{"id":151674,"date":"2021-03-30T11:05:12","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T15:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=151674"},"modified":"2021-04-19T14:03:32","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T18:03:32","slug":"walking-liberia-with-graham-greene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/03\/30\/walking-liberia-with-graham-greene\/","title":{"rendered":"Walking Liberia with Graham Greene"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Re-Covered, Lucy Scholes exhumes the out-of-print and forgotten books that shouldn\u2019t be.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photo: Lucy Scholes.<\/p><\/div>\n

In 1935, Graham Greene spent four weeks trekking three hundred fifty miles through the then-unmapped interior of Liberia. As he explains in the book he subsequently published about the experience, Journey without Maps <\/em>(1936), he wasn\u2019t interested in the Africa already known to white men; instead, he was looking for \u201ca quality of darkness \u2026 of the inexplicable.\u201d In short, a journey into his own heart of darkness, to rival that of Conrad\u2019s famous novel. As such, he knew that his recollections\u2014\u201cmemories chiefly of rats, of frustration, and of a deeper boredom on the long forest trek than I had ever experienced before,\u201d as he recalls in Ways of Escape <\/em>(1980), his second volume of autobiography\u2014weren\u2019t enough. What he wrote instead was an account of this \u201cslow footsore journey\u201d in parallel with that of a psychological excursion, deep into the recesses of his own mind. Rather ironically, though, in 1938, his traveling companion published her own record of their expedition, and it was precisely the kind of account\u2014what he\u2019d looked down on as \u201cthe triviality of a personal diary\u201d\u2014that Graham himself had taken such pains to avoid.<\/p>\n

Even if you\u2019ve read Journey without Maps<\/em>, you might struggle to remember Graham\u2019s co-traveler. Understandably so, since she\u2019s mentioned only a handful of times, and always only in passing. It\u2019s easy to forget she\u2019s there at all. But she was: his cousin, twenty-three-year-old Barbara Greene, who\u2019d gamely agreed to accompany him after one too many glasses of champagne at a family wedding. \u201cLiberia, wherever it was, had a jaunty sound about it,\u201d she endearingly recalls. \u201cLiberia! The more I said it to myself the more I liked it. Life was good and very cheerful. Yes, of course I would go to Liberia.\u201d Such innocent, rose-tinted enthusiasm obviously doesn\u2019t last, but as she goes on to explain, \u201cBy the time I had found out what I had let myself in for it was too late to turn back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Originally published as Land Benighted<\/em>, it\u2019s the later edition\u2014published in 1981, with the catchier title Too Late to Turn Back<\/em> and a new foreword by the author, as well as an introduction by the acclaimed travel writer Paul Theroux\u2014that\u2019s probably better known. Even so, it\u2019s been out of print now for nearly forty years, something that most likely wouldn\u2019t upset Graham: although Barbara proved \u201cas good a companion as the circumstances allowed,\u201d where she did \u201cdisappoint\u201d him, he admits in Ways of Escape<\/em>, was in writing her book. <\/p>\n

Fans of Graham\u2019s work will undoubtedly claim that Barbara\u2019s book is the less impressive of the two\u2014the poor relative, if you\u2019ll indulge me\u2014but I\u2019m not quite so sure. Too Late to Turn Back<\/em> has its own merits and charms, and Barbara\u2019s writing is not without flair. Had Graham not documented the journey himself\u2014indeed, had he been just an ordinary Englishman abroad\u2014Too Late to Turn Back <\/em>could absolutely have stood alone as an illuminating and informative account of this tour through unknown territory. That it also provides an intimate observation of one of the most famous British writers of the twentieth century is the icing on the cake. As Theroux wrote in 1981: \u201cWhat might have seemed trivial or unimportant about Too Late to Turn Back <\/em>in the Thirties, now\u2014over forty years later\u2014is like treasure. What if Waugh had had such a companion in Abyssinia, or Peter Fleming\u2019s cousin had accompanied him to Manchuria? What if Kinglake, or Doughty, or Waterton had had a reliable witness to their miseries and splendours? We would not have thought less of these men, but we would have known much more of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Although first cousins, Graham and Barbara were not especially close. As she amiably explained in the foreword to her book\u2019s 1981 edition, \u201cHe was trying to persuade someone, anyone, to go with him, and only after everyone else had refused did he ask me.\u201d As in the book proper, she\u2019s extremely self-effacing, recalling that the morning after they\u2019d made their grand plans, and with their champagne hangovers now kicking in, both had regrets: \u201cGraham because his heart sank at the thought of having to be responsible for a young girl he hardly knew.\u201d That Barbara turned out to be a more spirited and obliging companion than her cousin could have dared to hope for must have come as a welcome surprise, but to begin with, there\u2019s a certain wariness on both sides.<\/p>\n

