|  |
Our Man in Havana: An Entertainment (1958)
by Graham Greene
220 pages - Penguin Books
"We should all be clowns, Milly. Don't ever learn from experience." (pg.32) Wormold is an englishman working as a vacuum cleaner salesman in pre-revolutionary Cuba. His wife left him some time ago, and the demands of his 17-year-old daughter make it easy for Wormold to accept a job with the British secret service when it is offered. He has no intention of doing any real intelligence work, and just creates enough information to keep his superiors satisfied. He soon realizes that the more agents he has under him, the more money he will receive, and so he invents a whole team of sub-agents that report to him. Wormold also copies out vacuum cleaner schematics and sends them off claiming they are secret installations being built by the Cuban government. Things go relatively well until other secret services intercept his reports and believe them as well, placing Wormold and those he loves in the middle of a deadly fight for power. I loved the concept of the plot, and though near the end it lost some of its steam, it was still a pleasant read. And I think it makes a good point about how nations rely on intelligence from the shadiest sources, backed up by very limited proof. It is known that Graham Greene did some intelligence work himself, and some claim that he was actually a life-long agent of the British secret service, and that his remarkable career as a critically acclaimed and bestselling author was merely a cover for his work as a spy. 'Wormold said to himself, At least if I could kill him, I would kill for a clean reason. I would kill to show that you can't kill without being killed in your turn. I wouldn't kill for my country. I wouldn't kill for capitalism or Communism or social democracy or the welfare state - whose welfare? I would kill Carter because he killed Hasselbacher. A family-feud had been a better reason for murder than patriotism or the preference for one economic system over another. If I love or if I hate, let me love or hate as an individual. I will not be 59200/5 in anyone's global war. (pg.186)
1 Comment | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
The Ministry of Fear: An Entertainment (1943)
by Graham Greene
237 pages - Penguin Books
Arthur Rowe is living in London during the Blitz of World War II, unfit for the army, unwilling to search for work, and with a dishonourable past that prevents volunteering. Rowe poisoned his ill wife to death before the war started, though he spent minimal time in jail as he was granted a light sentence for 'mercy killing'; and the guilt for this is something he still carries around. When he stops by a charity fair and wins a cake, he suddenly finds shadowy characters wanting the cake back, and he eventually gets framed for a murder so that he is on the run both from the police and Nazi sympathizers.
'But it is impossible to go through life without trust: that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself. For more than a year now Rowe had been so imprisoned - there had been no change of cell, no exercise-yard, no unfamiliar warder to break the monotony of solitary confinement. A moment comes to a man when a prison break must be made whatever the risk. Now he cautiously tried for freedom.' (pg.46) This is a really taught, gripping page-turner of a thriller, though about halfway through the book the pace shifts slightly away from the 'man on the run' plot, which slows things down a bit. Greene labelled this as one of his 'Entertainments', which meant he didn't consider it as serious as his other works; but though it's got a lot of action and intrigue, there's also some thoughtful moments, and Greene's prose style is top-notch, as always. Seeing as this was written during the war, there is a touch of 'propaganda' to it, but it's not simplistic. It certainly entertained. 'A phrase of Johns's came back to mind about a Ministry of Fear. He felt now that he had joined in the permanent staff. But it wasn't the small Ministry to which Johns had referred, with limited aims like winning a war or changing a constitution. It was a Ministry as large as life to which all who loved belonged. If one loved one feared.' (pg.236)
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
|
The Heart of the Matter (1948)
by Graham Greene
272 pages - Penguin Books
Scobie is an Englishman who is working as a police officer in a West African colony during World War II. His wife is with him also, though she often complains of the conditions, which affect her physical and mental health. Scobie makes a deal with one of the black-marketers to borrow some money to send his wife on vacation to South Africa, but soon after she leaves he becomes involved with a young widow that arrives in town; the survivor of a sunken ship. As the novel moves on Scobie's life spirals further and further downwards as he compromises both professional and personal standards.
The best thing I can say about this book is that it's very well written. However, it is also an opportunity for Greene to just go completely overboard with his bleak and dour view of the world. It's just all unremitting misery and hopelessness, and I as I was reading I kept wondering that what Greene needed most of all was just some vitamin shots and a walk in the park. Also, like a lot of writers who have converted to Catholicism, at times the inclusion of religion seems very forced. Additionally, it's viewed from a very technical and categorical viewpoint, as if it was all a game of hopscotch or the lease for a car, and life is something to get around if you just follow the right schedule.
( Regarding the ending - spoilers )
I guess I have a love-hate thing with Greene. Some of his books have been wonderful, but any time I'm considering picking one up to read, it's like there's a cold and clammy miasma that just hovers around it.
2 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
The Comedians (1966)
by Graham Greene
287 pages - Penguin
This novel begins with some travellers meeting up on a ship bound for Port-au-Prince, Haiti, during the 'Papa Doc' Duvalier dictatorship. The narrator is Mr. Brown, who has inherited a resort hotel in Haiti from his mother (with whom he had a distant relationship), and is returning after he has been unable to find a buyer for the property in America. Mr. Jones, who likes to be called Major Jones, presents himself as an intrepid war hero, though the actual impression he makes on people is that of a desperate con-man. Mr. Smith has run for President of the USA as a fringe candidate, and along with his wife, Mrs. Smith, is planning on opening a vegetarian centre.
