Product Description
The Third Man is one of the truly great post-war films, the Oscar winner starring Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton. This complete novella is the original basis for that film. The story centers on a pulp-fiction writer who is searching for an old friend in post-World War II Vienna. When he discovers that his friend died under suspicious circumstances, he becomes inextricably involved in the mystery. Graham Greene, recognized as one of the most important writers of this century, brings the listener face to face with fundamental questions of morality and personal loyalty. Martin Jarvis truly demonstrates his vocal virtuosity as he captures Greene's taut dialogue, minimalist characterizations, and international cast. 2 cassettes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (19)

Third Man (Audio Editions)
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Greene, A Master of Intrigue
"The Third Man," the novella by Graham Greene, was prepared as a sort of film treatment to accompany the screenplay he was writing for the movie of the same name. The movie came out in 1949, and Greene decided to publish this brief work in 1950. It's a brilliant piece with a number of minor differences between book and movie.
In the book there are changes: Holly is called Rollo; the appearance of Harry Lime is briefer probably because star Orson Welles was playing "the third man" in the flick; Lime has a signature tune he whistles while in the movie it's the zither music theme; the narrator is the British colonel which is somewhat awkward because we actually have to follow Rollo's movements; Popescu in the movie is an American named Cooler; and we learn that Lime qualified as a doctor but never practiced which makes his penicillin racket even more heinous.
This is one case where the movie is better than the book although Greene demonstrates in print he is a master stylist: the tombstones wore "a toupée of snow." He puts down a writer by saying "he has been ranked as a stylist with Henry James, but he has a wider feminine streak than his master--indeed his enemies have sometimes described his subtle, complex, wavering style as old-maidish...his passionate interest in embroidery and his habit of calming a not very tumultuous mind with tatting--a trait beloved by his disciples--certainly to others seems a little affected."
Greene's own style is pure, robust, direct, and is narrative-driven with no unnecessary embellishments. Lime, he says "had a cheerful rascality, a geniality" and a "boyish conspiratorial smile." Lime, playfully and amicably, calls Rollo "old man."
As in many crime novels Rollo plays amateur detective (at first to prove Lime innocent) and solves the fascinating mystery leaving the police in the dust.
This novella and the movie help me relive my own experiences in Vienna in 1954 as a U.S. military policeman. It was a city of intrigue and mystery then too. In `54 I rode the Riesenrad, the giant ferris wheel in the Prater amusement park just as Rollo and Harry did.
Like the movie, this is a superb work of art.

Perhaps Greene's Finest?
I'll start this by saying I have held Graham Greene as a library must for about 12 years now. I haven't read everything, but nearly everything. As you may know, Greene classified his own work as either "serious" or "entertainments," and this would be categorized as the latter. However, don't take Greene's labels too seriously; this book has a great depth. The story revolves around a man who may or may not have fallen into the illegal underworld in postwar Vienna; he's pursued by a former colleague, with whom he as an inevitable interaction; that scene is one of the most powerful I've seen in Greene. If you haven't read Greene, this is a great starting point; if you have read Greene, then you must must must read this. The movie is excellent, but this is one of the few books where book and movie can stand together. Read the book first.

Well done again Mr Jarvis! (Review of the audiobook)
A splendid audio rendition of a good book by Mr Jarvis, who would be able to make the reading the yellow pages entertaining... Mr Jarvis is an excellent actor, his voice is loud and clear, and he assigns different voices (and different accents!) to each different character (without falling in the annoying habit of many male readers of using falsetto when playing women). I think his voice is especially well-suited to express cynicism, of which you will find a lot in this story.

If you like audio book, Mr Jarvis is one of the best voices around (you may want to check out his marvelous Dickens audio renditions). This audiobook is fairly short, 4 tapes only, but it is also very inexpensive. I like Greene's writing style a lot, and even if the book is probably not as much of a masterpiece as the movie (whose tune though remains here as well in the audio rendition), the audiobook is certainly worth its price, and I am actually writing this review while I approach the end of my second listening.

So, highly recommended.

weak greene.
i have read 5 graham greene books and this is by far the lamest of them. this was conceived of first as a hollywood movie, and it shows. the book is not much more that a silly, corny thriller (just what hollywood orders over and over and over). there is very little character development involved, & the the sense of place (vienna after world war ii) could have been given much greater depth, as well. this is simply a plot being rushed onto the big screen ( a half-baked, lame plot, at that) to make some cash. pass this one by. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (141)

"A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to...
...look ahead."

One "black wet January night on the Common, in 1946," writer Maurice Bendrix comes upon the fortysomething civil servant husband of his former mistress, Sarah Miles, and engages him in conversation. Over a drink, Henry Miles reveals to Bendrix that he suspects his wife of having an affair and is contemplating hiring a private detective. By the end of the evening, Miles has decided against taking action, but Bendrix goes forward with the plan himself. He learns, as a result of the investigation, the identity of the object of Sarah Miles' recent attentions as well as the reason she suddenly and unexpectedly ended their affair about 18 months prior. Bendrix, who narrates the story, explains to readers at the start, (p 1) "...this is a record of hate far more than of love, and if I come to say anything in favour of Henry and Sarah I can be trusted: I am writing against the bias because it is my professional pride to prefer the near-truth, even to the expression of my near hate." After setting things up, the jilted man shares details about his relationship with Mrs. Miles, interspersed with interactions between him and his private detective (including information the PI provides that shed light on certain significant events), Henry, and Sarah Miles. It ends entirely differently than (at least I) expected.

Best of the book: Greene's unusual habit of stringing adjectives (and nouns) in triplet (p 3), "sick, unhappy, dying," (p 24) "jaunty, adventurous, happy," and (p 38) "carefully, collectedly, quickly;" subtle foreshadowing (p 2), "I could even like poor silly Henry, I thought, if...;" fabulous phrasing (p 45) "the spring like a corpse was sweet with the smell of doom," (p 54) "the telephone presented nothing but the silent open mouth of somebody found dead," and (p 145) "his answers fell like trees across the road," and plenty of thought-provoking talk on theology. The End of the Affair is an outstanding story about love, hate, relationships, and religion. Also good: The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham, and Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates.