On their arrival in Sierra Leone\u2019s Freetown, she jots down her general impressions of Graham in her diary. \u201cHis brain frightened me,\u201d she begins. \u201cIt was sharp and clear and cruel. I admired him for being unsentimental, but \u2018always remember to rely on yourself,\u2019 I noted. \u2018If you are in a sticky place he will be so interested in noting your reactions that he will probably forget to rescue you.\u2019 \u201d Luckily, no such instance came to pass, but it is telling that in Ways of Escape<\/em> Graham readily admits to having been all the more surprised by Barbara\u2019s book because he \u201chadn\u2019t even realised that she was making notes,\u201d so focused had he been on his own.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor some reason he had a permanently shaky hand, so I hoped that we would not meet any wild beasts on our trip,\u201d Barbara writes. She continues:<\/p>\n

I had never shot anything in my life, and my cousin would undoubtably miss anything he aimed at. Physically he did not look strong. He seemed somewhat vague and unpractical, and later I was continually astonished at his efficiency and the care he devoted to every little detail. Apart from the three or four people he was really fond of, I felt that the rest of humanity was to him like a heap of insects that he liked to examine, as a scientist might examine his specimens, coldly and clearly. He was always polite. He had a remarkable sense of humour and held few things too sacred to be laughed at. I suppose at that time I had a very conventional little mind, for I remember he was continually tearing down ideas I had always believed in, and I was left to build them up anew. It was stimulating and exciting, and I wrote down that he was the best kind of companion one could have for a trip of this kind. I was learning far more than he realised.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Such behind-the-scenes insights into Graham\u2019s state of mind continue, often set up in contrast to her own breezier attitude. For example, she notes that while she had packed the entertaining stories of Saki and Somerset Maugham, he was lugging The Anatomy of Melancholy<\/em> through the jungle. But she\u2019s also a wonderful source of more lighthearted tidbits. Take their habit of handily resetting their watches\u2014which were continually stopping\u2014to cocktail hour: \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s too early to have a drink, do you? Let\u2019s put our watches at six o\u2019clock.\u201d (I\u2019d be keen to find out exactly how much whiskey they packed, since both books are literally sloshing with the stuff.) Or the delight with which they indulge in spoonfuls of golden syrup\u2014having suddenly \u201cdeveloped a startling love of sweet things\u201d\u2014as their rations grow increasingly meager, Graham dreaming all the while of steak-and-kidney pudding. And although their companionship is remarkably placid, Barbara finds herself strangely fixated on Graham\u2019s socks, which, not held up by garters, annoyingly fall in \u201clittle round wrinkles, like an old concertina\u201d round his ankles. He, she later learns, is equally perturbed by her horrendous hiking shorts, the unflattering shape and cut of which are \u201calmost more than he could stand.\u201d<\/p>\n

On a more serious note, she also records the manner with which Graham deals with the local men. Despite having been told by various white people in Freetown that the locals will respect nothing but \u201ca yelling voice and a heavy hand,\u201d Barbara reports that Graham instead \u201ctreated them exactly as if they were white men from our own country.\u201d (Given the ingrained racism of the day, I doubt that this is quite true\u2014not least because she then goes on to describe him as acting like a \u201cbenevolent father\u201d toward them\u2014but he would appear significantly less draconian than some.) Most valuable of all, though, is Barbara\u2019s recollection of just how very ill Graham becomes toward the end of the trip. The twitching nerve that she notices over his right eye whenever he\u2019s ailing starts going like the clappers, his face is gray, and for a while, at least, he seems to be propelling himself by means of \u201cwill-power\u201d alone. His eventual collapse\u2014which he glosses over in Journey without Maps<\/em>, by means of the dismissive section heading \u201cA Touch of Fever\u201d\u2014leaves Barbara absolutely convinced that he\u2019s dying: \u201cI never doubted it for a minute \u2026 He looked like a dead man already.\u201d Struggling as she is with extreme exhaustion herself, she\u2019s able to focus on only \u201cthe practical side of it all,\u201d becoming fixated on the particular problem of not having any candles to burn in the event of her Catholic cousin\u2019s death. \u201cI could not remember why I should burn candles,\u201d she writes, \u201cbut I felt vaguely that his soul would find no peace if I could not do that for him. All night I was troubled by this thought. It seemed to be desperately important.\u201d<\/p>\n

