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THE WRITER AND HOLLYWOOD
bitterly, derisively, spitting out words as if they were contaminated. To my surprise, he was charming, shy and a trifle awkward; he was much more likeable than any character in his books. Famous authors who write in the omniscient third person sometimes tend to retain their omniscience outside the privileged territory of the printed page, and though they may be delightful to read are insufferable when you have to talk to them. But there was nothing pontificial or dogmatic about Mr. Greene: he was completely lacking in those twin vices of success — glibness and smoothness.
He had been persuaded to come to the party by Otto Preminger, for whom he was writing the screen-play of Shaw's St. Joan.
"It is one of the few plays of Shaw's that I like," said Greene. "I'm in sympathy with what he says. I shan't change any of his ideas. I don't like his other plays very much, except Heartbreak House. I've never been able to get through Man and Superman. Candida? That's a bore, isn't it?"
"Do you like writing for films?" I asked.
"It's a livelihood," he said.
"But aren't your books that?"
"No," he said, "I don't make much out of the books. Now I sell quite well, but until 1941 I couldn't count on selling more than 5,000 copies of each book. You know what Brighton Rock sold when it first came out? 8,000 copies. I haven't been able to make money the way Somerset Maugham has because I never sold much in the days of low taxation. Now that I am selling, everything I make goes in tax."
It occurred to me that Greene, the nonconformist Catholic, and Shaw, the unfrocked atheist, had at least one thing in common in addition to a veneration for St. Joan : delusions of poverty and a sense of paranoia in their relation with the Inland Revenue Dept.
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