Product Description
Graham Greene’s first published novel represented for the author "one sentimental gesture towards his own past, the period of ambition and hope." It tells the story of Andrews, a young man who has betrayed his fellow smugglers and fears their vengeance. The Man Within offers a foretaste of Greene’s recurring theme of religion and the individual’s struggles against cynicism and the indifferent forces of a hostile world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Welcome to Greeneland
The Man Within was Graham Greene's first published book, and a big best seller back in 1929. He was very young when he wrote it, 25 years old,and you can feel it, especially in the love scenes, but heck, it's still Graham Greene, and he writes like a god. All the elements that appear in his later, more famous books--great plot, lush description, beautifully turned sentences, themes of love and God and faith and betrayal, of struggles with the dark side of human nature, they're all here.

A young man called Andrews has ratted on his friends, a gang of smugglers. He hides out from them in the first place he can find, an isolated cottage. A beautiful and saintly girl lives there and gives him shelter. He falls in love with her. She urges him to do the right thing, to go to court and testify against the smugglers.

Since this is Greeneland, everything is in shades of gray; the man he has betrayed is actually the only man who has ever been good to him, a kind of father figure. And Andrews is no hero; he didn't rat on his gang because they were criminals, he ratted on them because they treated him like he was a nobody. And nobody wants these men to go to jail; the townspeople, the police, and the courts are rife with corruption.

Throughout the book, Andrews continually steps outside himself to question his motives and to struggle against his baser instincts. As the quote by Sir Thomas Browne says, "There's another man within me that's angry with me."

The Man Within begins as a standard Hollywood gangster movie, and ends as a soul-searing story of redemption. It's not The Heart of the Matter, it's not The End of the Affair, but it is a bit like going back in a time machine and seeing the first glimmerings of what turned out to be a world-straddling, God-given talent.

Fantastically Entertaining
I'm usually leery of favorite authors' first and last books. They never seem to be up to the standard of the books that come between. In Graham Greene's case, his last novel, "The Captain and the Enemy," certainly holds true to that rule of thumb. However, "The Man Within," his first, holds its own with any of Greene's fabulous later novels. This has all of the elements that would later become Greene trademarks: the conflicted and flawed male protagonist, the murky mood of intrigue and corruption, the delightful local flavor. You can just see Graham Greene novels filmed in crisp black and white (as many of them were). "The Man Within" is an excellent intro to Greene's work for a Greene neophyte and a welcome treat for die-hard fans.

Greene's masterful debut
Francis Andrews is on the run because he informed against a gang of smugglers of spirits - of which he used to be a member - by means of an anonymous letter to the customs, resulting in the death of a ganger who was shot during a set up. Now Carlyon and his men are after Andrews to take revenge. One night, as he is fleeing from his pursuers, Andrews comes across a cottage in Hassocks where he is given shelter by the beautiful Elizabeth Garnet.
As Elizabeth slowly grows to trust Andrews, she learns from him about his past, his violent father, smuggler and owner of the ship "Good Chance" with which he used to transported brandy to England. He also tells her how, after his father's death, he met Carlyon who suggested that he joins the crew. Andrew then tells Elizabeth how deeply he detested these men because he could never ascertain himself in front of them the way his father had. Betraying them was thus a way for him to show his fellow smugglers that he "is of importance now".
It is then that Elizabeth suggests that Andrews go to Lewes the following day where the Assizes are to be held and bear his witness to show his courage. Indeed, a difficult and dangerous decision for Andrews to take...
A powerful novel about courage, cowardice, love and faith. It is commendable that Mr Greene achieved to write such a mature novel at the age of only 23.

Excellent first achievement
*The Man Within* follows a fellow named Andrews through his horrifying experiences of paranoia and self-doubt, made all the worse by the fact that some people want to kill him.Andrews is wanted by the police in connection to the murder of an officer, pursued by his former co-smugglers because of his betrayal, and loathed by the locals because of his testimony against a group of popular criminals.There is only one person - the angelic Elizabeth - who provides him with any support, but she also creates for Andrews his biggest dilemma: to face death for someone whom he may never be able to love, or to find a new life, but without the one person who would make it worth living.

The writing does not show Greene at his peak, but it does demonstrate an early ability to craft brilliantly complicated characters and problems of morality in a manner similar to Dostoevsky..

It's obviously a first novel
"The Man Within" by Graham Greene was Greene's first published novel, and, I think, the reader can tell. The story centers around a man, Andrews, who has been involved in smuggling with some blackguards, and who has fled the group after a crime was committed. He flees right into the home of a woman, Elizabeth, who is in the process of burying the man who has been her guardian of sorts. She convinces him to testify against the other smugglers at the trial, and he goes to the city to do so. When he returns they profess their love for each other but face further dangers together. In the end, Andrews must face the negative influence his father has been on him in his life and the actions he has committed in reaction to that influence.

While there were some interesting facets of the book and its characters, I took a long time to get into it. The beginning, particularly, is VERY slow moving. The novel lacks the things one loves Greene for; the subtly written yet overwhelmingly powerful struggles the characters engage in with morality and/or religion, as well as a narrator who is unreliable and yet sympathetic. ... Read more

Product Description
A collection of short stories by the author of "Brighton Rock", "The Quiet American", "The Power and the Glory" and "Our Man in Havana". ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Some good Stories
I read Graham Greene's collection of short stories after reading "The Power and the Glory" and "The End of the Affair" and before I read "The Quiet American". I think they were largely quite good with some very solid stories. They range from the appalling in "The Destuctors" to the very amusing such as "The Blue Film". However, I still prefer the author as a novelist and "The Power and the Glory" in particular.

overtures
These are excellent stories, though not on a par with his best novels. Saying this, "The Destructors" reminded me very much "Brighton Rock."

"When Greek meets Greek" is very funny. "A Drive in the Country" is one of the best stories I've ever read.

"I Spy" and "The End of the Party" demonstrate there can be as much horror in a child's life.

Master storyteller of 20th century Britain
Graham Greene just doesn't get the recognition he deserves as a short story writer. As a novelist, his reputation has been well-established, fortunately. This collection, "Twenty-One Stories" is a fine sampler of Greene's abilities in the shorter genre. Many of the elements that feature so prominently in his novels also figure in these stories: the spontaneity of violence; ruthless polictics; looming secrets; greed; and the complex situations that life drops on you.

Here are some brief looks at my favorite stories:

"The Destructors" is Greene's examination of horrific, calculated vandalism in the extreme, made even more horrifying by the coolness with which it is carried out.

An event in a man's past comes back to haunt him in "The Blue Film". Strangely, the haunting specter doesn't frighten him so much as saddens him.

Purely-plot driven, "The Case for the Defence" is still a brilliant tale worthy of an Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

"Brother" explores the nature of political allegiances and the risks of making them known.

Lastly, "The End of the Party" is a harrowing tale of identical twins playing hide and seek at a party. The ending paragraph left goosebumps on my skin for days.