Classic Perfection
Lacerating and lovely, this is as perfect a piece of writing as you're ever apt to encounter.The title is ideal, because most readers would focus on the word "affair" but the real operative word is "end" - this is a meditation about the end of something.Greene isn't interested at all in the affair itself, but he is VERY interested in how gnawing anger and regret can make a man so full of hate that he begins to consider a war with God Himself.He writes sentences that work like reverse Chinese puzzle boxes:a great sentence will lead to a great phrase that in turn becomes a marvelous sentence in a transcendent paragraph and so on and so on.It is also worth noting that the narrator is an author, which gives Greene license to write some of the most cogent thoughts on the topic of writing itself that I have ever read.Beautiful and unforgettable, if this is your introduction to Graham Greene (as it was mine) it can only make you hungry for more.

Greene Was Always Forging The Unknown
It's amazing that Graham Greene always wrote a book like it was his first. That is also the case in this book, Greene is venturing new territory. This book tells the story of an affair with a mentally disturbed married woman, who eventually dies.

The Lurid Glow of Love
"It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his object. Philosophically considered, therefore, the two passions seem essentially the same, except that one happens to be seen in a celestial radiance and the other in a dusky and lurid glow." (Hawhtorne, Scarlett Letter Intro)

I read Hawthorne's The Scarlett Letter in high school, a book I now despise for various reasons, but that quotation and thought has always stuck with me. Seems pretty basic now. Love and hate are the same emotion. This was a groundbreaking realization for me at age 17, and I think if I had read Graham Greene's The End of the Affair earlier in my life, I'd have been knocked out. The Hawthorne quotation is the perfect passage to describe Sarah and Bendrix's affair in this novel --- we get both the celestial radiance of Bendrix and Sarah's love and the dark and lurid glow that just kind of keeps on glowing. And there's that bit about the "spiritual life" that seems to have been tailor written for End of the Affair. As our protagonist Bendrix knows, sometimes how we talk about God and religion is also how we talk about love and sex.

Greene deftly captures the passion and complexity of love: the accompanying hate and jealousy, the overwhelming sinking and drowning and questions and self-doubt/self-hate and vacillating thoughts. That frantic pace. And then there's the functional marriage of complacency that Sarah has with Henry that lurks in the background of the novel and is a tragedy in and of itself. I can't decide if Sarah staying in it is a sign of weakness and cowardice on her part or indicative of her possible saintliness(much like her decision to go with God).

I really want to interject that I love the self-loathing in this novel! Is there anything better than a character constantly writing or thinking I'm a bitch and a fake? I think not.

Greene has upped the ante with the substantial addition of God and Catholicism, miracles and possible saints. Actually, it's this religious dimension of the book and my own discomfort with it that has struck me the most.

All this inexplicable stuff happens with seeming spiritual causation and it's a bigger deal than thinking you see Jesus on your toast, so we could be witnessing genuine miracles. We're not quite sure, however, because there're a few shreds of evidence that could go the other, more logical, way. Though not the transcendental experience I'd thought this novel might be (so many ebullient reviews and a William Faulkner testimonial!), I am nonetheless forced to confront the possibility of miracles or holy coincidences or whatever you want to call them. Even the most ardent nonbeliever likes to think of the possibility of some transcendent, miraculous experience occurring, and Greene seems to sublimate that desire into this work. And the more I think of Sarah and Bendrix and Smythe et al, the more it leads me to other works (I'm remembering what I've read of Carl Jung's ideas of coincidence and synchronicity. Publishers should append some Jung to the novel).

There's also lot of thinking about materialism and the nature of God and the devil to be done while reading and I'm particularly fascinated with the idea of God as love/r and Sarah's frenetic journal ramblings where she seems to replace Bendrix with God as her lover. (I realize how absurd this sounds, but I think it goes to the tradition of female mysticism and ecstatic poetry. Nuns are brides of Christ after all, right?). It's fascinating and engrossing but admittedly a little disconcerting to witness various characters' spiritual transformations (whether small or full-blown), but I suppose that's because of my own God skepticism.

I like the meta narrative aspect of the novel, a lot. Bendrix, an up and coming writer who narrates with a film noir tone, is full of observations and asides dealing with the author's craft that are both memorable and wise. What I didn't like was the flimsiness of the characters. I'm not sure if it was purposeful restraint on Greene's part or a lack of something on mine, but despite having an intimate view of Bendrix and Sarah's mental states, I could never really see or be them and there was a palpable disconnect I felt while reading. This was my first Greene, so I had no idea what writing style I'd be dealing with but it was a bit underwhelming overall. I guess I like literary pyrotechnics more.


I`ve been humming this since I began the book --- Silence in the air/at the end of the affair/end of the run (it's just begun)." (The Rentals "Seven More Minutes") Graham Greene's slim little volume will definitely haunt you.

The Affair may have ended but not our fascination with the story
The British author Graham Greene is one of those authors who helped define the novel as an art form during the 20th Century.The span of his life, from 1904 to 1991, also enabled him to use that art form to trace the course of the changing life of Britons and of the United Kingdom across the length of that century.He was also one of those rare authors who was both good and popular and successful in his own lifetime.

These are all reasons why as a college graduate, man of the world naïf I avoided reading much of his body of work then and over the years since.I only recently picked up "The End of the Affair" because of a number of non-fiction accounts of the Second World War described the novel as a "semi-autobiographical" account of Graham Greene's own actual affair with Lady Catherine Walston, wife of a British government official.The dedication in the original editions did dedicate the book to "C" while later versions actually spelled out Catherine.

While many of Greene's works are described as taking place in a dark setting either in the criminal underworld are found right along its edge, "The End of the Affair" takes place in a much more recognizable world though no less not-normal world of Britain before, during, and after the Second World War.Its three principal characters are novelist Maurice Bendrix, his lover Sarah Miles, and Sarah's husband Miles.It is, I suspect, entirely possible for a reader to discover a preference for only one part of Greene's body of work based upon the differing themes and settings of his novels, although the appeal of his clean and disciplined writing style might be enough to carry me through just about any of his works.

