The Tenth Man

Rating:
Summary: Captures your curiosity.
Review: A short, sweet tale of a man, whose financial status gives him the ability to save himself when faced with a life or death situation. Circumstances once again prove that money, a timeless denominator, continues to offer the rich unusual buying power.

While the story is short and doesn't offer a rich sense of character development, I still found myself extremely curious as to what would happen next. The moral decisions we make, whether hasty or well thought out, keep the human species an interesting animal to watch. I enjoyed the originality of the book, the desperate search for survival by the rich and the moral integrity of the poor. Definitely worth the time spent on a rainy afternoon.

Rating:
Summary: Captures your curiosity.
Review: A short, sweet tale of a man, whose financial status gives him the ability to save himself when faced with a life or death situation. Circumstances once again prove that money, a timeless denominator, continues to offer the rich unusual buying power.

While the story is short and doesn't offer a rich sense of character development, I still found myself extremely curious as to what would happen next. The moral decisions we make, whether hasty or well thought out, keep the human species an interesting animal to watch. I enjoyed the originality of the book, the desperate search for survival by the rich and the moral integrity of the poor. Definitely worth the time spent on a rainy afternoon.

Rating:
Summary: Greene's most brilliant novel
Review: Graham Greene has always struck me as an author who took little joy in writing. His short stories are very short, and some of his novels tread the fine line between novel and novella. But what he puts into those brief pages are stunning, and definitely leaves you yearning for more.

THE TENTH MAN is probably the one that best exemplifies this feeling. The novel ended so quickly (for me) that I was angry it was over. Not because I felt cheated, but because he had me so taken in by the plot and the tensions created by the choices the characters made, that I wanted it to go on, even just a little longer. But by all means, pick up THE TENTH MAN and just about anything else by Graham Greene.

Rating:
Summary: Choices and their Consequences
Review: Greene presents us with a brilliant morality tale. He quickly sets up his protagonist's choice and then moves to the surprising consequences. If you had the means to buy your 'salvation' would you? Even if it meant that another man would have to die in your place...literally paying someone to die for you? And for the man who is willing to take your offer, what does his sacrifice mean for those he's left behind? Greene deftly entertwines both of these stories into one. I agree that the characters are not well-drawn enough to make us truly care for them. However, the book succeeds on how it makes you consider the consequences of one's choices.

Rating:
Summary: "The story of a man who bought his life, the tenth man."
Review: One of Greene's "entertainments," this short novel written in 1944 was hidden away for nearly forty years before being discovered in the MGM files. Written as the idea for a film, the novella is a fine example of Greene's style, as finished and polished as any of his more complex novels.

Set in France during the war, the story concerns a group of thirty Frenchmen imprisoned by their German occupiers and then told that they must decide for themselves which three of the thirty men will be executed. One of the men who draws a marked ballot for his own death is a wealthy lawyer with considerable property who offers his entire fortune to any man who will take his place. One young man accepts, drawing up legal papers which give his newly acquired property to his sister and mother before he is executed.

The remaining three parts of the novel deal with the return of the now-penniless former owner to "his" house after the war, where he meets the dead man's sister and works as a servant under a new name; the arrival of an imposter who claims to be the former owner; and the showdown between the former owner and the imposter.

As is always the case with Greene, the dialogue is taut, revealing character and plot simultaneously, with no extraneous chat. The main character, like so many others Greene depicts, is a weak man whose bad choices, in this case his decision to buy his own life, have led to the complications which become the story. Living a lie, Chavel/Charlot faces a crisis of morality in which he must decide what, if anything, he can do to redeem himself to atone for the life-or-death decision he forced upon another man. The imposter who arrives at the house claiming to be the former owner is described as resembling a devil, and the showdown between him and the real former owner is seen as the struggle between goodness and evil.

Filled with ironies and absurdities, the novel maintains considerable suspense until the dramatic, tour de force of an ending. Too short to allow for much character development, the novella conveys a strong message within an exciting little morality tale filled with sharply observed details--simple without being simplistic. Mary Whipple


Rating:
Summary: A good tale, but shallow.
Review: This little story is tightly constructed and gripping. A rich lawyer is incarcerated during the war with a bunch of ordinary joes. As a result of hostage-type negotiations, a set number of them are designated for random executions. The prisoners draw lots to determine those to die, and the lawyer is one of the losers. Desperate to live, he offers all his estate to anyone who will trade places. The man who drew the 10th lot takes him up on the offer, accepts the estate as payment for his life, and has the lawyer make out a will leaving the wealth to his family. The guilt over this "act of cowardice" haunts the lawyer to his grave.

This story is hard to put down and gracefully written, but the characters are relatively flat, 2-dimensional figures. They are useful symbolically, but not terribly convincing as real people. All in all the tale reads more like a parable than a novel.

Rating:
Summary: Short, but it packs a punch.
Review: This short "entertainment" lacks the intensity of a major novel, but the tightly constructed plot makes this book worth the read. Graham Greene combines his fantastic prose with a few fantastic twists. What whould happen if you could trade all of your possesions for a second chance at life? Greene takes a stab at this very intiguing question, and throws in enough curveballs to keep you guessing until the end.
True, the characters may be flat, but the story is vivid, creative, and well worth a look.

Rating:
Summary: Just a reading
Review: This short story is not a thriller but will keep you reading all the time, if you read this book in a long flight you could end it in that flight.
The story don't have any message and the end is not excellent but is good enough, of course nobody knows what anybody will do in case that he knows that is going to die, you can't say that Chavel is guilty of what he did.