For those who have never read Graham Greene, "Twenty-One Stories" ought to be your starting point. ... Read more

Product Description
The first volume of this engrossing biography was the winner of an Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Biographical Study as well as a New York Times Notable Book for 1990. Here Sherry continues his fascinating account, emerging with a portrait of Graham Greene at the height of both his spying and literary careers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A Partial Life Brought to Near Ruin By Messed Up Loves
Sadly, even in death Greene, the master at secrecy, again succeeds at keeping his official, authorized biography at a much distance from himself and his life.Coming in at a bit over 500 pages of primary text, Vol. II is thankfully about 225 pages shorter than the much-too-long Vol. I. But since it covers only about 16 years as opposed to 35 years in Vol. I, each year averages nearly 30 pages.As with Vol. I, this edition needs to be pruned.The middle portion of Vol. II, covering Greene's problems in love (with his wife, first major mistress, and mistress #2) from about 1944-1950, is a jumbled, boring mess. This approximately 150 page section is filled with far too many excerpts from Greene's pathetically repetitive letters to his long-suffering wife and first mistress, and to the new love (who will be replaced in Vol. III). Instead of covering this period chronologically, Sherry separates out portions of Greene's life based on what he was doing (e.g., the period in the 1940s when he was a publisher) and then goes back in time for the next major life activity. This ensures that both Greene's work on two of his major novels (The Heart of the Matter and The End of the Affair) and even his messed up love life are not addressed in a coherent section. Sherry again relies far too heavily on using Greene's fictional works as primary sources to substantiate his suppositions about Greene's life, as well as Greene's not-to-be-trusted autobiographical works. Fortunately Sherry admits early on that Greene went out of his way to make any biography difficult.For example, Greene sometimes kept two sets of diary entries (one edited, one truthful) and often destroyed the truthful entries.So the reader is warned that the biographer's task was not one of cooperation with the subject, but attempting to cut through the subject's distortions and attempts to keep everything revealing hidden.Unfortunately, since Sherry still had Vol. III to go, it seems like he deliberately chooses not to probe too deeply about far too many interesting issues (e.g., What was Greene talking about when describing a hospitalization tied to his genitals bleeding? And the issue of cigarette-burning sado-masochism?). The best and easily most readible portions of the work are those addressing WWII, especially the various bombings of London, and Greene's travels in Malaya, Vietnam, and Kenya.Thankfully that means the first and last 200 or so pages are most readible, if not always as revealing as such a massive work implies!

If unsure about a 3-volume biography, start with the 2nd volume first...
If you grew up in the fifties reading blockbuster novels and watching hit movies based on Graham Greene's books, you will be fascinated reading about the man behind the stories.

If a three-volume biography is more than you want to read about anyone, you will be more than satisfied reading the second volume of this trilogy.It covers the most productive years of Graham Greene, the man who wrote "The Power and The Glory," "The Third Man," "Our Man In Cuba," and "The Quiet American" to name just a very few; these years (1939 - 1955) are also the most interesting and challenging years for the western world in modern history. The second volume does contain an introduction which encapsulates the first volume.

Norman Sherry's writing is a bit uneven, some quite good, but much fairly mediocre. The good news is that Sherry tends to devote chapters to one of three facets of Greene's life: his literature; his relationships; and, his public/private world of adventures in Africa and spying for the British.

If one does not particularly care to read about his relationships, it is easy to skim a particular chapter. If one is interested in additional background to the British double spy Kim Philby, one can read slowly a chapter devoted to the relationship between Greene and Philby.It is hard to believe that Graham worked directly for Philby and may have remained in the service of her royal majesty even after Philby fled the country.

It is even more difficult to believe that one man could pack so much into one lifetime: trekking across Africa because of his fascination with Joseph Conrad; seeing his house destroyed during the German blitz of London; converting to Catholicism for the sake of his first wife; hobnobbing with the major authors and film stars of the era (everyone from Truman Capote to Ingrid Bergman).At the end of the second volume, after you have read about a man who packed more into one lifetime than seems humanly possible, Norman Sherry tells the reader that Graham has "thirty-six more years wheeling obsessively round the world, compelled it would seem to wander the earth until death."

I knew nothing about Graham Greene before I randomly picked up this book (I was not reading novels in the 1950's) and I was barely aware of something called "The Power and the Glory," which, by the way, resulted in a private audience with the pope for Graham Greene.I am so fascinated by him after reading this second volume, I will now read at least one of his novels.

Deeply discounted soft cover copies are readily available. Try the second volume; if you enjoy it you may want to have the three-volume hardcover trilogy in your library.

Can't wait till volume 3
Norman Sherry did an excellent job of chronicling some of the mostfacinating phases of Graham Greene's personal and professional life. WhileI found vol. 1 to be a bit slow and often uninteresting at times, vol. 2really gives great insight into the period of Greene's most productive andimportant years.

I'm eagerly awaiting vol. 3 to see how well Sherrytells the life of one of the more important authors of the TwentiethCentury.

How to cover up an interesting life
Sherry's "biography" is saved only by its topic: Graham Greene, a man whose life was so interesting that even Sherry's ineptitude can't quite get in the way.

The flaws in this work abound but of import are theconsistent failures by Sherry to dive into anything that would or couldpossibly reveal "too much" about a man that even Sherry admits,was notorious for not revealing much of anyhting to anyone.

Dreams thatbeg to be discussed are described and then abandoned as topics, healthconcerns (Green's hemorage surely deserves some comment, doesn't it? - orhave I missed it amid the insesent repetions by Sherry that The Power andthe Glory was Grenne's "best work" - understood that the firstthree times Sherry said it)and refrences to one of Green's acknowledged"masters" (Conrad) are offered up, and then, dropped like hotrocks.

To make matters worse, one is treated to such sparkling gems of"thought" as (to paraphrase) that the insurgents in malaya werefighting against the "benificent" British and their colonialpuppets - surely, greene, a man on the side of the "underdog"(regardless of said dog's politics)had something else in mind? Or is thismore of the ex-spys double-talk? Using Sherry as a source, one will neverknow.

Given Greene's penchent for opacity, it should come as no supriseto anyone who knows anything about the man, that having chosen his own"man in biography" that Greene should have played Sherry for hisown purposes.

As a source-work for Greene's own material, and as anillsutration of what can happen to an author upon achieving"success" the book is useful.

Beyond that, stick to Greene'sown work. You'll be far better served.

Sincerely,

A Reader

A great biography-if you like literature don't miss this.
I have readvery little of Graham Greene and I have not read Vol 1 of this biography.HoweverI found this Vol 2 (1939-55) an enthralling read. It covers his life during the second world war and then later in Vietnamand Africa. There is a bit too much about his lovesick affair with MrsWalston (a peculiar arrangment and a bit uninteresting at times) The recordof his war service and his time in publishing is fascinating.I guess if youhave read the books and are already a fan then this biography is even morevaluable. The life of G.G. is a novel in itself,full of colour,sadness andbravery.These biographies can be turgid in the wrong hands but Sherry onlyusesthe details necessary to tell a vivid story.His prose is excellentand flows along. A very enjoyable read and it made want to get reading thenovels-and Vol3 which is due in 2000 I believe. ... Read more

Product Description
This absorbing autobiography in lettersoffers aremarkable window into the life of one of thegreatest novelists of our time. "The BestBook of the Year." --David Lodge, The Guardian[UK]One of the undisputed masters of twentieth-century English prose,Graham Greene (1904-1991)wrote tens of thousands of personal letters. This exemplary volume presents a newand engrossing account of hislife constructed out of hisown words. Impeccably edited byscholar Richard Greene, the letters--including manyunavailable evento his officialbiographer--give a newperspective on a life that combined literary achievement, political action,espionage,travel, andromantic entanglement. The letters describe his travels in such places asMexico, Vietnam, and Cuba,where he observed thestruggles of mankind with a compassionate and truthful eye. Letters to friendssuch as EvelynWaugh and Muriel Spark offer a glimpse into theliterary culture in which he wrote, while othersreveal the agonies of his heart.The sheer rangeof experiencecontained in Greene'scorrespondence defies comparison. 8 pages ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Greene
A nicely edited selection of the letters of the English novelist and public figure.

Those with a special interest in Graham Greene and his career will enjoy these often-short letters written to a multitude of friends, lovers, and fellow artists, such as the Waughs (Evelyn and Auberon), Catherine Walston and Michael Korda.

The letters themselves are well written but are often more straightforward communications than pieces of polished literary prose. Fans and students of Mr. Greene's work will benefit from the scattered background material and insights to his many published efforts, such as"The Comedians" and"The Power and the Glory."

Graham Greene, while a solid believer in free speech, was certainly on the left fringe of Cold War politics and an anti-American having expressed, as an example, support for Manuel Noriega of Panama with such a thought as "...if I have to choose between a drug dealer and American imperialism I prefer the drug dealer."


