| Collected Stories by Graham Greene, 562 pages Steve Gadd 10 June 1995 | Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene, 221 pages Steve Gadd 07 February 1997 |
Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene, 306 pages Kristin Schrock 17 February 2003 It took me about 100 pages to figure out exactly what the heart of the matter was. Basically, Scobie, the most honest police officer in British run Africa, is slowly corrupted by his intense desire not to be the cause of unhappiness to those he loves. Something like that. Okay, I still don't know what it was about. But it had this wonderful sentence in it: "He watched her go out of the dark office like fifteen wasted years." |
Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene, 256 pages Steven Krise 08 October 2003 Started reading the book on the plane from New Orleans while flying through the outer edges of Isabelle. Having left the book on the plane, I had to buy another one to finish (plus it was Shannon's book). Anyway, how can you not love the two main characters? |
Burnt-out Case by Graham Greene, 199 pages Steven Krise 13 September 2004 He came to the end of even that. |
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene, 240 pages Steven Krise 15 September 2004 A week ago I had only to say to her, "Do you remember that first time together and how I hadn't got a shilling for the meter?" and the scene would be there for both of us. Now it was there for me only. She had lost all our memories forever, and it was as though by dying she had robbed me of part of myself. |
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene, 240 pages Kristin Schrock 20 January 2006 The narrator and God are rivals for the love and devotion of Sarah. God wins. This is a beautiful and poignant exploration of love and hatred and jealousy and a reminder that the House always wins. |
The Comedians (1966) by Graham Greene, 287 pages James Donahue 18 May 2007 A disturbing novel about a group of whites in Haiti during Papa Doc;s revolution. (Think a Carribbean "The Quiet American.") Despite the hardened cyncism of the author, others on the island have more heroic, less detached reactions to the island;s fate. But which is in the end better? Because Greene himself cannot decide, its hard to tell. |
Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene, 256 pages Steven Krise 07 June 2007 The oddest couple in Spain. |
The Ministry of Fear (1943) by Graham Greene, 221 pages James Donahue 10 June 2007 While bombs fall on London, someone is murdering people in a convulated spying scheme. The main hero accidently buys the wrong cake at a church fair (with real eggs in it!) and enters a tragicomic world that he does not understand. |
The Tenth Man (1985) by Graham Greene, 144 pages James Donahue 10 June 2007 When the Germans condemn three random French POWs to die in WWII, chosen by lots, the wealthy lawyer Chavel gives everything he has to a fellow prisoner to accept his short straw. After the war Chavel cannot help but wander back, broke and ashamed, to his former manor, now inhabited by the dead man's mother and sister, fully regretting his trade. |
A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene, 186 pages Steven Krise 12 June 2007 Death came to him in the form of unbearable pain. It was as if he had to deliver this pain as a woman delivers a child, and he sobbed and moaned in the effort. At last it came out of him and he followed his only child into a vast desolation. |
England Made Me (1935) by Graham Greene, 207 pages James Donahue 13 June 2007 I had never read an early Greene novel before, nor realized how much he borrowed from other interwar Catholic pessimists, such as Waugh or Belloc. In this book nihilism prevails among the devolving British upper crust while Depression ravages the working man. (Read in Invermere, my ideal town.) |
Travels With My Aunt (1969) by Graham Greene, 265 pages James Donahue 17 June 2007 Plot: A retired bank manager, regular and boring in every respect, meets his swinging, smuggling aunt who exposes him to a 'walk on the wild side.' Her advice is at turns salacious ("His fun had been in the secret, and he left us both only so that somewhere he could find a new secret. Not love. Just a secret"), quirky ("Switzerland is only bearable covered in snow"), and practical ("People who love quotations love meaningless generalizations"). A few years I would have regarded this book as a satirical, semi-serious take on the 60s by a member of the most radical generation of them all (the 1920s crowd), but since my time in Switzerland I can only see as the truest realism of all. (Read on the train back from Montana). |
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene, 247 pages Steven Krise 26 June 2007 |
Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene, 221 pages Steve Gadd 05 July 2007 "When one has to jump, it's so much safer to jump into deep water." |
Brighton Rock (1938) by Graham Greene, 247 pages James Donahue 14 August 2007 One of the most compelling examinations of depravity (and its mirror image: grace) I have ever read. "'I mean - a Catholic is more capable of evil than anyone. I think perhaps - because we believe in Him - we are more in touch with other people.'" For even He believes. . .and shudders. |
Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene, 0 pages Steve Gadd 04 September 2008 Mediocre comedy, audio version. After Lolita, the mediocrity was especially telling. Glad to be done with it. |
The Human Factor by Graham Greene, 302 pages Steven Krise 20 November 2008 "Probably the best espionage novel ever written." - Well, certainly better than 'Red Rabbit' not that that is hard to do. |
Our Man In Havana by Graham Greene, 220 pages Steven Krise 11 November 2009 http://www.google.com/#q=synopsis+"graham+greene"+"our+man+in+havana" |