As I allowed the author's prose to carry me forward, I recognized that it was exactly the sort of thing I would have rejected as unrealistic and perhaps even mawkish if I had opened it while at university or shortly after entering the working world.However, the succeeding years of personal and derived experiences told me now that in fact this was an impressively un-mawkish and realistic account of how love and its complications can affect people, their perceptions, their actions, and their interactions.(I've always wondered if in fact Face book shouldn't offer just the one option under "Relationship" of "It's Complicated" as being the most realistic and reasonable statement on human personal interactions).This is a story of love and all of its complications and how that love and those complications impact upon the lives of lovers, wives, husbands, and others.

The autobiographical aspects of the novel were very evident even from the little information I had on the author's life from the books I noted above.This added depth to the story as I could see where Greene drew directly upon his own life in presenting this story.There are some elements towards the end that clearly reflect other aspects of his own life, including his religious views, but I won't rehash these in order to avoid presenting any spoilers to a first time reader of the novel.However, I will note that these were not all as fully convincing for me personally as the presentation of the main story line, despite their relationship and contribution to that central theme.
... Read more

Product Description
In a small continental country civil war is raging. Once a lecturer in medieval French, now a confidential agent, D is a scarred stranger in a seemingly casual England, sent on a mission to buy coal at any price. Initially, this seems to be a matter of straightforward negotiation, but soon, implicated in murder, accused of possessing false documents and theft, held responsible for the death of a young woman, D becomes a hunted man, tormented by allegiances, doubts and the love of others. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Great Book
Graham Greene wrote this book in I think 1939--it is one of his best. The backdrop is The Spanish Civil War (though never mentioned) an agent for the Spanish Republic comes to England to try and buy coal--I won't giveaway the plot. Greene uses his "thriller" to explore the questions of loyalty betrayal--faith commitment revenge--a whole series of moral problems that preoccupied him the rest of his life. Though Greene is a man of the Left there are no slogans or pat answers in thi book.
He wrote it in 6 weeks while working on Brighton Rock--quite something!

A highbrow thriller and classic Greene
Here is what the author says about his novel:
"`The Confidential Agent' was written in six weeks in 1938 after my return from Mexico. The Spanish Civil War furnished the background...I was struggling then through `The Power and the Glory', but there was no money in the book as far as I could foresee. Certainly my wife and two children would not be able to live on one unsaleable book...so I determined to write another "entertainment" as quickly as possible in the mornings, while I ground on slowly with `The Power and the Glory' in the afternoons.
The opening scene between two rival agents on the cross-channel steamer--I called them D. and L. because I did not wish to localize their conflict--was all I had in mind, and a certain vague ambition to create something legendary out of a contemporary thriller: the hunted man who becomes in turn the hunter, the peaceful man who turns at bay, the man who has learned to love justice by suffering injustice. But what the legend was to be about in modern terms I had no idea.
I fell back for the first and last time in my life on Benzedrine. For six weeks I started each day with a tablet, and renewed the dose at midday. Each day I sat down to work with no idea of what turn the plot might take and each morning I wrote, with the automatism of a planchette, two thousand words instead of my usual stint of five hundred words. In the afternoons `The Power and the Glory' proceeded towards its end at the same leaden pace, unaffected by the sprightly young thing who was so quickly overtaking it.
`The Confidential Agent' is one of the few books of mine which I have cared to reread--perhaps because it is not really one of mine. It was as though I were ghosting for another man. D., the chivalrous agent and professor of Romance literature, is not really one of my characters, nor is Forbes, born Furtstein, the equally chivalrous lover. The book moved rapidly because I was not struggling with my own technical problems: I was to all intents ghosting a novel by an old writer who was to die a little before the studio in which I had worked was blown out of existence. All I can say as excuse, and in gratitude to an honoured shade, is that `The Confidential Agent' is a better than Ford Madox Ford wrote himself when he attempted the genre in `Vive Le Roy'".
From `Ways of Escape', pp.69-71

Foreign Intrigue
A foreign government has sent agent D. to England on a confidential mission, alone. D. is to buy coal at a fair price now with a bonus promised later. But the other side has sent their agent to foil D. in accomplishing his mission. The story tells about D.'s adventures on his trip to London. Greene's "subtle characterization and accomplished craftsmanship" result in a slow-paced story. It is the dialogue that moves the story along. D.'s mistake allows his enemy to search his coat and take his notebook of schedules. When he arrives at his hotel he learns of an appointment at a language school. The language teacher is his contact. D. seemed to be surrounded by enemies, or people he could not trust. D. learns of a new danger from a beggar in the street.

D. sleeps that night, then leaves to meet Lord Benditch and negotiate a sale. He meets someone on his walk there. At the meeting he found he could not complete the sale. Then things get worse: a dead body was found. The police come for D. but he manages to escape. D. changes his appearance. D. has failed at his mission; the other side made a better offer. [Greene creates a comedy from the travel of D. and K. This highlights the tragedy of this story.] K. tells what happened. D. continues to hide from the authorities.

D. travels to the coal mining town. If his side can't get the coal he will try to prevent the other side from getting it. His appeal falls short, and he must escape again. D. gets unexpected help. But D. is finally arrested and jailed. The police can't make the charges stick due to a lack of identification by eyewitnesses. D. finds he has some friends, and is released on bail. But he must be smuggled out of the country that night. The publicity over this has accomplished D.'s mission: the coal contract was canceled. There is a surprise at the ending. [Is it believable to you?]

"I don't think I shall ever feel anything again except fear"
When D., an agent from an unnamed country, presumably Spain, arrives in England on a mission to buy coal for his side in a civil war, he discovers that L., an agent for the other side, is also there for the same reason. Coal is now as valuable in his country as gold, and whoever obtains it is likely to win the war. With ambassadors, government officials, and agents constantly changing sides and selling each other out, D. is unable to trust anyone. Formerly a professor of medieval French and an expert in the Song of Roland, D.'s world has been shattered. In the past two years, his wife has been killed, and he's been buried alive, tortured, and jailed. Soon he meets an attractive, young Englishwoman, is implicated in the deaths of two people, has his credentials stolen, and ends up on the run from both the police and his own compatriots.

Published in 1939, this is one of Greene's most exciting "entertainments." A thriller of the first order, this novel also deals with big themes, not religious conflicts of his major novels, but the idea of justice, as a good man finds himself hunted for his political allegiances and learns that his own survival and that of his country depend upon his willingness to kill his enemies. A formal, courtly scholar, D. has discovered war is not glamorous, as it is in the Song of Roland, that innocent people are killed, and that survival is not a matter of divine intervention as much as it is a result of forethought and cleverness.