... Read more

Product Description
Drover, a Communist bus driver, is in prison, sentenced to death for killing a policeman during a riot at Hyde Park Corner. A battle for a reprieve with many participants ensues: the Assistant Commissioner, high-principled and over-worked; Conrad, a paranoid clerk; Mr Surrogate, a rich Fabian; Condor, a pathetic journalist feeding on fantasies; pretty, promiscuous Kay - all have a part to play in his fate. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

A beautiful, bitter little story
It's London, between the wars, 1934. A man has killed a policeman during a strike; a riot had broken out, the bobby was poised to hit the striking workman's wife, and he instinctively defended her with his pocket knife.

The workman's name is Jim Drover. He's been sentenced to hang. An aging Assistant Commissioner, recently returned from the East, has been asked by a Minister to report to him on the pulse of the people; this has nothing to do with sentiment, or justice, he's up for reelection, and he wants to know if the workers will riot if the workman is hanged, or will they feel the Minister is weak if he is reprieved.

Drover's suffering wife has a sister who just wants to find a man and have a good time, and the condemned worker has a brother, Conrad, who loves him deeply, but who is also hopelessly in love with his brother's wife. There is a pompous Communist leader in love with the ideas of Equality and The People, not so much the people themselves. And a reporter who has invented so many lives for himself that he sometimes forgets which is the real one.

This is Greeneland; there are no happy endings waiting for anyone. Instead, there are questions to trouble the conscience. Conrad is the main character in the book, his thoughts laying out the major themes. Jim received a poor defense, the lawyer himself barely cared. If he is reprieved, he will be in jail for 18 years. Who will support his young wife? How can she possibly be expected to be loyal to him, allowed to see him only once a month for all those years? With this kind of justice, is it better for Jim to hang, and free her, or to live on in prison, knowing that his beloved will betray him, again and again? Is the equality for Everyman that Communism promises at meetings a possibility, or a fantasy to keep the worker occupied while the real powers, people with money and influence and connections, blithely keep doing whatever it is they've always done?

This is a beautiful, bitter little story. GG worked as a sub-editor at the Times, and in some ways, this is a love letter to London at this particular time in his life. The gifts of his compassion, his sympathy for all victims, and the beauty of his language are all very much on display here. It's a Battlefield may not be one of GG's major books, but it's a terrific snapshot of the concerns and anxieties consuming pre-World War II England, full of passions and ideas to stir the heart.

They're all fighting...
Various characters are more or less involved in the following incident: Jim Drover, a communist bus driver, killed a policeman during a riot at Hyde Park Corner because he thought that the policeman was going to attack his wife Milly. He is now in prison sentenced to death. Milly lives in a shabby, droughty house and although she loves his husband, she starts an affair with Jim's brother Conrad, a chief clerk at the Regal Assurance Company. Conrad is unsure whether, provided that Jim's appeal is successful, the alternative of spending 18 years in prison is a better one to being executed. In any case, his depression and hatred lead him to buying a gun and trying to kill the Assistant Commissioner without realising that the bullets in the guns are blanks. Then there is Mrs Coney, the dead policeman's wife, forced by Milly to sign a petition to save Jim from execution. And Kay Rimmer, Milly's sister, a worker at a match factory, a prostitute of sorts who frequently visits Mr Surrogate, writer of books of economics and socialist idealism.
If "it's a battlefield", the reader may wonder what those protagonists are fighting for. Although Mr Greene casts a critical glance at institutions such as the Scotland Yard, trade unions, politics or the law, the characters' actions often appear to be meaningless. But perhaps this is the author's point: whatever the battle, one struggles in vain... "Brighton Rock" or "The Human Factor" are more carefully constructed novels in which Graham Greene showed his talent as a novelist.

Very Stupid
The story was very stupid, I was not able to understand anything. There are so many different places where the story plays that you have to take care not to fall asleep. The main person Drover, who killed a police officer, never appears. For me the book was a nightmareto read.

Avoid Razorblades
We are all essentially alone, caught up in our own chemical, physical andsocial orbits(or "battlefields"), unable to connect with otherpeople or affect our own destinies, like a man on death row. Apparently.Greene plays out a typically existential perspective in terms of the deathrow simile and, as usual, everything is not as it seems. This is not astory about a man unfairly condemned to death (we never get to meet him),or the machinations of various individuals to get him off. Rather it'sabout how his situation affects them and, as you can imagine, being part aGreene menagerie, it isn't at all pleasent. The half dozen or so characterswe become aquainted with vary wildly in class and preoccupations, and onegets an idea of the variety of London life in the thirties. But they alsotend to vary in interest. Undoubtedly, Conrad Drover, the condemned man'sbrother, is the strongest character: his paranoia provides the only realsuspense in the book. But I was rather fond of Condor, a journalist wholives alone above a pub, who creates elaborate fantasy lives which aretaken at face value by his friends and workmates. There's a weak sectiondealing with Condor's landlord, the pub owner, and Drover's sister-in-lawgoing off on a jaunt in the country, a brief and illusory moment ofliberation. On the whole, though, this is a poignant novel on the humancondition told with Greene's characteristic irony and economy of style.

Great!
The story is about the people who are in different ways involved with the fate of the bus driver Drover who is condamned to death sentence. A clever constructed story which tests all persons who take part of it. The tensionbases on the different ways these people manage it. It was astonishing thatthe main person Drover never appears. Although he acts as the read line. Atthe beginning it is quite confusing but it is worth finishing it becauseafter seeing it clearly, you will be fascinated. ... Read more

Product Description
In a range of work including novels of literary suspense that test both their protagonists’ souls and their readers’ nerves to the breaking point, Graham Greene explored a territory located somewhere on the border between despair and faith, treachery and love. This volume includes the complete novels The Heart of the Matter and The Third Man, along with excerpts from ten other novels; short stories; selections from Greene’s memoirs and travel writings; essays on English and American literature; and public statements on issues that range from repression in the Soviet Union to torture in Northern Ireland to the paradoxical virtue of disloyalty. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Greene is Greene is Greene
It may not actually be "portable" (it's a chunky book), but it is a worthy volume of Graham Greene. Penguin does a fine job, as it often does, and if you want to get into Greene, this is a good book with which to do just that. He may be depressing for some, enlightening for others, but always fascinating and intriguing.

The Portable Graham Greene
Most authors attempt to write stories that will impress upon the reader some idea or emotion in order to bring about change.Graham Greene writes stories that, rather than impose the idea upon the reader, pull a reaction out of the reader whether he wants to react or not.The stories he tells shock the reader and cause him to question how people or a situation could possibly be as it is.Often, the reader is a little disturbed and upset after reading Greene?s stories.There seems to be no point to them, but they shake the reader and draw out his feelings.
A prime example of Greene?s shock story is ?The End of the Party.?In only a few pages Greene sketches out two young boys, and immediately the reader sympathizes and almost loves them.And then at the end of the story, when one is dead and the other is left devastated and confused, one cannot help but feel devastation and confusion right along with Peter.There is no explanation as to why such a small fright killed Francis, or why Francis? fear still beats inside Peter?s chest, and so the reader feels ?off? and disturbed, and questions the whole story looking for some trace of meaning.
Apparent in his stories is the idea that life is precious and extremely valuable.?The Wedding Reception? makes this point very bluntly and doesn?t leave much for the reader to guess at.At the end of the story Daintry simply states, ?A man?s dead.He?s irreplaceable too.?Even though this theme doesn?t seem apparent in ?A Shocking Accident,? it is present if one considers the confusion they have at Jerome?s tearless and emotionless response to the death of his father.And then again the puzzlement they experience as Jerome and later his bride-to-be ask about the pig.To the reader the accident is so trivial and senseless, and kills Jerome?s father long before his time, leaving a wasted life behind.The reactions of the reader should cause him to think about what devalues life so in the eyes of the characters.
This theme is again apparent in The Third Man.Harry Lime is willing to illegally distribute a watered down form of penicillin that kills people so that he can have a lot of money.As I read this, Lime?s complete lack of compassion for other humans struck me as hideous.I had a hard time accepting that anyone could be so cold and evil.However, Greene was able to draw me into the scene and make Lime?s cold-heartedness believable.As a matter of fact, Greene handles such hard to believe issues quite well.There is never a sense that the story is too far out to be true.His characters are vivid and his settings are real.I was transported quickly to the worlds of his stories, and was disappointed when I had to leave.
Greene?s style is smooth, yet not simple.The reader must pay attention to what is being read or he may miss important details and key events in the story.His plots are far from shallow, and a lot of wisdom and insight can be gathered from the things he writes.However, his Christianity is very low key.There are very few allusions to God and Christianity in his writing.However, I think that this is what gives depth to his writing; he is not displaying his values in neon lights.Rather they are a part of the story in the same way that they should be a part of a person. ... Read more

