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Summary: THE USUAL GRAHAM GREEN ATMOSPHERE
Review: Good book in line with other Graham's ones as The Third Man or Our Man in Havana. Nevertheless not so bright, intelligent and fun as Our Man in Havana.
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Summary: A timeless page-turner
Review: Graham Greene actually manages to come up with a reasonably happy ending, bit of a shock, but then he doesn't delve so deeply into the human mind as in some of his other books.The story revolves around the attempt by one man to buy some coal, not much of a premise, but Greene manages to build up a fair level of tension in the story, and although the love interest side of the novel isn't that beleiveable, the emotions of the central character are brilliantly portrayed. Not as brilliant as some of his other work, but excellent reading on train into work material.
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Summary: romantic thriller
Review: 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. I did 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.
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Summary: Surprise-filled tale of a mission
Review: This quirky thriller begins in bleakness and continues through a trail of failures and deaths in a very foggy England, culminating in a parody happy ending. D., a former professor who specialized in _The Song of Roland_ and has survived imprisonment, the death of his beloved wife, and years of civil war, has been sent to contract coal by a government that is not specifially identified as the Spanish Republic beset by a civil war in which the anti-government side has the support of what is not specifically identified as Nazi Germany. He runs into L., the rebel forces' agent many times. He inspires fierce loyalty from two Englishwomen, and dodges bullets, double-crosses, a major explosion, the police, and trumped-up murder charges. There are farcical interludes at an Entrenationo (Esperanto) school and dangerous whiffs of precocious female sexuality (something of a Greene leitmotif). It is an odd book, with the multiple failures of D's mission oddly exhilirating. Some have read it as anti-Semitic. I don't think that it is, but a charge of derogating Asians could more convincingly be made.
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Summary: "I don't think I shall ever feel anything again except fear"
Review: 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
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