This episode sums up Barbara\u2019s character and attitude in more ways than one. Overall, reviewers praised her \u201cpluck\u201d and sense of adventure, her book thus presumably appealing to readers who had gobbled up E. Arnot Robertson\u2019s best-selling novel Four Frightened People<\/em> (1931), another story of the wild and thrilling adventures of two young English cousins (and which, coincidentally, Barbara reads during the voyage out to Africa). In that book, Judy Corder, a twenty-six-year-old doctor, her cousin Stewart, and two other English passengers flee the boat on which they\u2019re traveling through Malay to Singapore because of an outbreak of bubonic plague, only to then be confronted with the dangers of the jungle instead. For her part, Barbara does warn readers that despite all the talk of wild animals and cannibals then still associated with Liberia, those hoping for a \u201croaring lion type of adventure\u201d might be disappointed since her and Graham\u2019s capers \u201cwere more amusing than frightening, and good luck dogged our footsteps most of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

She might not have been relating an excursion to rival Judy\u2019s\u2014which involves deadly snake bites, tropical storms, and poison dart\u2013armed natives\u2014but nevertheless, Barbara can write, and what her tale lacks in thrills she makes up for in the sharpness of her observations. If Graham\u2019s book is a journey into the dark interior of his mind, Barbara\u2019s is the lighter counterbalance. Not only are her descriptions more grounded in the cousins\u2019 bodily experiences, but she brings an altogether different point of view to proceedings. Describing an especially hard uphill slog, for example, she likens herself to \u201csome poor creature in a Walt Disney film, wending a heartbreakingly cruel way up a twisty, winding road to the wicked castle lying high up on the mountainside\u201d It\u2019s an image that works rather well, perhaps precisely because one could never imagine reading it in Graham\u2019s account.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Barbara\u2019s adventurous streak continued long after she\u2019d left the Liberian jungle. Shortly after her return to England, she followed another cousin, Graham\u2019s brother Hugh, abroad to Berlin, where he was a foreign correspondent. There she fell in love with a German diplomat, Count Rudolf Strachwitz. Increasing political tensions scuppered their plans to marry, but Barbara stood her ground, remaining in Germany rather than fleeing for the safety of Britain during World War II. According to her obituary in the Guardian<\/em>, which ran in 1991, when she died at age eighty-four, \u201ca large circle of loyal friends (many of them later involved in the July 20 plot to assassinate Hitler) did much to protect her, but her life was precarious.\u201d Her every move was watched by the Gestapo\u2014their suspicions having been further fueled by her association with Bishop Preysing, an outspoken critic of Nazism, from whom she received instruction after she converted to Catholicism (once again following in the footsteps of Graham)\u2014and the only work she could find was as a cleaning lady.<\/p>\n

She and Rudolf did manage to marry in the spring of 1943; she became Countess Strachwitz, but he lost his job at the Foreign Office. He was then called up, leaving Barbara pregnant and alone in Berlin as the Russian army advanced on the city. Like many others, she fled west; she suffered a miscarriage in the process. While Rudolf was taken prisoner by the Americans, she sought refuge in Liechtenstein (Prince Franz Joseph II\u2019s sister was married to Rudolf\u2019s younger brother), and her sojourn there later inspired her second book, Liechtenstein: Valley of Peace <\/em>(1967), a warm and sympathetic sketch of the tiny country and its people.<\/p>\n

For a long time neither husband nor wife knew if the other was still alive, but they were eventually reunited in 1946, and two years later they emigrated to Argentina, where Rudolf got a job teaching economics (a subject in which he held a doctorate) at the University of Mendoza. They went on to have two children, moving to Berchtesgaden, the picturesque town in the Bavarian Alps that had once been the site of Hitler\u2019s infamous Eagle\u2019s Nest retreat, on the occasion of Rudolf\u2019s retirement, and Barbara published her third book, an anthology of prayers. When Rudolf died, in 1969, she moved to Gozo, a small island of the Maltese archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea, where she dedicated much of her time to caring for disabled people. Frustratingly, despite such an eventful life, Too Late to Turn Back <\/em>was the only volume of memoir she published\u2014fittingly so, perhaps, since as the Guardian <\/em>obituary closes, \u201cShe declined to write her autobiography; she lived for today and tomorrow, but never for yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lucy Scholes is a critic who lives in London. She writes for the\u00a0<\/em>NYR Daily,<\/em>\u00a0the<\/em>\u00a0Financial Times,<\/em> The New York Times Book Review,\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>Literary Hub, among other publications. Read earlier installments of Re-Covered<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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