Product Description
An utterly gripping story of a wealthy French lawyer being held prisoner by the Germans during World War II. The lawyer is chosen by the soldiers to die, but instead he makes a cowardly trade for his life--one that he will have to pay for even as a free man . ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

Puzzling Anomaly in Author's Work, But Worthwhile
"The Tenth Man," is a bleak suspenseful thriller, a crime drama of a novel, and a puzzling anomaly in the writing career of distinguished British author Graham Greene.For years, I couldn't figure it out.It is only 156 pages, really novella length, yet it has his usual power, though it lacks the accreted detail I've gotten used to in his work.Still, it gives us an excellent picture of wartime, occupied France, and the people who had to live there; the city of Paris, and the countryside at the time.Greene's characters, as ever, are sharply drawn, and ring true to their natures.

It is set in 1944, in a Gestapo prison in occupied France, during World War II, where 32 Frenchmen have been taken hostage.Local resistance activity causes the Germans to decide that one of every ten men - three men--must therefore meet their deaths by firing squad, but they don't care which three men.The hostages draw lots.Jean Louis Chevel, a lawyer and a rich man, gets one of the marked ballots; he offers his entire fortune, and all his holdings, to the heirs of any man who will take his place, and a sickly young man Michel Mangeot, known as "Janvier," agrees.As the Germans are driven out of France in 1944--Paris was liberated on August 25, 1944, and the war ends for the French, the hostages are released, and Chevel, not knowing what else to do, finds his way to his hereditary estate in the country.There, under an assumed name, he finds Janvier's mother and sister installed, and becomes their unpaid handyman.He falls a little in love with the sister, but realizes that mother and sister hate "Chevel" for taking Janvier's life.Then, suddenly, another man shows up, claiming to be Chevel.It is a bleak tale, as noted above, much briefer and less detailed than the author's usual work, although, in this latest crisis in his life, Chevel may be consideredat least to have rediscovered his humanity and his courage.

The author, it turns out, amazingly enough, wrote the novella in 1944, well before VE Day, Victory in Europe Day, May 8, 1945. He wrote it as a film treatment for the Hollywood film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where he was under contract, along with a couple of other treatments, one of which is very clearly the germ of his remarkable novel Our Man In Havana.At any rate, both Greene and the studio forgot about the existence of these treatments and they lay in the MGM archives until 1983, when someone found them and decided to publish at least THE TENTH MAN.Greene could barely remember writing the treatment, and thought it was only a few pages: he was mightily surprised to discover it was more than 150; and, as it was determined it was to be published, he worked on cleaning it up a bit.It was published in 1985.Then, as happened with many, if not most of his works, it was filmed, under the same title,The Tenth Man, as a 1988 television episode for the American show, "Hallmark Hall of Fame."And it got the all-star treatment:Anthony Hopkins (The Hannibal Lecter Collection (Manhunter / The Silence of the Lambs / Hannibal)) played Chavel; Kristin Scott Thomas (Four Weddings and a Funeral) played Therese Mangeot, Janvier's sister.Derek Jacobi (I, Claudius) played the imposter Chevel; Cyril Cusack (My Left Foot) played the priest.I caught this movie once on late-night TV, and, as noted above, wondered about it for years.

Greene (1904-1991), who was one of the more illustrious British writers of the 20th century, enjoyed a very long life, and a very long, distinguished, prolific writing career. Some of his writing highlights are The Power and the Glory, The End Of The Affair, and The Third Man.Many of his books were bestsellers; many were made into movies. He was one of the better-known Catholic converts of his time; many of his thrillers, as this one, deal with Catholic themes of guilt and redemption.He created morally complex characters, while he explored moral and theological dilemmas through psychologically astute character studies, presented in exciting dramas on the international stage.

Could Not Put Down
This excellently plotted short novel keep me reading deep into the night.Starting with a fantastic though simple premise of a French prisoner of the German Nazis who literally buys his life, and becoming a love story, Greene is a master of quickly and insightfully developing character, scene and plot.A must read!

Stunning emotional depth and superior writing
An early effort by master writer Graham Greene, The Tenth Man is a startlingly honest story adorned with psychological depth, emotional tension, and compassionate humanism. Beginning in a prison camp, three men of thirty draw lots to determine who must die. One of the men selected, a lawyer, then trades his own death lot to another in exchange for great wealth and property. The one who dies then gives his acquired wealth to his family.

The story progresses to reveal a sister filled with hate at the man who lived and caused her brother to die. Her naivety is charming as is her warm heart that cannot sustain the hate she demands of herself. The once wealthy lawyer returns to his place of residence, masking his identity, and proceeds to work as a servant. In his humility and shame he finds love, sensitivity, and mostly courage to seek out an opportunity to sacrifice himself for others. The events of the story move rapidly, with the impetus for the dramatic conclusion being caused by greed and evil.

Sentences such as "If one had possessed a God's-eye view of France, one would have detected a constant movement of tiny grains moving like dust across a floor shaped like a map," are wonderfully descriptive and cause the reader to see the events in a global imagery. Other expressions like, "When it happens you know what you've been all your life," are momentous and create a powerful sense of human depth that drives the book from beginning to end. Greene's prose and characterizations are intelligent, perceptive, rich, and meaningful without becoming contrived or shallow.

Many books are page-turners, causing a reader to rush quickly to the end. The Tenth Man, however, is a page-reflector, forcing the reader to enjoy the journey and the pathway toward the conclusion. A gripping read, The Tenth Man is highly recommended for its content, historical perspective, and mostly its demonstration of the forces of good and evil that reside in everyone. This moving story is not easily forgotten and most readers will be changed by the experience.

Amazing Return
I needed book for class. Would not arrive in time for a paper due on a friday; book was ordered on tuesday. Seller immediately responded to e-mail and provided full refund in a down to earth way.

Fate never rests.
According to the introduction, Graham Greene wrote this novella in 1944 and then quite remarkably completely forgot about its existence until it was brought to his attention nearly 4 decades later.The third person narrative tells the bizarre tale of Jean-Louis Chavel, a wealthy French lawyer selected by lot to die in front of a German firing squad. Chavel manages to circumvent Fate by getting another man to take the fatal bullet for him.In return, he signs over everything he owns; 300,000 francs, his ancestral estate and all its contents, to the other man, a sickly Parisian nicknamed Janvier.Janvier immediately wills everything to the only family he has, his sister and mother.
Fast forward to the end of the German occupation.A destitute Chavel, now a tormented caricature of his former self, visits the Chavel estate and, without confessing his true identity, stays on as a servant of sorts.
The Tenth Man is more of an allegorical tale than it is a work of fiction awash with realism.Think of it as a fatalistic fairy tale for adults.Having cheated death by firing squad, Chavel finds his life no longer worth living.He can accept the loss of wealth and stature but the unremitting guilt over what he has done leads inexorably to his own destruction.
A cogent work, full of pithy observations about human nature, the Church and destiny's heavy hand.Highly recommended. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (21)

Fan of the Author
The Quiet American is a wonderful book that,to an American, probes at our treasured notion high-minded idealism and our spirit that has served us well at times and not so well at others. Greene's symbolism is telling and insightful, given that it was published well before the United States' full-blown involvement in that region of the world.