The prospect of a story set in the nightmare that Haiti had become, with the Tontons Macoute a sinister, ever-present threat, is certainly promising - but it never delivers. There are affairs, deaths, confrontations, arguments; but never anything that becomes genuine drama that would propel the narrative forward. I think the main reason for this is that Mr. Brown, the narrator, is one of the 'comedians' of the title - an uncommitted actor who is cynical and passive and unengaged. A main character that starts off detached and jaded is nothing new for Greene, but here I never suspected that there was ever any sort of inner awakening or conviction for any of Brown's actions; even when he risks his life helping insurgents it is out of petty jealousy and a desperation that the married woman he is having an affair with be faithful only to him. The characters of Mr. & Mrs. Smith also seem to be excessive, a parody of liberal-minded crusading vegetarians from the upper classes that can't imagine that a dark-skinned person could ever make an immoral choice -- it's just far too broadly drawn to have much impact.
In a piece of writing that sticks out awkwardly, Greene (again?) lets a priest in the last few pages of the book articulate his own personal moral of the story. I do actually like stories with morals, and authors that genuinely believe that they actually might have a positive effect on their readers, but when it's such a shift from the rest of the book it feels lazy and heavy-handed: "The Church condemns violence, but it condemns indifference even more harshly. Violence can be the expression of love, indifference never. One is an imperfection of charity, the other the perfection of egoism." (pg. 283)
edited to add: Oh, there was also quite an interesting brief sequence which took place during a voodoo ceremony, which was quite complimentary to the one portrayed in I Walked With a Zombie, except for being more explicit in terms of Catholic imagery and animal sacrifice.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
The Quiet American (1955)
by Graham Greene
189 pages - Penguin
Another in the seemingly endless series of masterful novels by Greene written in the 'trouble spots' of the world, this takes place in Vietnam when it was still mostly a war of the French against the Communists. The narrator Fowler is a jaded and cynical reporter for an English newspaper, who finds wartime Vietnam the most comfortable spot in the world, where he can be neutral and unengaged, as he keeps telling everyone he is. He just needs to drift along with the government-sponsored tours and news conferences, and any genuine news he can uncover is either censored going out of the country or ignored by the editors back home. Pyle, a young American, is a new arrival to Indo-China, full of concepts and theories learnt from books. He's quietly working to fund a "third force" that will fight against the Communists without having the colonial baggage of a country like France. Both men desire Phuong, a young Vietnamese woman, though she is mostly there to reveal the personal sides of the two main characters, and remains a mystery herself.
This novel was eminently readable. Possibly the only complaint I have is that there wasn't a lot of urgency to the narrative, though it still flowed along well because of the exceptional writing. I used to think Greene was kind of a dull writer, but now I'm beginning to think maybe he's just incredibly subtle, because there are subtexts I start to notice when I'm really engaged in the story, but they exist so gracefully that I'm not sure if they're deliberate or just something I'm reading into events all by myself. The ending comes as quite a shock, and what's started as a jaded and detached narrative becomes as engaged and involved as it can possibly be, when the decision that has been taken by Fowler is revealed.
This book's not very flashy or overwrought, and it's quite short, but it not only deals so well with so many of the issues of Vietnam (including foreshadowing what was to come after its publication), but addresses many universal issues of war, global politics, and personal relations. For such an astute and prescient book about politics, I actually think it's even stronger dealing with human relationships and the personal inner world.
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
Brighton Rock (1938)
by Graham Greene
247 pages - Penguin
Hale is a newspaperman on assignment in the English seaside resort of Brighton, and he is about to be hunted down and killed by a gang for his role as an informant. Pinkie, seventeen years old, is the vicious leader of the small-time gang now that the old leader, Kite, has been killed by the henchmen of Colleoni, a well-to-do gangster who is trying to monopolize the extortion and protection activity around the town's race track. Before he is killed Hale spends an hour with an easy-going woman named Ida, who becomes suspicious after his death and begins her own investigation, even though the inquest calls it death by natural causes. A sixteen-year-old poverty-stricken waitress named Rose has witnessed something that could pin the crime on Pinkie's gang, and Pinkie courts her and eventually proposes marriage even though he despises her, because a wife can't be called to testify against her consent. As Ida keeps up her amateurish but effective investigation, Pinkie sees new threats everywhere he looks and realizes he needs to keep on killing, especially those closest to him.
And so the story moves on at a frantic pace, through an incredibly dark and bleak and trashy world, where every day a newspaper headline seems to talk about some new violent and twisted crime against an innocent. For me Greene's prose has sometimes seemed flat and grey, but this story, perhaps because it's set in a resort town full of people, is full of activity and action and detail. I really like how, often in setting the scene on a street or in a crowded room, Greene here takes a little time to talk about all the people in the background going about their own business of the day. I'm not sure there's a better setting than a slightly depressed beach-side town -- it just seems so full of potential for all sorts of drama, very evocative and cinematic. All the same, I got to comparing Greene with the guy in Crime and Punishment who imagines eternity as just some dark shed filled with spiders. The world he creates here is just so unceasingly bleak, you'd think he'd never seen a ray of sunshine or had a lighthearted chuckle about nothing very much.