Told entirely from D.'s perspective, presumably the "right" perspective in Greene's mind, the reader sees D. as less heroic than he might be and the villains as less villainous. D. is well developed and realistic, however, and he wrestles with issues as his readers might. Set just before World War II, Greene here foreshadows some of the themes with which he struggles in his more contemplative novels--the nature of good and evil, man's constant struggle with guilt, the trauma of betrayal, and the fear of failure. Though there is a female love interest, Rose Cullen, the daughter of Lord Benditch, who owns the coal mines, she is neither plausible nor sufficiently thoughtful to add to the themes here. Ironies abound, and while the novel lacks the light touch and humor which make a novel like Our Man in Havana so successful, this is an exciting story which casts light on important ideas. Mary Whipple

romantic thriller
I liked the book a lot because it is a very interesting story. At the beginning it is a little bit hard to understand the plot because there are so many characters, which you do not know. Idid not really understand either what D was supposed to do. I realized it after a while and there it became really fascinating. You can feel for D and you do understand his fears and thoughts.
I only did not like the ending. I guess it is too simple. Not everything should come out this perfectly.That makes the story less dramatic and somehow untrustworthy. But I would recommend the book to anybody who likes agent stories with a romantic happy ending. ... Read more

Product Description
Greene's account of a five year personal involvement with Omar Torrijos, ruler of Panama from 1968-81 and Sergeant Chuchu, one of the few men in the National Guard whom the General trusted completely. It is a fascinating tribute to an inspirational politician in the vital period of his country's history, and to an unusual and enduring friendship. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Graham Greene's adventures in Panama
This must be one to the most exciting books i have read. I was looking for a book specifically about Omar Torrijos, about who he was and what he did. The book gave me plenty of the character as seen by Graham Greene, his dear friend, but it really was mostly about the adventures that Graham had in Panama. He talks about how he was travelling the country with "Chuchu" (José de Jesús Martínez), who was probably the most trusted friend of the General. Graham gives us insight into how his friendship with the General developed and how he began to admire his cause and understand his desperate situation in Panama. The glimpses of the General sometimes seem too short, but the character described and the stories told about his savior actions towards many refugees and political exiles in South America leaves nothing but admiration for this man.
There is a lot of political thoughts from Graham given on the situation in South America, and he seems to have know a lot of powerful figures in that area. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in a short look at Omar Torrijos and the political situation in Central America during the late 70s and early 80s. The adventures of Graham are not to be missed, often quite comical and interesting. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Two stunning novellas
The two short novels in this book are Graham Greene's two Cold-War thrillers.
In No Man's Land the main themes are security measures taken by the Russians against information on the uranium workings on the Czech-Austrian border and a kind of Teresa Neumann character who attracts religious pilgrims from outside the area. Actually Greene later changed that aspect of the story in favour of a visitation from the Virgin Mary herself, who appears, holding a rose, to two children, in an area that had recently come under the control of the Russian occupying forces in the Harz mountains. Greene wanted to exploit the recent uranium discoveries at Eisleben in the Soviet zone.
In both stories the personal and political are entwined. Then Stranger'sHand features the plight of an eight-year boy, Roger Court, who is posted like a parcel by his aunt to a strange city, Venice, to meet a long-absent father who fails to turn up. Greene writes memorably about an alienated childhood and the rituals with which the boy seeks to distract himself, the improvised game of cricket, and the moments when his courage and self-control suddenly give way to helpless tears, are beautifully judged. Here again the background is Cold War espionage and intrigue so that the confrontation across the frontiers of disputed territory serves as a metaphor for moral and emotional disconnection. ... Read more

Product Description
A selection of previously uncollected reports about what Graham Greene saw on his travels. The articles span seven decades and encompass interests at home and abroad. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Great Writer's Lifetime of Great Writings
I can't recommend this treasure enough. Far livelier and more directly relevant to his novels than Greene's Collected Essays. If you like Graham Greene the novelist or short story writer, don't overlook Greene the essayist and journalist.This book collects 73 of his writings dating from 1923-1988, running to 325 pages.The writings here show some of the raw material that Greene used for his two autobiographical works and some of his novels (espcially The Quiet American (Vietnam), Our Man in Havana (Cuba), The Comedians (Haiti), and Travels With My Aunt (Paraguay)).One truly gets a sense of Greene the world traveller.This book collects a vast array of his travels, covering everything from his college days when he went disquised as a barrel-organing bum to his hometown, early days of the Irish Free State, two essays on post-WWI French-occupied Germany, seven essays tied to French Indochina, two essays on Cuba, Poland, Berlin, Haiti, Portuguese/Indian Goa, Paraquay, Chile, and the Soviet Union. The essays on film are brillant expositions of his thoughts on what makes a great film.I have only one complaint: they didn't include more!I really wish this included his "Kenya as I See It" journalist effort in 1953 on the Mau-Mau uprising in Kenya. Most of these pieces may be short but they aren't short on revealing what makes Greene such a powerful writer, whether he writes on people, places, or anything else. He says so very much with a few words and phrases. Only a very, very few writers can compare with his ability to bring places and people to life for readers. ... Read more

Product Description
Drawing on his private world of dreams, the author of The Power and the Glory provides readers with an inner glimpse at the fantasy life that he considered integral to his creative expression. 10,000 first printing. National ad/promo. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Some Worlds More Interesting Than Others
This book is a good example as to why most people care so little to listen to friends talking about their dreams: dreams are so specific in time and place to the dreamer that they only come alive in the dreamer's mind.Greene's accounts usually consist mostly of the raw details about the dream (the who, what, and where), but provide few vivid details that might bring the characters or events alive to the reader.This very short book, only about 120 pages of total text in somewhat large print, was published in 1992, the year after Greene died in 1991. His friend and publisher Max Reinhardt was starting a new imprint and Greene offered this minor work up for his friend.Greene states the book is extracted from more than 800 pages of dream diaries he kept from 1965 through 1989.Unfortunately this work covers the second half of Greene's lengthy writing career, from the period after his earlier great works. Most of the dreams discussed are in very short paragraphs and few run more than a page.While some dreams have short introductions, most don't. The book suffers greatly since we don't know the date of each dream.Greene choose to organize them by subject (e.g., War, Religion, Travel) rather than chronologically. If only he would have had a date with each dream and a brief introduction giving some idea as to why he choose the specific dream out of all the material.While Greene claimed to use dream material in his writings, so few of these dreams have direct relevance to anything he wrote in his later years.Only a few are directly mentioned or specifically shown as having been used in his writings. Few reveal much about the inner Greene. The best thing about the book is his six-page introduction which discusses the real world in relation to the dream world and vice versa. Greene's imagination and his life are far better on display in his novels and short stories. ... Read more