A Classic
Grahame Greene's THE QUIET AMERICAN is so eerily accurate regarding Vietnam that a textual critic might believe the novel was written in 1976 and not 1956. What isn't surprising is that Greene's prose sparkles, and for him, a rather first rate plot. Adding to the fun here are the comments of the Critical edition. A classic in every sense.

Great Contrast of Characters
This novel describes the condescension and naivete held by Americans and Europeans to the ever evolving world of Vietnam in the 1950's.

In an American household of the 21st century, and after having lived a full decade of experiencing the wrath of our war in that terminable part of the world, Americans much better understand what makes and is employed by the people and leaders of that area than the characters of this novel.

Almost entirely written through the perspective of British journalist Thomas Fowler, we learn that his cynical eye and self-declared neutrality of the happenings in Vietnam's nascent hell are untrue.This novel delves most principally on a delicate and obscure relationship between Fowler and Alden Pyle, a Harvard educated young and modest Bostonian who is entering this land as a greenhorn who soberly encounters his "first job" with open eyes in regard tobusiness, social circles as well aswomen.Fowler is almost the opposite, a has-been journalist whose basic aspiration is to write as little as possible to keep his meal ticket alive, and use as many wakening hours to smoking opium pipes filled and served by indigenous beauties who are half his age.

Fowler,full of vices and bad moral character, at least can perceive his own imperfections well - something that his counterpart cannot.And, this is where the book drifts to places which we do not think it will go.

The inexact temporal procession of this book takes us back in time and forward in time, sometimes by chapter (other times by clumps of chapters), between the defining moments of the novel: Before and after Pyle's death.Fowler is caught up in the investigation of the untimely death (murder) as the two very different men had one love - beautiful and abiding Phuong.

Not until one occasion arises does the ordinarily stupored Fowler awaken. People are dying all around him. But, that is not a problem.He awakens when one day he witnesses innocent women and children sacrificed.Bombs are being left in public places to kill others so as to infuriate the masses about Communists - only the delivery of the bombs is not by Communist plot. Instead, it is the foe of Communism, a wicked general,who sacrifices his own people so as to increase his personal value, make his cause more celebrated, and make him a personal leader in the otherwise fully doomed society which all involved people know will succumb to Communism.

This book is great in contrasting a young well-educated American idealist with a middle-aged street-smart cynical Brit.The dialogue is superb.And, the mystery-like following of Pyle's deathis alluring.

Time to Revisit This Classic
With the escalation of the Afghan war, now it's a good time to discover or revisit this thoughtful classic about misguided American intentions. I have read this book while stationed in Saigon, it helped me in my real world dealings. If more Americans read this book, maybe we wouldn't have the mess in Afghanistan.

Excellent!
What a great read.This explains much about the history of Vietman, Cambodia, Laos, etc. after WWII...How they've been plundered and used by colonialists.Very insightful and Greene actually predicts the problems to come.Love it! ... Read more

Product Description
Now with a new introduction by David Rieff, The Lawless Roads is the result of Graham Greene’s expedition to Mexico in the late 1930s to report on how the inhabitants had reacted to the brutal anticlerical purges of President Calles. His journey took him through the tropical states of Chiapas and Tabasco, places where all the churches had been destroyed or closed and the priests driven out or shot. The experience provided Greene with the setting and theme for one of his greatest novels, The Power and the Glory. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Religious man in an unknown country
This book is about the travel that Graham Greene made to Mexico during the end of the 1930s. He went to Mexico to see how things were after the government set up a persecution against Catholic Church. This official persecution got to its higher point with the assassination of Father Pro. These were convulsived years in Mexico and the time of reconstruction of a state devastated by a violent social movement that has just passed.

The author begins his trip from the border of US-Mexico to the state of Chiapas.

From the beginning to the end we will find a list of complains and annoyances suffered by the traveler.He was mortified by the disadvantages of the trip, and his feelings of hatred will lead him to describe the things that he sees more based on emotion rather than rational thinking. Bad roads, native food, the weather, unfriendly people towards a white man, lack of places for tourists, will be the cause of disgust. This disgust will turn him in a man adverse to a country and its people. Furthermore, with this feeling of animosity Graham Greene will express his opinions about politics, social issues, and religion.

If we think about his religiosity, we will learn how limited his opinions were. When talking about catholic and native religion, it seems that he takes for granted that catholic myths were much better that the myths of native people. When explaining the persecution and the situation of Catholic churches in his way to the South, bias, shortage and misrepresentation of a country that he does not know will be present too. However, we can see in this book that his portray of poverty, bad government, and the way of doing politics in Mexico are quite right.

If we try to understand the feelings of a religious man in an unfriendly and unknown country, there is one part in the book that I think is the right one: "There was nothing in this country so beautiful as an English village, but then beauty is only an emotion in the observer, and perhaps to someone these forests and crags, these withdrawn and gentle Indians, abandoned churches, the mule teams ringing down the hillside might have given an effect of beauty. I felt something wrong in myself -tiredness and anxiety and homesickness can turn the heart to stone as easily as cruelty, sin, the violent act, the rejection of God."

Dyspeptic Mexican Travelogue is Seedbed for Great Novel
The Lawless Roads is a non-fiction account of a trip Graham Greene took in 1937 to report on the persecution of Catholics in the Mexican states of Chiapas and Tabasco.This trip was the precursor to and inspiration for his greatest novel, The Power and the Glory, about a whiskey priest who becomes the last representative of Catholicism in a blighted Mexican province.

As journalism the book is thin and cursory.We don't get much framing of why the Marxist government decided to outlaw Catholicism in the first place.Did the priestly class milk the peasants?Was this ancient creed bogging the society down in ignorance and superstition and preventing material progress?Did any of the Bishops commit financial, personal or political indiscretions?Beyond a brief mention that it had to do with "a war...for the soul of the Indian" we aren't told.

Although he attends a few masses, visits some ruined churches and meets with priests and bishops, Greene spends little time talking to average Catholics.Since not observing the Church's rituals is a big sin, these Catholics must have been living in an emotional pressure cooker, but we don't see it.And Greene provides no justification for why Catholicism, imposed under Spanish colonial rule, deserves a central place in Mexican culture.He seems to assume the answer is obvious.Obviously it wasn't to the politicians and landowners who sent out the army to shoot priests and destroy churches.

Absent journalism, we get travelogue.It's clear that Greene is repulsed by the grubby sensuality of Mexico, and he doesn't like Mexicans.His Spanish is limited, which makes many of his interactions fraught and difficult.He is very often too hot or cold, irritated by dogs and rats, plagued by flies and mosquitoes, sore from mule travel over rough roads.His Mexico is a place full of hate and death.Being the world class writer he was, there are some compelling descriptions of flyblown mountain towns and the people in them, but throughout he is clearly more repulsed than emphatically engaged.

The most fascinating question raised by Greene's dyspeptic travelogue is this: how did the bigoted, self-absorbed, biased journalist who wrote The Lawless Roads turned into the great-souled novelist who wrote the Power and the Glory less than two years later?In that novel, Greene turns empathy and vast compassion for the whiskey priest, his desperate flock and even the priest's persecutors into a masterpiece of world literature.Despite the outpouring of words by and about Greene, this transformation of sensibility has never been satisfactorily explained.The mystery of how a person can rise above the limitations of a small, demanding self to create something that endures through time is, like faith, powerful and compelling.Which is why it's fascinating and worthwhile to read The Lawless Roads and then read its metamorphosis into The Power and the Glory.

