Find out the meaning of the following words and phrases.

literary acclaim, acquire a reputation, be shortlisted, ambivalent moral and political issues, avid interest, profoundly antagonistic to, freelance journalism, attempt suicide, convert to Catholicism, unfortunately

5. Listen to the the biography of Graham Greene [58] and fill in the gaps with the corresponding words.

Henry Graham Green OM CH (the second of October 1904 –the third of April 1991), better known by his _____ Graham Greene was an English novelist and author, regarded by some as one of the greatest authors of the 20th century, combining literary acclaim with ______ popularity. Greene acquired a reputation early in his life as a major writer both of ______ Catholic novels and of thrillers, or entertainments, as he termed them. He was shortlisted in 1967 for the Nobel Prize for literature. Through 67 years of writings which included over 25 novels he ______ the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world, often through a Catholic perspective. Although Greene ______ strongly to being described as a Roman Catholic novelist rather than a novelist who happened to be Catholic. Catholic religious themes are at the ____ of much of his writing, especially the four major Catholic novels Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter, and The End of the Affair, which are regarded as the gold _______ of the Catholic novel. Several works, such as The Confidential Agent, The Third Man, The Quiet American, Our Man in Havana” and The Human Factor also show Greene’s avid interest in the workings and intrigues of international _______ and espionage.

Graham Greene was born in Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire into a large _______ family that included the owners of the Greene King brewery. He later boarded at Berkhamsted school in Hertfordshire where his father taught and became ________. Unhappy in the school. he attempted suicide several times. He went up to Balliol College, Oxford, to study history, where, while an ________, he published his first work in 1925—a poorly received volume of poetry, Babbling April. After graduating, Greene worked first as a private ______ and then as a journalist – first on the Nottingham Journal and then as a sub-editor on The Times. He ______ to Catholicism in 1926 after meeting his future wife, Vivien Dayrell-Browning. However, later in life he took to calling himself a "Catholic agnostic" or even at times a Catholic atheist. He published his first novel, The Man Within, in 1929; its favourable _______ enabled him to work full-time as a novelist. He supplemented his novelist's income with freelance journalism, and book and film ______. His 1937 film review of Wee Willie Winkie (for the British journal Night and Day), commented on the sexuality of the nine-year-old star, Shirley Temple. This provoked Twentieth Century Fox to______, prompting Greene to live in Mexico until after the trial was over. While in Mexico, Greene ________ the ideas for the novel considered as his The Power and the Glory. Greene originally divided his ______ into two genres (which he described as "entertainments" and "novels"): thrillers—often with notable philosophic edges—such as The Ministry of Fear; and literary works—on which he thought his _______ reputation would rest—such as The Power and the Glory.

Greene had a history of depression, which had a _______ effect on his writing and personal life. In a letter to his wife, Vivien, he told her that he had "a character profoundly antagonistic to ______ domestic life," and that "unfortunately, the disease is also one's material." William Golding described Greene as "the ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man's ________ and anxiety." He died in 1991, at age 86, of leukemia, and was buried in Corseaux cemetery.

Listen to the audio again and answer to the questions.

1. What did you find out about G. Greene’s family?

2. Why did he make several attempts of suicide while studying at school?

3. What was his first book and how was it received?

4. When was G. Greene awarded the Nobel Prize?

5. What two sections did G. Greene divide his works into?

6. When did he convert to Catholicism?

7. How was his creative work connected with Catholic religion?

8. What novels are regarded as the gold standard?

9. What else was G. Greene interested in besides moral issues?

10. What was William Golding’s opinion about G. Greene?

 

SPEAKING

1. “1984”

In the opening passage of the book, Orwell describes the place where Winston Smith, the main character of the novel, lives.

a) What is the place like? Which adjectives characterize it?

b) How does Orwell depict the atmosphere of the place?

c) How was the general control over the people exercised?

d) Is there any escape into a more colorful world?

 

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass door of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.

The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a coloured poster, too large for inner display, had been tacked to the wall.

It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a meter wide: the face of a man of about forty-five, with a shabby black moustache and ruggedly handsome features. Winston made for the stairs. It was no use trying the lift. Even at the best of times it was seldom working, and at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate Week. The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine and has a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times on the way. On each landing, opposite the lift shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.

…

Outside, even through the shut window-pane, the world looked cold. Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky was harsh blue, there seemed to be no colour in anything except the posters that were plastered everywhere. The lack-moustachio’d face gazed down from every commanding corner. There was one on the house front immediately opposite. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked deep into Winston’s own. Down at the street level another poster, torn at one corner, flapped fitfully in the wind, alternately covering and uncovering the single word INGSOC. In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again with a curving flight. It was a police patrol, snooping into people’s windows. The patrols did not matter, however. Only the Thought Police mattered.

…

Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer though, as he well knew, even a back can be revealing. A kilometer away the Ministry of truth, his place of work, towered vast and white above the grimy landscape. This, he thought with a sort of vague distaste – this was London, chief city of Airstrip One, itself the third most populous of provinces of Oceania. He tried to squeeze out some childhood memory that should tell him whether London had always been quite like this. Were there always these vistas of rotting, nineteenth- century houses, their sides shore dup with baulks of timber, their wind owspatched with cardboard and their roofs with corrugated iron, their crazy garden walls sagging in all directions?