Product Description
Raven is an ugly man dedicated to ugly deeds. His cold-blooded killing of a European Minister of War is an act of violence with chilling repercussions, not just for Raven himself but for the nation as a whole. The money he receives in payment for the murder is made up of stolen notes. When the first of these is traced, Raven is a man on the run. As he tracks down the agent who has been double-crossing him and attempts to elude the police, he becomes both hunter and hunted: an unwitting weapon of a strange kind of social justice. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

A major masterpiece disguised as genre, not a minor novel at all.
"A Gun for Sale" is a study like a nested Russian Doll: of duality, of an evil act, of revenge, of abuse, of evil visited upon you and created by you. It is most comparable with Conrad's "Secret Sharer" and is obviously a major influence on Le Carre's "Smiley's People."

The plot follows assassin Raven who is like the Peter Lorre character in "M": a misshapen monster driven by a perverse need. But Greene's thesis with Raven is some characters extend sympathy to him because of his inalible humanity. Following his latest assassination of a top political figure who is the key to a major decision to go to war, Raven is befriended by Anne, engaged to Police detective Mather, who has been given the case of hunting for Raven. Anne is sympathetic to Raven on the surface, but narrates her own internal doubts when he kidnaps her as a shield. She is torn not so much in her attachments as in her offering of her charity to Raven, a stark contrast to her fidelity to her straight ahead law-and-order black and white fiancée Mather. Raven's dark complexity attracts her dormant need to shed a little light and make the world incrementally better as Europe is hunched on the brink of chaos and war.

Perhaps the most overlooked and subtlest of themes is that for the first time Greene introduces a shadowy conspiracy that smacks of Judeo-Masonic proportions. Thankfully it is only a literary device and not some full-on paranoid screed, but it is subtly there nonetheless. An industrialist of obscure background and immense power is reveled to be the money behind the political assassination, and Raven is on his trail as he chases the reprobates' bagman back to his lair to seek revenge for his being cheated on his fee. The Svengali then moves all his pieces against Raven, which includes corrupt politicians, the Masonic lodge members, and local police: but in an attempt to silence Raven and hide the conspiracy rather than a reversal of his decision to assassinate an old fiend. War is lucrative for his industry.

The setting is England's (then) bleak industrial north, and Greene does not hesitate to use fog, smoke, clouds, rain, and the incessant dreary grays of the entire landscape to color his narrative as occurring at a twilight between good and evil.

Greene's prose is lean, his descriptions are sketches that reveal worlds, and his characters are rich from only snatches of dialogue, small gestures, and descriptions of their superficially banal inner reflections. The sort of reflections anyone goes through on a daily basis. But it is from this thin tapestry that a world of moral choice is created and we shudder as we see ourselves in the mirror. True literature.

A major masterpiece disguised as genre, not a minor novel at all.

A parable?
On the face of it, A Gun For Sale by Graham Greene is a genre thriller, featuring a crime committed by a confessed and declared villain, followed by a police pursuit. In the hands of a great writer, however, even clichés such as this can be transformed into thoroughly satisfying novels.

First published in 1936, A Gun For Sale is set in a Europe over which war looms constantly and threateningly, casting a shadow of fear and even depression over all human interaction. Graham Greene appears to use this context to allow the book to make a significant, yet very subtle point, an assertion that conflicts, even grand conflicts like wars, are pursued by interests, instigated by an intention to profit. The grander the conflict, the greater the potential gain. As individuals vie for influence, prominence, control and dominance, so do societies, groups, companies, even countries. And some of the protagonists play dirty, rarely receiving the comeuppance of justice. When they do, we are gratified, sensing the same rightness that a happy ending might provoke.

A Gun For Sale has several important characters, more than a review can list. Raven is the first we meet, the blackness of his name immediately suggesting a functionality for the plot, for he is the anti-hero, the hired gun who completes the bloody assignment in the book's first pages. Hare-lipped and ever resentful of his disfigurement, both physical and, as a result of a painful upbringing, psychological, he suggests a figure that the reader might be invited to despise, perhaps a pantomime bogeyman of genre fiction, always accompanied by a threatening, trademark fanfare.

But Graham Greene is not that mundane a writer. We eventually come to know Raven well. Though we are never actually invited to like him, we eventually sympathise with his plight, if only by virtue of the fact that there are some apparent social heroes who in reality are a darned sight more deserving of our contempt. Raven is double-crossed and sets out to track down the perpetrator of his humiliation.

Raven leaves a trail and a policeman, Mather, takes up the pursuit. By chance Mather's girlfriend, Anne, boards the same train as Raven from London to Nottwich, an industrial town were she will appear in the chorus line of a pantomime. Raven and Anne meet and, viewed from the distance of the pursuer, become accomplices.

Mather's fellow copper, Sanders, is an interesting foil to Raven. Both are disfigured. Raven's problem is with appearance and he yearns to be rid of the hare-lip that disfigures his face, a disfigurement that Anne plays down, thus engendering his trust. The policeman Sanders, on the other hand, stammers. He is quick of wit, but not of voice, and is aware that his impediment has cost him promotion.

Mr Davis, also known as Cholmondley, amongst other things, is the greasy lackey employed by Sir Marcus. The latter is an industrialist, owner of a steelworks in Nottwich, a business that has seen better times. Mr Davis is a right cad, regarding theatre girls as fair game, regularly picking them up and persuading them into the grubby room he rents from a truly surreal couple in order to protect his reputation. The freemason Sir Marcus is barely clinging to life, but he retains sufficient pride, or malice, perhaps, to inflict untold suffering on others, merely to retain his own status in a future he does not have.