Had a hard time getting past the bitterness
I read about this book in a New Republic article about Lopez Obrador, the leftist who recently lost in Mexico's presidential election. Obrador is from the southern state of Tabasco, an isolated, southern state that Greene visits in this book. Greene's interest in the state stems from the fact that in the 1930's the region's governor spearheaded one of the most virulent anti-religious campaigns in all of Mexico. Greene was commissioned to write about how Mexicans were coping during this period of intense suppression of religious expression. My interest in the book was purely historical and sociological; I wanted to better understand the ideology that led the state to clamp down on religious institutions and how ordinary Mexicans reacted to this. In that sense, the book did not quite live up to my expectations. Instead, in spite of the beautiful prose (which ensures a pretty quick read) and occasional sparks of wisdom, the book read like a bitter, disgruntled travelogue.

For starters, as Greene himself concedes, his Spanish was apparently not so good at the time, something that obviously limited his ability to talk with ordinary Mexicans who knew no English (this is not to mention that many of the Indians in Tabasco and Chiapas did not even speak Spanish). Tabasco and Chiapas are both built up at as hearts of darkness; he announces at the beginning of the book his intention to visit these remote places, but he does not even reach Tabasco until halfway through the book, as the first part consists of his journey from Texas down to Mexico City. And then, when he finally does reach these places, the effect is rather anti-climactic, as he doesn't even seem to talk to any ordinary Mexicans about the religious situation. Obviously this probably had a lot to do with people's unwillingness to talk about such a politically sensitive issue, but it was still disappointing that he went to so much effort to reach such remote places, only to come away with so few real insights. In Tabasco and Chiapas, the only people Greene seems to befriend are odball expatriate Europeans and Americans. These were fascinating characters and the stories of how they ended up in the backwaters of southern Mexico are worthy stories on their own, but I think we would be critical of any contemporary journalist who only fraternizes with expats.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing, though, is something that Sirin alludes to in his review (but surprisingly none of the other reviewers have mentioned), namely Greene's explicit hatred for the country and its people, which was quite unexpected. As I was reading it, I kept reminding myself of the context, since the book was written in the 1930's from an obviously colonial mindset. However, by the end of the book, when Greene is tired, ill, and ready to return home, the bitterness towards Mexico becomes hard to ignore. Virtually every behavioral trait he observes in Mexicans obviously hides sinister intentions. He has something bad to say about every place his train passes through. Again, I realize that the author was fatigued from his travels and ill at this point, but it still didn't make for particularly fun reading.

I gave the book three stars because it does have many merits. As I mentioned, Greene writes beautifully (I have read and loved the "The Comedians" and plan to read some of his other novels in the near future). Also, the simple fact that he visited some of these remote places during this interesting period of Mexico's history makes the book intrinsically interesting. Overall, however, the book just wasn't quite what I expected.

Greene plunges the depths
Reading The Lawless Roads reminded me of a comment from Albert Camus from his notebooks: 'What gives value to travel is its fear. It is the fact that when we are so far from our own country we are siezed by a vague fear, and an instinctive desire to go back to the protection of old habits'.

This is Graham Greene in Mexico. Travelling through the dry, dusty, mosquito and tick fly riven states of Southern Mexico in the 1930s, a period when the Catholic Church was under severe persecution from the state, Green clings on to the two things that remind him of happier times and nations - his Englishness, and the Catholic Church. His prologue is set in England, the title of his book comes from a piece of verse, quoted at the start, by the Scottish poet Edwin Muir and throughout his turbulent journey he seeks solace in quintissentially English writers such as Trollope and William Cobbett.

It is evident that Greene loathes Mexico. At one point he writes of the country 'No hope anywhere. I have never been in a country where you are more aware all the time of hate'. He finds, during his travels, a Godless, immoral and violently dangerous state. He retains a colonial contempt for the natives he comes across with their 'expressionless brown eyes' and is mistrustful of everyone. He defends the under fire Catholicism with extraordinary bias, declaring the Catholic Church 'Perhaps the only body in the world today which consistently - and sometimes successfully opposes the totalitarian state'. Remember this was the same period as the Spanish Civil war.

He plunges the depths in Tabasco, a state where Catholic persecution was particularly strong - 'One felt one was drawing near to the centre of something - if it was only of darkness and abandonment'. And his personality undergoes a disturbing descent into increasing misery and intolerence. After travelling through numerous grisly towns (Puebla is the only place he has any affection for, the only place in Mexico Greene can imagine living in with 'some happiness'), being plagued by mosquitos and diarrhoea and undergoing hours on cripplingly uncomfortable muleback, he reaches rock bottom - 'It seemed to me that this wasn't a country to live in at all with only the head and desolation; it was a country to die and leave only ruins behind'.

But Greene's vitriolic prejudices against Mexico serve as a blackly creative vehicle to contain his bluntly honest and hatefully evocative prose style. A more dispassionate, cheerful writer would not be nearly as successful in dredging up in striking detail the climate of this sinister Mexican age. Greene also owes a great debt to Mexico, for it was his travels in hell that provided the inspiration for one of his greatest novels 'The Power and the Glory'. In The 'Lawless Roads' we briefly meet the characters in the later novel - the 'Whisky Priest', the sweating dentist, the 'Mestizo' with two yellow fangs. This baleful travelogue highlights why Greene was able to use Mexico as the canvas on which to paint 'The Power and the Glory', a masterful tale of oppression, persecution, death and redemption.

The Horrors of Mexico
The Lawless Roads is the second non-fiction travel book of Greene's that I've read, and the other, Journey Without Maps was also a great book about travel in Africa. Greene is a brilliant travel writer; he makes detailed observations about the countryside, people, and customs of Mexico. The way he traveled in the 30s makes you appreciate modern infrastructure and the advances of civilization that make godforsaken places livable. He was on assignment for a paper to report on the anti-clerical government that was persecuting the Catholics. It was form this experience that Greene wrote The Power and The Glory, which germinated from an antecdote he heard in Mexico about a whisky priest while on assignment. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Superb Story-teller
Graham Greene just doesn't get the recognition he deserves as a short story writer. As a novelist, his reputation has been well-established, fortunately. This collection, which incorporates "Twenty-One Stories", "A Sense of Reality", and "May We Borrow Your Husband" is a fine sampler of Greene's abilities in the shorter genre. Many of the elements that feature so prominently in his novels also figure in these stories: the spontaneity of violence; ruthless polictics; looming secrets; greed; and the complex situations that life drops on you.

Here are some brief looks at my favorite stories:

"The Destructors" is Greene's examination of horrific, calculated vandalism in the extreme, made even more horrifying by the coolness with which it is carried out.

An event in a man's past comes back to haunt him in "The Blue Film". Strangely, the haunting specter doesn't frighten him so much as saddens him.

"The End of the Party" is a harrowing tale of identical twins playing hide and seek at a party. The ending paragraph left goosebumps on my skin for days.

Other stories, such as "A Shocking Accident" and "May We Borrow Your Husband" are superb examples of this great story teller's talents.

For those who have never read Graham Greene, "Collected Short Stories" ought to be your starting point.

A great writer
Graham Greene is one of those authors like Hemingwaywho may"go out of style" --this will be a great pity--there transparant but subtle modernism of the first half of the first half of the century Greene and Waugh will go out of style. Already they are being replaced by a Rushdie sense ofthe text as an elaborate joke or rather elaborate shape.
These are wonderful stories and like Poe's should be preserved and cherished.

Our man in greene!
Although I can't recall all the details regarding this book I keep a strong sensation of pleasure when I think of it. Stories are transparent, deep and at times funny.My favorite one is "May we borrow your husband?". Here the author skillfully describes a grotesque situation in wich an homosexual couple attemps by all means tohave an encounter with the flamboyant husband of a just married couple. He starts telling the story as a distant witness and as time goes by he gets unwillingly involved in the whole mise en scene. Greene has a mastery to blend irony with deep feelings and awkward situations. The result is wonderful!

Greene and Fear
It is fear which dominates these stories.It may be the fear of the afterlife as we in see in the Second Death or fear of darkness as the story The End of the Party reveals. In the first story, Greene's Catholic faith coems to the forefront though the omniscient author feigns disbelief and uses a neutral tone, there is no doubt that he is sharing his friend's fear of hell. The latter has had a near death experience and has seen Christ who knows everything about him. Now that death is inevitable, he feels that he has not heeded the first warning and that now he is on his way to hell. Sometimes, I ask, was Greene himself terribly afraid of death well knowing that he was not living up to the moral standards required by his beliefs? Did his conversion at the age of twenty two weigh hevaily on his conscience and so he had to return to the scenario of a visit to hell time and again?