Religion plays a big role in the novel. Both Pinkie and Rose are Roman Catholics -- Pinkie is almost all evil and Rose is incredibly humble and good, though she'd rather go to hell with Pinkie than go to heaven without him. Pinkie believes in hell, and at the start of the book he thinks he'll get around it by asking for forgiveness just before his death. But during a close brush with death he realizes there won't be time, and he accepts his damned fate; indeed imagery of hellfire and damnation seem to spur him on to more crimes and violence and cruelty. He also believes in heaven, but as a vague concept, none of the metaphors work for him, the best he can picture is a sort of grey nothingness. Ida, on the other hand, is a kind of vague agnostic, believing somewhat in ghosts and ouija boards, but mostly thinking that life is a whole lot of fun, that everybody should enjoy themselves without taking it too far, and that there is right and wrong. Indeed, a big theme of the book is the religious concept of Good and Evil vs. the modern common-sense concept of Right and Wrong. At the end a priest says that maybe Catholics are more capable of evil than anyone, since because they believe in God, they're also in a way closer to Satan, and more susceptible to his influence.
I think this is the first book I've read that I've loved and yet at the same time wanted to just wash myself clean of. There's a morbidness that I think is overdone, but it is quite the piece of work nonetheless. The marriage of Pinkie and Rose, with her unwavering devotion and his spite and disgust and plotting of how to get rid of her, is almost unbearably perverse. I usually enjoy metaphysical themes in my fiction, and this is a real nail-biter.
4 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
The Power and the Glory (1940)
by Graham Greene
222 pages - Penguin
Some time after the Mexican Revolution, a Mexican state has banned the Catholic Church, closed down all the churches, and chased out or killed all the priests. The police are on the trail of one last priest that has yet evaded capture, a 'whiskey priest' who is an alcoholic and an illegitimate father, who keeps intending to escape but keeps getting drawn back towards his duty. The police begin taking and killing hostages from every village he has visited, as the ring around him closes.
I think the most interesting character here was actually the lieutenant, the one organizing the hunt, who is a sort of model of duty in a mostly lazy and innefficient law enforcement, driven by a sort of nihilistic self-hatred to wipe the world clean. I'm not sure you get quite as deep into the main character. I suppose I did learn something about this period in Mexico's history, which I was unaware of previously. The book moves fairly quickly, but the prose has that kind of greyness and squalor (I'm not quite finding the right words here) that seems characteristic of Greene, that makes his writing duller than it really should be.
edit: I think 'flat' is the word I'm looking for to describe Greene's prose. Flat.
2 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
A Burnt-Out Case (1960)
by Graham Greene
199 pages
Penguin
A man shows up at a Catholic leproserie in an obscure part of Africa, where roads and riverboats do not go any farther. He is willing to help if they have menial work for him, but he is not interested in going back to Europe to learn how to do anything. He says he has stopped believing, stopped suffering, stopped loving. Eventually it emerges that he is the world-famous architect Querry, best known for designing new Catholic churches and cathedrals. The doctor, the only other atheist at the location, often refers to Querry as a burnt-out case; a comparison to people suffering from leprosy who are put on medication, but yet the disease still needs to burn itself out, consuming fingers and toes and scarring in other ways.
The priests and nuns are organizing the building of a permanent hospital on the site, and Querry eventually decides to lend his assistance on the project. However, word gets out, and soon people, especially ones that don't deal with him day-to-day, are insisting he is some sort of modern saint, a rich man who has come to Africa to selflessly help the lepers. He tries to tell them he is just an empty man who believes in nothing, who has only stopped here because this is the farthest he could run, but few believe him. Finally, he gets into a jam with a blowhard rhetoric-spouting Catholic, Rycker, who runs a nut-oil factory and has a young wife he mistreats. Ryker first idolizes Querry, then turns to demonizing him.
This book is stunningly good. There are some very deep themes here, such as vocation, love towards God and other people, faith, and a whole basket of others. At it's core it's about a man who is poisoned by success, and slowly, unexpectedly, finds a cure. Or, if not a cure, than a way for the disease to burn itself out. I would have liked to have seen a little more from the time when he goes from refusing to do any work, to taking up his architectural work to help others. That change was a bit sudden, mostly seeming to do with a dream the character has. But it's a really great, gripping novel. The only other thing I've read by Greene so far has been Travels with my Aunt. and this blows that out of the water. I'm also impressed how deeply steeped the book is in Catholicism, without glossing anything over. Indeed, the two most intelligent and compassionate figures are both stringent atheists, though Querry still struggles with the loss of his faith, so the implication is that there is still the possibility that he found grace at the end. As one of the characters remarks, 'I wish it wasn't always the wrong people who believed'(pg 172).
( A few select quotes, as all the good ones would be too long... )
Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}