And so Raven pursues Cholmondley, who answers to Marcus. Mather and Saunders pursue Raven, and Anne seems to be on everyone's side. And it all works out.

But Graham Greene does much more than tell a tale. Through simple language and structure, and via a plot that would grace a b-movie at best, he penetrates his characters' psyches, locates them in social class and history, and manages with a deft lightness of touch to convey a remarkably strong sense of place, setting and context. Through his simply constructed prose, we see people, places and events from a multiplicity of perspectives and are left with a complexity of associations with every character. And that, precisely, is why cliché is left far behind.

Should be considered major
Mine is clearly a minority opinion, but I think this novel is actually more complex and interesting than many other critics and readers do.I remember first reading it in a college British literature class and finding Greene's juxtaposition of a typical crime novel, the backdrop of international intrigue and the paranoia conspiracy of traitors everywhere, Raven's disfigurement, and what was for me a very moving relationship between Raven and Anne a wonderful and engaging read.I just reread it for a critical study I've been doing and, while I agree there are holes in the plot, I'm not sure they are anymore distracting than the series of coincidences that drive Brighton Rock.I read BR recently also, for the first time, and I see why critics rate it higher--the psycho-sexual pathology of Pinkie, the moral-religious issues of his "Roman" identity, but I have to say I find lonely Raven a more memorable character in many respects.

unlikely noir thriller
Murder didn't mean much to Raven.It was just a new job.You had to be careful.You had to use your brains.It was not a question of hatred.He had only seen the minister once : he had been pointed out to Raven as he walked down the new housing estate between the little lit Christmas trees--an old rather grubby man without any friends, who was said to love humanity. -Graham Greene, This Gun for Hire

Raven is a hired killer with a harelip.His profession and his deformity combine to give him a passionfor privacy.But when he's hired to kill a socialist minister who's active in the peace movement andends up also shooting an elderly woman from his household staff too, he's suddenly one of the mostsought after men in England.And when the man who hired him, Mr. Cholmondeley, pays him off incounterfeit notes, he becomes an easy man to track.In addition, his strong sense of professional ethicslead him to try and find Cholmondeley and whoever's behind him, rather than simply hiding out.

Through a circuitous set of circumstances, Raven is helped in his search by a young woman, Anne,whose boyfriend just happens to be the lead detective on his case.She recognizes how dangerousRaven is, but feels sorry for him and, with Europe sliding into war, thinks she can use him to strikeback at the shadowy forces who wanted the peace loving minister dead.

Though it lacks the universal moral tension of some of Greene's better work, this is an entertainingnoir thriller.The plot depends on a few too many fortuitous twists, but if you take it in the spirit ofsay The 39 Steps or a Hitchcock movie, the implausabilities aren't unbearable.Perhaps the mostinteresting reading of the book is as a forecast of the central ethical dilemma of WWII.Think ofRaven as the USSR and of Anne as the Allies.She accepts Raven out of sympathy for his physical andspiritual deformities and assumes that he, despite his amorality, can be twisted to serve her own noblepurposes.In the end, a lot of folks die as a result of her naiveté.

GRADE : B-

Flawed, but frequently sensational early Greene.
'A gun for sale' is considered a minor Graham Greene work, two years before his acknowledged first masterpiece, 'Brighton Rock'.Admittedly, the book is hugely flawed - the plot becomes increasingly implausible; the dialogue is sometimes false; the characterisation, especially in the central relationship between Raven the runaway hitman and Anne, sometimes doesn't quite ring true.But there is so much that is excellent - the mixture of dusty, fish and chips realism with almost whimsical fantasy, precise detail clashing with a nightmare-world of physical grotesques; the brilliant control of language, in which a deliberately limited vocabulary is used to imprison characters ina social and implicitely metaphsical destiny.The first half is a superb, almost intolerably nerve-wracking, thriller, and the second, as Raven seeks revenge during a practice gas raid, is dottily surreal.The allusions to fairy tales, history , poetry, popular music, drama, philosophy etc. open the book from its generic base, and makes it infinitely richer than it first appears.It should be read anyway by anyone who loves the cinema of Jean-Pierre Melville, who based his masterpiece 'Le Samourai' on it.A flawed, yet fascinating work. ... Read more

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A novel and a film of suspense: When Carol Reed asked Graham Greene for a script for a suspense movie, in order not to change his work methods, the writer wrote a short novel where he developed the subject of the picture. This film, of course, is one of the greatest in the field, but the novel of Greene is also very interesting and is presented with great pride. ... Read more

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with Photos ... Read more

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GREENE HATED MOVIES OF HIS OWN BOOKS
Graham Greene had no tolerance for film versions of his novels, and he particularly hated American-produced movies of his work.One of his least favorite was THE QUIET AMERICAN, in which he feuded with director JoeMankiewicz for the remainder of their lives.Now a new book recounts themovie's filming in Vietnam and the conflicts with the author.See ATHINKER'S DAMN: AUDIE MURPHY, VIETNAM, AND THE MAKING OF THE QUIET AMERICANby William Russo.It's a great inside peek at movie making and GrahamGreene. ... Read more

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Peter and his fearful twin brother Francis attend a birthday party which ends in tragedy. ... Read more

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Luck seems to have eluded Betram altogether. He doesn't even believe in chance. But when his wedding plans are moved to Monte Carlo, he is drawn to the Casino and is seduced by good fortune. A Miramax film starring Robert Lindsay and Molly Ringwald. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Quick and Fun
This slight Graham Greene novel is really more of a long short story--I read virtually the entire thing on a two-hour flight to New York City. But Greene is still able to infuse his story and characters with the moral significance that infuses all of his work. What happens in this novel really seems to *matter* in a way that it wouldn't in the hands of another author. Greene was great at making the most innocuous of situations feel full of portent; it's as if the character's moral fate will be decide once and for all by whether or not they take that last trip to the gaming table, or have that last drink, or go through with that meaningless one-night stand. It's this quality of Greene's that make his "entertainments" so satifsying to literature lovers: they have all of the attributes of the most thrilling page-turner, but the reader doesn't have to feel like he needs to sacrifice a love for style and substance in order to enjoy it.

