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    Graham Greene - recommendations?

    I have only read four of his novels to date. Opinions:

    The Power and the Glory (1940) - powerfully realistic about military oppression of the Mexican clergy, and the dilemmas of the whisky priest. However, unremittingly grim.

    Our Man In Havana (1958) - doesn't work for me at all, despite some interesting observations about pre-Castro Cuba. Supposedly a comedy.

    The Comedians (1966) - This was the pick of the four for me: great characters and deep empathy and compassion in how relationships are portrayed. A masterpiece IMHO.

    The Human Factor (1978) - still feels controversial; apologetics on behalf of Philby and others who spied for the Soviets. Unforgivable morally given what we know about the USSR (see also Putin). On the other hand, the portrayal of English manners in the immediate pre-Thatcher, pre-Falklands era is interesting.

    #2
    Graham Greene - recommendations?

    The Quiet American is good and worth a go, A Burnt Out Case less so. Too much redemption through suffering and Christian sacrifice stuff, Heavy Symbolism in having a broken man set down in a leper colony.

    Tbh with the Comedians and the Power and the Glory, you've probably read the best from what I remember from my teenage days of devouring everything Greene and Paul Theroux from my local library.

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      #3
      Graham Greene - recommendations?

      I envy you in being relatively new to Greene. The Quiet American is the greatest of the novels you haven't yet read. The End of the Affair, A Burtnt-Out Case and Brighton Rock are the the other canonical works but for me The Quiet American and The Comedians are the two works that best combine his moral complexity and ability to thrill. Travels with My Aunt and The Confidential Agent are excellent entertainments in different ways. The Honarary Consul is a very good late and serious work.
      Humour is subjective but I don't see how anyone could find Our Man in Havana anything other than extremely funny. The scene in which the hero and heroine have, as they see it, rescued the striptease artist and then come across the government minister entertaining a young woman at his hideaway home genuinely has made me me laugh out loud each time I've read it.
      Someone once called a Greene a first-rate second-rank novelist, or similar, and there are still those who are determined that he not be seen a literary great. Some of that was and is a resultof the way he lived his life. Not all he did was admirable by any stretch but for me he's the most fascinating of twentieth-century British novelists both for his works and his actions .
      For those committted to not giving Greene credit, there's a bizarre biography of him from the 90s written by Michael Sheldon. Sheldon's conclusion regarding a suitcase deposited in the left luggage office by a passenger on the London to Brighton express is entertainingly mad and I'm sure it would have enjoyed by Greene himself.

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        #4
        Graham Greene - recommendations?

        I echo the recommendations for 'The Quiet American', 'The Confidential Agent' and 'The Honorary Consul'.

        I'd also put a word in for the novella of 'The Third Man' and the 'Twenty-One Stories' collection (which contains 'The Destructors', the first Greene I ever read as part of my school English syllabus which stuck with me for decades). I think 'Our Man in Havana' and 'The Comedians' are my favourites overall and cover the spectrum of the styles of his novels.

        I've actually got 'The Ministry of Fear' and 'A Burnt Out Case' to read with me holiday at the moment and managed to leave a barely started copy of 'England Made Me' in a Japanese hotel room last month (but like the whimsical idea of whoever followed me in occupying the room getting in to it).

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          #5
          Graham Greene - recommendations?

          I hoped to get some insights from Norman Sherry's massive three-part biography but I have to say that it's a sprawling mess that spends far more time on Greene's sex life than his books. At no point does Sherry give a coherent overview of critical opinion on each novel.

          However, Sherry does show that 'A Burnt Out Case' was written during Greene's darkest days of depression, when Greene seemed to hit the same depths as the main character. 'The Comedians' was written when some unbelievably gruesome atrocities were being committed in Haiti, and in some ways the book could have been a lot darker; the state terror apparatus had some parallels with ISIS (quasi-religious-based pretexts for torture and public executions).

          Sherry also has some interesting stuff on how Raul Castro led firing squads that executed tons of political opponents. Kenneth Tynan was disgusted when he was invited to attend one such shooting.

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            #6
            Graham Greene - recommendations?

            I would recommend "End of the Affair"!
            The novel focuses on Maurice Bendrix. He was a rising writer in London during World War 2, and Sarah Miles, the wife of an impotent civil servant.
            The End of the Affair is the fourth and final explicitly Catholic novel by Greene. The others are Brighton Rock (1938) The Power and the Glory (1940), The Heart of the Matter (1948).
            By the way, does anyone know, is it possible to find these books for e-readers? For my birthday, my parents just gave me Kobo Glo HD 6
            https://www.bestadvisor.com/ereaders
            It'd only be sad if I can't use it to read my favorites novels

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              #7
              Graham Greene - recommendations?

              I read 'The Honorary Consul' and agree that it was very good. In some ways it's the one where Greene (or the character that is closest to his own personality) achieves one kind of redemption. The mood matches The Quiet American and The Comedians in many ways; you could say they are a trio in which the Englishman abroad is caught up in the corruption of nasty regimes propped up by violence. Our Man In Havana is a comedic variation on that.

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                #8
                Graham Greene - recommendations?

                I was given an old copy of 'A Gun For Sale' recently, by a friend who was moving and had no space for a lot of his old books. I've brought it with me on a business trip to Kigali, so if things calm down I'll be tucking in that.

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                  #9
                  Graham Greene - recommendations?

                  Of the books not mentioned yet I can recommend The Ministry of Fear, an excellent thriller set in London during World War II, Probably my favourite of his "Entertainments"

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                    #10
                    I read The Ministry of Fear in a few hours' downtime visiting my father over the weekend.

                    It paints a vivid picture of the atmosphere of London in the Blitz, with the main character's perpetual confusion (and seeming disregard for what happens to him) fitting perfectly with the times, where the war meant identity was not a fixed concept.
                    It made me wonder why more of his work hasn't recently been filmed or televised - he seems ripe for a contemporary revisit rather than just constantly rebooting Poirot, Marple or Holmes. I guess he lacks a recurring character, but viewers seem to love that period.

                    A long time since I read any Greene, to the extent that I can't remember which of his I've read. I've brought The Heart of the Matter home, which I don't think I've done.

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                      #11
                      The only book of his I've tried to read is The Heart of the Matter which I found pretty much unreadable and gave up on halfway through. The writing style didn't grab me and the fact that it's set in West Africa (presented as hostile and unpleasant throughout) but we're supposed to care about the tedious melodrama of protagonists who are all white middle-class colonists hasn't aged well.

                      Is it worth giving his thrillers a go or am I likely to have the same problems with them?

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                        #12
                        I used to use Greene's short story 'The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen' with my students when I was teaching English as the language is fairly straightforward and it's an entertainingly daft little scene.

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                          #13
                          Brighton Rock was readable. And I read it before I saw the fillum.

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                            #14
                            Personally I find a lot less snobbery in Greene than in Waugh, Powell and many other contemporaries, so I'd say the thrillers and "entertainments" which lack colonial settings and attitudes are worth a go.

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                              #15
                              Ta, I'll keep an eye out for them and will give him another go

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                                #16
                                I was unfortunately introduced to Greene through his increasingly rabid "Catholic" works, hitch were particularly ill suited for my worldview..

                                He is another one who led me to conclude that Anglo Catholics are profoundly weird.

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