Realism of the XXth century. J. Galsworthy, G.Greene

                JOHN GALSWORTHY came of well-to-do bourgeois family; after graduating from Oxford University

He became a lawyer but soon abandoned this profession to take up literature. He began to write in the last years of the 19th century, but his first works were not very successful. His best novels were written in the first decade of the 20th century. In them the reader finds a reflection of the opposition of the progressive-minded people to imperialism, to Britain's Boer War adventure. In 1904 Galsworthy wrote The Island Pharisees. In it he attacked the British privileged classes. He criticized them for being content with the bourgeois way of life; he stressed the fact that their minds had become inert and lazy. In 1906 Galsworthy's best novel appeared. It was The Man of Property. He achieved great heights of generalization in this work. In it he told the story of the upper middle class that dictated its laws to the country.

   During the period 1907—1918 Galsworthy turned to different subjects. He wrote many novels and plays. His main object, however, always remained that of reflecting social contradictions and trying to find a humanist solution to them. Galsworthy paid great attention to the composition of his novels. Thus, the composition of The Man of Property is thoroughly worked out. The events are presented so vividly that the chapters may be easily staged, for instance At Home, Dinner at Swithin 's, June's Treat and others.

  Galsworthy's "feeling" for the language may be compared with a painter's "feeling" for colour. His choice of words is so accurate that it is difficult to paraphrase his sentences. He makes use of irony when describing his characters and the weaknesses of his own class.

  John Galsworthy's contribution to the development of the English novel was very important. He was nearer than Wells and Shaw to his predecessors, the critical realists of the first half of the 19th century. Galsworthy brought the novel back to its former heights by creating a real "document" of the epoch, a deep, realistic picture of the bourgeois class. The Forsyte Saga, his greatest achievement, is the culmination of English critical realism of the early 20th century.

               GRAHAM GREENE (1904—1991)

  Graham Greene was born at Berkhamsted, near London. He was educated at Oxford. From 1926 to 1930 he was sub-editor of the London Times. He started writing in the late 20s. He wrote a lot of short stories, critical essays, travel books plays and novels. He travelled a good deal and his novels are set in various countries of the world. Since the beginning of his literary career Greene has been writing in two veins — the so-called "serious novels" and the "entertaining novels". While the former are generally a meditation on the psychology of man, the latter are more of the detective type of novel. The group of "serious novels" is represented by The Man Within (1929), England Made Me (1935), The Power and the Glory' (1940), The Heart of the Matter (1948), The Quiet American (1955), A Burnt-Out Case (1961). The "entertaining novels" are: Stamboul Train (1932), A Gun for Sale (1936), The Confidential Agent (1939), Loser Takes All (1955), The Ministry of Fear (1968) and others.

  The borderline between these two groups is, however, vague because the former are often constructed along detective or adventure lines while the latter often pose serious problems. Greene's novels touch on the burning political issues of the day — the American war in Vietnam in The Quiet American (1955), the people's struggle against the reactionary dictatorship in Haiti in The Comedians (1966), racism in South Africa in The Human Factor (1978), political terrorism in Getting to Know the General: the Story of an Involvement (1984).

    The social and political events serve as a background against which the problems of an ethical nature are dealt with. Greene's novels present a profound search into the depths of human psychology and are permeated with philosophical reflections on the nature of man and the human predicament. His last novel The Captain and the Enemy (1988) shows how complex and unpredictable human characters are. It treats of love and hatred, of devotion and betrayal. The major conflict in several of his novels occurs between believers, who live according to the law of the Church and unbelievers. And yet Greene avoids the easy solution that the believer will be saved and the unbeliever damned. He tries to find a way to reconcile these opposite views. This idea permeates the novel Monsignor Quixote (1982) and his public speeches, one of which was delivered at the International Forum "For Nuclear-Free World, for Survival of Humanity" held in Moscow in 1987. Well-known are also his short stories and funny entertaining tales for children such as The Little Fire Engine (1950), The Little Horse Bus (1952) and others. His last collection of short stories was prophetically headlined The Last Word (1990). The title story of the collection sounds as the writer's behest to the living. It asserts the necessity of faith for every individual and for society at large.

                     THE QUIET AMERICAN

The novel is essentially political and it brings forward the most important problem in the progressive

Literature of our days — the problem of choice. For the first time Greene strongly condemns the sordid laws of colonialism, presentsthe truth of the American colonial policy. The plot of The Quiet American is centred round a murder. It is not a detective novel, for the theme is profoundly political. The action of the novel is set in Vietnam in the 1950s, when the country was a French colony. The "quiet" American Pyle is employed in the American Economic Aid Mission, but his real duty is to arrange various acts of sabotage and provocation, trying to accuse communists of them and paving the way for the growth of American influence. His antagonist is Fowler, an English newspaper correspondent. Fowler is not young, he is unhappy in private life, disillusioned and tired. His creed is not to get involved in anything. Fowler reports only what he sees, trying to be indifferent to everything. But sooner or later one has to make a choice, and Fowler does so. He begins to help the people of Vietnam in their struggle against the French troops.

         Greene is a contradictory writer; theoretically he is non-committal; in his works, however, the characters are forced to take sides, or to make a choice, in the political struggle. The novel Doctor Fischer of Geneva, or the Bomb Party (1980) disclosed a new aspect of Greene's literary skill. This relatively short work contains a sombre satire on the modem bourgeois world. It exposes the overwhelming power of money and the limitless lust for it in the rich.

     Greene's novels are characterized by a great force of conviction, concreteness of description and precision in rendering characters and situations. These, as well as the wide scope and preoccupation with the most urgent problems of the day, make Greene one of the most prominent writers of contemporary world literature.