Not one of Greene's most profound works, but very entertaining.

Clever Story
Obviously Graham Greene is a great storyteller. There's a lot of sarcasm in his writing, which I love. This is about a mediocre accountant, Bertram, marrying for the second time to a women much younger than himself. They are both stranded in Monte Carlo, and much to his new wife's chagrin, he becomes obsessed with a gambling system which starts to work for him. "Loser Takes All" has a good twist at the end. Actually, I was surprised by the end of this book, not only by what happened, but how the tone seemed to change completely. I fully expected something different.

Maybe the story itself didn't interest me all that much. I wouldn't say it was fantastic or anything. It was all right. Still, this was the first Graham Greene book I've read, and I'm sure it won't be the last.

A Clever Thought Experiment
Graham Greene's 1955 novella, "Loser Takes All," is a clever thought experiment in which love, morality, and ethics are all brought to bear on the early days of a married relationship.One of Greene's most appealing moves in the book is his delineation of character.The people who populate the novella are character types struggling to become characters - to find individuality and meaning in a world whose sole virtue seems to be money.

"Loser Takes All" begins in Monte Carlo.An English couple, Bertram, a fortyish accountant with a dead end career; and Cary, his twentyish fiance are on the verge of marriage - but they've been sidetracked.Initially planning on a small church service, Bertram is called into a meeting with his abstracted and unapproachable boss, Dreuther.Although Bertram isn't well-off, Dreuther talks him into moving his marriage plans to Monte Carlo, where Dreuther will rendezvous with them, and bring them back to England on his yacht.The action of the novella shows how this change of plans affects absolutely everything in Bertram and Cary's lives.

This is a short work, but it is packed with important and compelling themes.Greene was an absolute craftsman of language and situation, and the major themes that his longer works explore are found even in this short entertainment.Human relationships are central to the novella - the central relationship between Bertram and Cary is affected by Bertram's relationship with Dreuther, Dreuther's with 'another' of the firm's shareholders, Blixon.Greene asks how sympathies are constructed and maintained in good times and in bad.

Money and chance are also extremely important to the overarching theme of gambling and roulette.Characters like Bertram and character types like Phillippe and Bird's Nest illustrate the tensions in viewing life's progression as a matter of necessity or one of chance.Again, "Loser Takes All" is a short work, and is valuable as a kind of synopsis of the issues Greene's impressive literary corpus consistently engages with.The three star rating is because, in the context of Greene's body of work alone, "Loser Takes All" is a good piece, but not a great one. ... Read more

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Radio script adaption of Graham Greene's famous novel. ... Read more

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Just in Time for Harry Lime!
The Third Man is a radio script for a story set in Austria's capital city Vienna, devastated and recovering from the Second World War, which is divided into four separate zones, each governed by one of the victorious Allies, and a jointly-administered international zone. American pulp Western author Holly Martins arrives seeking an old friend, Harry Lime, who has offered him the opportunity to work with him in Vienna.What follows is one of the best thrillers of the post-war period. ... Read more

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With a new introduction by Zadie Smith

Into the intrigue and violence of Indo-China comes Pyle, a young idealistic American sent to promote democracy through a mysterious “Third Force.” As his naïve optimism starts to cause bloodshed, his friend Fowler, a cynical foreign correspondent, finds it hard to stand aside and watch. But even as he intervenes he wonders why: for the sake of politics, or for love? ... Read more

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greene classic
A classic whose truth seems not to fade:
"I hope to God you know what you are doing here. Oh, I know your motives are good, they always are... I wish sometimes you had a few bad motives, you might understand a little more about human beings. And that applies to your country too, Pyle."

This Vintage edition has an introduction by Zadie Smith: "There is no real way to be good in Greene, there are simply a million ways to be more or less bad."

There is a very good movie adaptation of this book with Michael Caine playing Fowler.The Quiet American ... Read more

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"One mustn't have human affections--or rather one must love every soul as if it were one's own child."
(4.5 stars) Graham Greene's most elaborate and personal examination of the good life--and the role of the Catholic church in teaching what the good life is--revolves around an unnamed "whiskey priest" in Mexico in the 1930s. Religious persecution is rife as secular rulers, wanting to bring about social change, blame the church for the country's ills. When the novel opens, the church, its priests, and all its symbols have been banned for the past eight years from a state near Veracruz. Priests have been expelled, murdered, or forced to renounce their callings. The whiskey priest, however, has stayed, bringing whatever solace he can to the poor who need him, while at the same time finding solace himself in the bottle.

Constantly on the move, the priest suffers agonizing conflicts. His sense of guilt for the past includes a brief romantic interlude which has produced a child, and though he recognizes that he is often weak, selfish, and fearful, he still tries to bring comfort to the faithful. Pursued by a police lieutenant who believes that justice for all can only occur if the church is destroyed, and by a mestizo, who is seeking the substantial reward for turning him in, the desperate priest finally decides to escape to a nearby state in which religion is not banned so that the police will stop killing hostages taken in the villages he has visited.

The police pursuit of the priest is paralleled by their pursuit of a "gringo" murderer, a man so base that he thinks nothing of murdering children, yet the priest even sees value in this man's life, and when the gringo, the mestizo, the lieutenant, and the priest finally come together, Greene's philosophical and religious analysis reaches its climax. For all their faults, the priest is often heroic, the murdering gringo still has a soul worth saving, the mestizo (a Judas figure) offers the priest a better chance to see God, and the lieutenant eventually sees the priest as a human, not simply as a symbol.