As I have already remarked soemtiems the fear stems from other sources. In The End of the Party the adults fail to understand that darkness may not go down well with everyone.The game of hide and seek, though entirelyinnocent, proves fatal as one of the children simply cannot stand being in the dark. Greene is hindting at the adults' failure to understand the individual child's psychology and our general tendency to categorize without distinguishing individual traits which may make all the difference.

In 'A Little Place Off the Edgeware Road|" the fear stems from a particular character'sdifficulty to retain his sanity. In a dark cinema, he feels a clammy hand touching his.He quickly comes to the conclusion that the man is a murderer and rings up the police.The twist at the end is characteristically Greenelike: the police come to pick our unfortunate character rather than the presumed murderer.

A good place to enter to Greeneland.
The plots of these stories are real enough to keep them believable, but they are not quite a product of normal life, which makes them interesting. These stories along with most of his other works put the reader in a placethat has been called Greeneland. Like Greenland it is a real place on earthbut it is different from any other and few people have experienced it.These stories come from the mind of a man who traveled the world andaccurately observed its inhabitants in the mid part of this century. Greenealso experienced much of what he saw and his stories are not written from adisinterested point of view.His style is very often brilliant (The BlueMovie),his topics are current, and his themes are universal. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Superb Story-teller
Graham Greene just doesn't get the recognition he deserves as a short story writer. As a novelist, his reputation has been well-established, fortunately. This collection, which incorporates "Twenty-One Stories", "A Sense of Reality", and "May We Borrow Your Husband" is a fine sampler of Greene's abilities in the shorter genre. Many of the elements that feature so prominently in his novels also figure in these stories: the spontaneity of violence; ruthless polictics; looming secrets; greed; and the complex situations that life drops on you.

Here are some brief looks at my favorite stories:

"The Destructors" is Greene's examination of horrific, calculated vandalism in the extreme, made even more horrifying by the coolness with which it is carried out.

An event in a man's past comes back to haunt him in "The Blue Film". Strangely, the haunting specter doesn't frighten him so much as saddens him.

"The End of the Party" is a harrowing tale of identical twins playing hide and seek at a party. The ending paragraph left goosebumps on my skin for days.

Other stories, such as "A Shocking Accident" and "May We Borrow Your Husband" are superb examples of this great story teller's talents.

For those who have never read Graham Greene, "Collected Short Stories" ought to be your starting point.

A great writer
Graham Greene is one of those authors like Hemingwaywho may"go out of style" --this will be a great pity--there transparant but subtle modernism of the first half of the first half of the century Greene and Waugh will go out of style. Already they are being replaced by a Rushdie sense ofthe text as an elaborate joke or rather elaborate shape.
These are wonderful stories and like Poe's should be preserved and cherished.

Our man in greene!
Although I can't recall all the details regarding this book I keep a strong sensation of pleasure when I think of it. Stories are transparent, deep and at times funny.My favorite one is "May we borrow your husband?". Here the author skillfully describes a grotesque situation in wich an homosexual couple attemps by all means tohave an encounter with the flamboyant husband of a just married couple. He starts telling the story as a distant witness and as time goes by he gets unwillingly involved in the whole mise en scene. Greene has a mastery to blend irony with deep feelings and awkward situations. The result is wonderful!

Greene and Fear
It is fear which dominates these stories.It may be the fear of the afterlife as we in see in the Second Death or fear of darkness as the story The End of the Party reveals. In the first story, Greene's Catholic faith coems to the forefront though the omniscient author feigns disbelief and uses a neutral tone, there is no doubt that he is sharing his friend's fear of hell. The latter has had a near death experience and has seen Christ who knows everything about him. Now that death is inevitable, he feels that he has not heeded the first warning and that now he is on his way to hell. Sometimes, I ask, was Greene himself terribly afraid of death well knowing that he was not living up to the moral standards required by his beliefs? Did his conversion at the age of twenty two weigh hevaily on his conscience and so he had to return to the scenario of a visit to hell time and again?

As I have already remarked soemtiems the fear stems from other sources. In The End of the Party the adults fail to understand that darkness may not go down well with everyone.The game of hide and seek, though entirelyinnocent, proves fatal as one of the children simply cannot stand being in the dark. Greene is hindting at the adults' failure to understand the individual child's psychology and our general tendency to categorize without distinguishing individual traits which may make all the difference.

In 'A Little Place Off the Edgeware Road|" the fear stems from a particular character'sdifficulty to retain his sanity. In a dark cinema, he feels a clammy hand touching his.He quickly comes to the conclusion that the man is a murderer and rings up the police.The twist at the end is characteristically Greenelike: the police come to pick our unfortunate character rather than the presumed murderer.

A good place to enter to Greeneland.
The plots of these stories are real enough to keep them believable, but they are not quite a product of normal life, which makes them interesting. These stories along with most of his other works put the reader in a placethat has been called Greeneland. Like Greenland it is a real place on earthbut it is different from any other and few people have experienced it.These stories come from the mind of a man who traveled the world andaccurately observed its inhabitants in the mid part of this century. Greenealso experienced much of what he saw and his stories are not written from adisinterested point of view.His style is very often brilliant (The BlueMovie),his topics are current, and his themes are universal. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a new and comprehensive reconsideration of Graham Greene's use of Catholic and theological issues in his fictions and other writings from the 1920s until the 1980s. This major new reconsideration of Graham Greene's writings, from the 1920s until the 1980s, focuses both on his best known novels and his less familiar works, including his short stories, plays, poetry, film scripts and reviewing, journalism and personal correspondence. It explores the major issues of Catholic faith and doubt, particularly in relation to his portrayal of secular love and physical desire, and examines the religious and secular issues and plots involving trust, betrayal, love and despair. Although Greene's female characters have often been underestimated, Brennan argues that while sometimes abstract, symbolic and two-dimensional, these figures often prove central to an understanding of the moral, personal and spiritual dilemmas of his male characters.Finally, he reveals how Greene was one of the most generically ambitious writers of the twentieth century, experimenting with established forms but also believing that the career of a successful novelist should incorporate a great diversity of other categories of writing. Offering a new and original perspective on the reading of Greene's literary works and their importance to English twentieth-century fiction, this will be of interest to anyone studying Greene. ... Read more

Product Description
A little steamroller at the London Airport helps foil a smuggling plan. ... Read more

Product Description
A morally complex and mature work from a modern master



IN THIS later novel by Graham Greene— featuring a new introduction—the author continues to explore moral and theological dilemmas through psychologically astute character studies and exciting drama on an international stage. In The Human Factor A high- level operative of the British Secret Service acts as a double agent to benefit his family. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (34)

Dated but timeless
This is one of Graham Greene's later books, and though some of the elements now seem dated (apartheid, the Cold War), the essence of the story is timeless because it concerns human foibles and emotions. Other reviewers have commented on the "anti-hero" spy--which was perfected by John Le Carre in the character of George Smiley, butGreene's Castle surely comes close (and may even be "better"). I first read this book in the late 1970s/early 1980s, and in rediscovering it recently, was struck by the timelessness of the story. The main characters are wonderfully fleshed out and the sheer amateurishness of the British security service is at once charming and appalling. A wonderful read to (re)discover.

Even Spy Fiction Now Appeals to Me!
If there is one genre which I have had difficulties in understanding, then it's Spy Fiction! Now in the great company of Graham Greene, even this strange genre appeals to me. This is a good book. Someone on Amazon wrote in a review that Greene never wrote a bad book. Is it really true? If so, then that's nothing short of amazing! Greene is somewhat a bit underestimated in the litterary circles, perhaps because he wrote books in popular style. In reality Greene is one of the giants of 20.th century litterature.

