books or short studies of authors. Few do not contain a reference to religion &, in particular, Catholicism - something that was dear to Greene's own heart. Although I knew only a few of his subjects I still found these essays intriguing, particularly the one dealing with Beatrix Potter. Greene loved her books & his essay about her work is complimentary, if not laudatory. His only criticism is reserved for her final novel (which he did not know had been written first). When this almost entirely positive review of her life's work was published Potter was so stung by Greene's opinion of her 'last' work that she fired off an acidic response. Clearly, this won't cater to all tastes, but definitely of interest.
• 
  Mayoya

  These shocking experience no doubt left their impression on Greene , as we discover from his novels , but he was also influenced by the book he read .in one of his autobiographical essays , he tells us that it is perhaps "Only in childhood that books have any deep influence on our lives . The Lost childhood that books have any deep influence on our lives .