Greene's novel is beautifully constructed--intricate, filled with symbols and parallels, yet often sensitive and moving. Though the action moves through an almost unremittingly bleak landscape and the sense of dread is positively palpable throughout, the novel eventually reveals the "power" and the "glory" of faith. In this sense, the novel is as much a philosophical and religious tract--specifically an examination of the Catholic faith--as it is a human story. While some may find the novel dogmatic and the priest's agonized self-examination sometimes tedious, others will find the novel uplifting and inspiring. n Mary Whipple

The Third Man
Our Man in Havana: An Entertainment (Twentieth Century Classics)
The Human Factor (Everyman's Library Classics)
Complete Short Stories (Penguin Classics)

... Read more

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First published in 1980, Graham Greene retraces the experiences and encounters of his long and extraordinary life. His restlessness is legendary, he has travelled like an explorer seeking out people and political situations at the dangerous edge of things. He writes about people and places, faith, doubt, fear and the trials and crafts of writing. ... Read more

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Meandering but interesting
I'd have to agree with another reviewer who characterized this as "odd." Greene was apparently writing this in his 70s, and the prose isn't always as pellucid as one would wish. His writing career spanned roughly 1930 to 1980, and in spite of my cavil on the datedness of his style he is unarguably a major 20th century literary figure. (Apparently there's a huge 3-volume biography on him available.)
The essays really meander between the struggles he underwent in writing, his travels, his impressions of the political problems on the ground in Malaysia, Haiti, Vietnam and Cube between WWII and the 1970s.
It's full of juicy anecdotes, including his mixed experiences with Hollywood trying to bring some of his work to film. If you've enjoyed some of his novels (which, sadly, are dated as to style now, inevitably), you should pick this up from the library or a used book store and get some background on Greene's demons and motivations...

Odd,
because this book leaves me feeling that he felt his life was unreal and his fiction was real.

He lived in boredom punctuated by terror--manic/depressive, opium smoking, Russian roulette playing, suicidal.

Was he a spy, even after he left the Foreign Office?Was writing his cover for travel?Does boredom fully explain his uncanny knack for being in troubled places in troubled times?

No matter.He was a great stylist and craftsman.This autobiography (along with "A Sort of Life") is worth reading for his methods as a novelist and for portraits of friends, such as Waugh and Herbert Reed. ... Read more

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Not Just a good novelist
Greene is a master of the short essay.He's a particularly good bookreviewer, with tastes ranging from Rider Haggard to Henry James.He is, infact, particularly fine on James, which is somewhat surprising, since atfirst glance they wouldn't seem to have much in common.They both,however, were deeply concerned with the craft of fiction, and it is thatinterest in craftmanship, more so than Greene's political or religiousviews,which dominates these essays. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Sort of Dull
Graham Greene mentions that the title was inspired by the fact that he has spent as much time in the world of writing and his characters as he has in real life. Why this was a recommended memoir in a 'best book' anthology is beyond me, except that it is short and eschews the long-winded reflections of some writers who feel compelled to describe every detail of their lives. This volue traces the author's life to about the age of 29 or so, after publication of his first novel. This was not a particular upbeat period in his life; the book sold about 2,500 copies and he still needed a day job. The style, like Greene's novelistic style is pithy, precise, and literary.If you like books that are heavy on the inner life but without much outer life, you might like this meditation on finding your own way with little help.

Sort of GOOD Life
Glossed over some years quickly but on the whole entertaining.Do I believe the Russian roulette episode, I don't know but then again Greene was one of the foremost novelists of the last century. recommend all of his books as they are true fiction best on real life.

psychological non-thriller
My main complaint with this book is that a depressed author does not write a stimulating biography.When all instances in the time period covered by the book are downplayed, the reader loses a sense of what is important.Graham Greene's experimentation with Russian roulette, and a flirtation with foreign espionage are told in an attitude that makes it difficult to sense its importance. Was his spy work unimportant, or was it Greene's ho-hum attitude toward spying coming through.The tint of boredom and failure extends over every aspect of his very fortunate and privileged life.An Oxford education, career editor on the London times, courtship, marriage and a religious convert to Catholicism all seem to be performed robotically without any passion.It definitely is an apt title.The book really does stop short in his career as a successful author.I am unfamiliar with his later writings, but this book mentions the fact that he feels alive when traveling throughout the world's danger spots.In this autobiography, Greene mentioned in later years he would cover a local insurrection in Mexico, and viewed first hand the troubled years in Vietnam, Liberia and the Mau-Mau insurrection. I would rather have skipped this book and read his later works about his experiences.I would recommend this book only to someone interested in the psychological background of Graham Greene.

Litotes
is for the empowered; the powerless use hyperbole. Aristocratic Greene understates. He promises, in his introduction, to relate the events of his life with emotions he felt at the time without irony, but his detatchment to events in his own life makes it impossible for him to keep his pledge.Irony is his lens on the world, and he must see through it, darkly, or grope blindly. Pain comes through--the pain of childhood, pain of attending school where his father was headmaster, pain of academic boredom long after he'd outgrown it, pain of rootlessness, many failures--as if he were betrayed by experience itself. His writing, in his two autobiographies, shows the craftsmanship that made him famous, but fails to sparkle like the prose in his fiction, as if he were off-duty. He seems to have embraced Catholicism for the same reason Wordsworth wrote sonnets, for form; it doesn't seem to have been a passion, but perhaps it would have been bad form to say so. Worth reading for insights into his friendships and characters.

Understated and highly readable!
Greene is a master of understatment and restraint. This book is a lovely if self-effacing coming-of-literary-age memoir that is fun and reader friendly. It's invaluable for its precious glimpses into the vanished world of the 10's and 20's England. Full of curious detail too: I didn't know that Greene was related to R.L. Stevenson for example. The book ends just around the time of his first literary success. I don't know if there are any further memoirs but I wouldn't mind reading them. ... Read more

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One of the undisputed masters of English prose in the twentieth century, Graham Greene (1904-91) wrote tens of thousands of personal letters. This substantial volume presents a new and engrossing account of his life constructed out of his own words. Meticulously chosen and engagingly annotated, this selection of Greene's letters - including many to his family and close friends that were unavailable even to his official biographer - gives an entirely new perspective on a life that combined literary achievement, political action, espionage, travel, and romantic entanglement. The letters describe his travels in Mexico, Africa, Malaya, Vietnam, Haiti, Cuba and other trouble spots, where he observed the struggles of victims and victors with a compassionate and truthful eye. The book includes a vast number of unpublished letters to Evelyn Waugh, Auberon Waugh, Anthony Powell, Edith Sitwell, R. K. Narayan, Muriel Spark and other leading writers of the time. Some letters reveal the agonies of his romantic life, especially his relations with his wife, Vivien Greene, and with his mistress Catherine Walston. The sheer range of experience contained in Greene's correspondence defies comparison. ... Read more