A Sympathetic Traitor
This is not one of Graham Greene's most famous books, but I think it's one of his best.Like many of his stories, it sets up a tension between a big historical drama and the personal drama of a relatively minor actor within it.And as in others of those stories, Greene refuses to resolve the tension.

The plot involves a British Military Intelligence agent, Castle, who, while stationed in Africa, falls in love with a black South African woman, Sarah.In order to stay together and marry her, Castle makes a deal with the devil -- he agrees to become a double agent, passing along western intelligence to Soviet KGB agents.He regards the intelligence he is passing along as inconsequential, and the deal is worth the risk, given that it is the only way to stay with Sarah, and Sarah's young son, Sam (fathered by a black South African man).

The "devil" he makes his deal with, though, is not really the KGB.It's really with the whole system -- MI5, South Africa, KGB, and the Cold War altogether.He tries to negotiate a life for himself within that big structure of ideological war and espionage, and of course, he knows that the life he negotiates will never be at peace.There will always be the danger, even inevitability, of being found out.When that happens, the negotiations must start again.

In all of this, the issue is, which stage is the one that counts?The stage on which Castle lives his personal life, his domestic oasis with his wife and son, or the political stage on which he lives his double-agent life in the midst of international tension and cut-throat espionage.

On one stage, Castle is a traitor, but on the other he is loyal, even heroic.As things come unraveled, he says to Sarah, "Well, I'm what's generally called a traitor."And Sarah answers, "Who cares? . . . We have our own country.You and I and Sam.You've never betrayed that country . . ."

Greene himself served in the British Secret Service.This book and Our Man in Havana reflect, to me anyway, a recognition that the international intelligence game has a special kind of irrational autonomy.From one perspective (much but not all of Our Man in Havana) that autonomy is farcical -- vacuum cleaner designs can pass as weapons intelligence. But from the other it is pointlessly destructive, especially of the ability of normal people involved in it to live normal lives of everyday virtue.

Depth of character and a wide array of emotions
Graham Greene's spy novel, The Human Factor, uses intrigue, deception, and political complexity to demonstrate the balance of love and hate and how governmental intervention affects families and the lives of people. A mature, but lower level spy works in an office with another spy studying data and compiling information. As they work, there is a sense of dissatisfaction, boredom, with a tinge of fear surrounding their positions. Their private lives remain separate from their working lives, but the intersection of the two become inevitable. Maurice seems rather innocuous for much of the book, living a life of love of his wife and son, and going about his normal business. Yet as this marvelous story progresses, we discover another side.

Perhaps the two frightening aspects of this book are the evil doctor who is cavalier and objective about the lives of people, and the sadness that pervades the emotions of those involved. We optimistically hope that Maurice and his family will be able to escape the situation, but destiny does not take us that direction. The sudden but projected death of Maurice's fellow spy, the separation of a father from his daughter, and the odd rejections of religion that interject themselves throughout the story, all come together to demonstrate the inevitable ending. Almost as though we are taught that joys and sorrows often are blended in spite of our efforts.

Greene's use of terse, precise language allows for understatement to take on powerful meaning. Rather than expending effort on rhetoric and excessive description, the prose goes right to the heart of the matter, stating the facts and leaving the reader to devise his own emotion. This makes for a quiet but undeniable energy throughout the book, almost as though a hidden parasite is making its way deliberately through the people and destroying the soul in its wake.

The Human Factor is a book by an accomplished, successful writer intent on reminding us that our lives and our loves mean more than political overtones in spite of what governments heap on us time after time. The prose is smooth, the sentences spun with precision, and the plot exacting. Perhaps a touch more action would have given this story a little bit more of a page-turning style, and I really wanted the doctor to pay the price for his actions. In spite of these issues, the book is highly recommended.

Castle is only a pawn
I'm not a fan of spy novels."Our Man in Havana" and a couple by Le Carré and you're already at the bottom of the list.Still, as a tersely-written thriller read on an interminable airplane flight, THE HUMAN FACTOR stands out.The characters Castle, Davis, Daintry, Percival, Hargreaves, and `Boris' are very well-drawn, their all-too-human motives revealed one by one as are their reactions to events.Sarah, the African wife of double agent Castle, remains something of a stick figure.Everything in the setting seems so very English, but it's hard for an American to say if it rings true.Seedy motives, seedy characters, a very limited life enveloped in secrecy and endless lies--how far from James Bond can you get ?The Cold War maneuverings all seem so passé now, but the tightly-written text will take you past it.

Castle has worked in South Africa, fallen in love with an agent (Sarah), but cannot be with her due to the Race Laws of the apartheid regime in the 1970s.A kindly Communist smuggles the woman into Mozambique where Castle marries her, thus ensuring his transfer back to the UK.They return with a child, but it isn't Castle's.In return for saving his wife, Castle agrees to become a KGB agent on the Africa desk in the British intelligence network.A mole is suspected, but the wrong man is bumped off surreptitiously by an agency doctor who wants to try out a new method of assassination by chemical.What ultimately happens to Castle is the stuff of the last part of the novel.It's a page turner for those of you surfers who dig spy fiction: top drawer style.No sex, no graphic violence, no settings of great luxury.You get whiskey and smoked trout, a bit of port, and walking the dog on a cold day in the London suburbs.Greene presents his usual sad view of human nature, but despite my wish to believe otherwise, maybe it's accurate.



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Customer Reviews (7)

Wrong item
Amazon lists the publisher as Penguin Twentieth Century Classics.Sender claims that Amazon has no way of grouping the product by publisher on its internet store website. Consequently, sender delivered to me the correct book, but not of the publisher that I ordered.

Substandard Greene, but still written by a master.
This is one of Greene's "entertainments" and it seems less substantial than any other book of his that I have read. D., a university professor, comes to England as confidential agent for the socialist government in his unnamed European country in the midst of civil war. He soon finds himself fighting agents for the other side and evading the British police. He also meets two young women, one of whom stirs his feelings for the underdog, while the other provides love interest of a sort; neither is very fully realized. Although Greene is a master of portraying the dark gritty world of spies and traitors, the novel never quite rings true, at times having more of the phantasmagorical quality of Chesterton's THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY than a work like BRIGHTON ROCK or THE THIRD MAN. Also, whether adopted to lend a Kafkaesque air or to avoid identification with a real country, the convention of calling the hero (and all his countrymen) by a single initial does have the effect of reducing his reality as an individual.

Surprise-filled tale of a mission
This quirky thriller begins in bleakness and continues through a trail of failures and deaths in a very foggy England, culminating in a parody happy ending. D., a former professor who specialized in _The Song of Roland_ andhas survived imprisonment, the death of his beloved wife, and years ofcivil war, has been sent to contract coal by a government that is notspecifially identified as the Spanish Republic beset by a civil war inwhich the anti-government side has the support of what is not specificallyidentified as Nazi Germany. He runs into L., the rebel forces' agent manytimes. He inspires fierce loyalty from two Englishwomen, and dodgesbullets, double-crosses, a major explosion, the police, and trumped-upmurder charges. There are farcical interludes at an Entrenationo(Esperanto) school and dangerous whiffs of precocious female sexuality(something of a Greene leitmotif). It is an odd book, with the multiplefailures of D's mission oddly exhilirating. Some have read it asanti-Semitic. I don't think that it is, but a charge of derogating Asianscould more convincingly be made.

THE USUAL GRAHAM GREEN ATMOSPHERE
Good book in line with other Graham's ones as The Third Man or Our Man in Havana. Nevertheless not so bright, intelligent and fun as Our Man in Havana.

A timeless page-turner
Greene's work, although provinvial in the sense that they are terribly British (I don't always get what he is talking about), is a knockout! What great great writing!Really unbeatable travel reading ... don'thesitate... ... Read more

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As Mr. Potter discovers, operating a grocery store is no easy business, especially when the competition takes all the business. ... Read more

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