This short book packs much more of a whallop than all the self-indulgent, over-written books all too prevalent these days. I had just finished Atwood's The Blind Assasin (a book three times longer than it needed to be--assuming it needed to be at all) when I read this. What refreshment it was! It's not too short, but perfect in its economy.

It's the story of a wealthy, earnest woman seeking to do good in this troubled world by taking as her model the life and works of Graham Greene, who she met briefly and corresponded with excessively. (The aging author must have questioned the outcome of his life's work and resulting fame by this exhausting and passionate fan.) Gloria Emerson tells her story in a way that is funny, precise, and wise. A group of well-intentioned meddlars with lofty aims muddle through Algeria, attempting to liberate a politically incorrect writer. All are presented with clear eyed irony, precise and telling characterization. It's sufficient to say that their misguided innocence makes an even greater mess of things in Algeria. Read it and find more.

Loving Graham Greene made me want to return to the novels of the master. He would have been proud.

I really enjoyed this well-written, brief story. The tale of Molly Benson, the spacey Graham Greene-obsessed do-gooder and her ill-advised trip to Algeria is entertaining and amusing. Gloria Emerson has a knack of drawing characters with obvious and amusing flaws, without making her narrative or characterization seem obvious, contrived or hackneyed. This is a short novel, one that you can enjoy in a few gulps, but you won't get the sense of being cheated. Molly is quite a character. She met Graham Greene, briefly, once and from that meeting believed, in her own mind that she and Greene were quite close. After his death, she believes he would have wanted her to lead an expedition to Algeria and she drags a couple of her friends there. Molly lives in a world of delusion. You'll read about her and think, "This woman is a little nuts, the world is simply not as she imagines it". Her life is both funny and sad. Funny in that her delusions lead her to do amusing things, sad in that she has the delusions at all. I think, though, that most will find slivers of themselves in her, for who doesn't act believing in something that just is not true, or won't happen, out of sheer hopefulness. Emerson has given us an amusing character study and a very well-written novel. Enjoy.

In a tapestry of made-up minds, honest reporters live at risk. Gloria Emerson was such a reporter in Vietnam and in Gaza. She pays affectionate tribute to perhaps the greatest thriller writer in "Loving Graham Greene" by sending quirky heiress Molly Benson, the female protagonist Greene never attempted, to a doomed Algeria to hire bodyguards for honest journalists. Like many Greene characters, Benson is a decent person over her head amid evil, whose good works do harm. Her reporter's eye and ear won Emerson's "Winners and Losers" the National Book Award with telling details like the GI who looked in a mirror and said, "I had no idea who that was." Her writing skills turn a clever conceit into a brilliant novel. The determined Molly Benson and her companions are richly-drawn characters in a sparse world of countervailing menaces, the police state versus Islamic fundamentalism. The civil war in the shadows tightens its noose as the innocents look for ways to save the outspoken. The naïve, half-informed Pyle in Greene's "The Quiet American" was "impregnably armoured by his good intentions and his ignorance." Emerson's Benson has a capacity to understand there is a great deal she doesn't understand. She's an ironic, irritating heroine - a tall, middle-aged, ferociously liberal woman whose brother Harry was a reporter martyred in El Salvador. Molly knows every book Greene ever wrote, down to the names of the dogs, met him once by chance, pestered him with letters and undertakes her mission to carry on his spirit and Harry's after their deaths. Emerson writes with a scalpel dipped in ink, every detail as perfect as the story and characters. This funny, literate thriller is tribute to the power of the word to inspire action in the face of despair.

Greene is a master of the short essay. He's a particularly good book reviewer, with tastes ranging from Rider Haggard to Henry James. He is, in fact, particularly fine on James, which is somewhat surprising, since at first glance they wouldn't seem to have much in common. They both, however, were deeply concerned with the craft of fiction, and it is that interest in craftmanship, more so than Greene's political or religious views, which dominates these essays.

Greene is one of the true modern masters. One of our most cinematic writers, he is exceptionally gifted at forcing vivid images into the reader's mind. This art is just as potent in the essay as it is in the novel. Like few other writers, he can appeal with equal success to the popular and academic imagination.

Norman Sherry's thoughtful biography perfectly captures the early years of an honest,lonely,sensitive Englishman with privileged opportunities who becomes a successful novelist. As Sherry pointed out Greene's keen power of observation produced a cynical and realistic view of life. Burdened by anxieties but guided by his Catholic faith Greene was attracted to the epic struggles of flawed underdogs trying to cope with their transitory lives. Sherry ties all this together neatly. Its a book for leisurely reading. You will never regret its purchase.

This is an inspiring, detailed look at a fascinating writer, by an equally fascinating writer. The images of Norman Sherry traipsing through the jungles and Mexico, etc., give one pause and confidence. If his work on Conrad is as detailed and careful, I would suspect he could give the composition of bilge water in the hold of each ship for each trip for each book. If one ever wondered about writers and sources and inspiration and biography and art, start with volume I. You could have no finer introduction.

Simply delightful, heartwarming, these are the words that come to mind when one reads "Monsignor Quixote". Fortunately or unfortunately for me I saw the film before I read the book, its hard to say which of these two apply. The film was also just wonderful, a very beautiful piece of work from a master storyteller. Just goes to show you don't need action or sexy romances to enjoy a wondrous story.

I do believe what was said on the cover: that it is Green's best and most effortless book to date. The story of Father Quixote, the descendent of Don Quixote, the knight of windmills fame and The Mayor, Sancho, in this case a Communist. It is the story of the travels of the aged Quixote who upon meeting a Bishop from Italy, on the sleepy roads of El Toboso (his parish) whom he helps, is promoted to Monsignor against the wishes of his own rather mean spirited bishop. They travel the countryside around La Mancha travelling all the way to Madrid in Rocinante, his aptly named car. Even if the whole story were told, I feel, it would not take away from the delight of it. I have seen the film 2 or 3 times and enjoyed it immensly every time. In that case it was an aging Alec Guiness as Quixote and Leo McKern as the mayor. Both of them choices of genius. They interplay each role to perfection, its as if the book is given life as it was meant to be.

What else is there to say. Just buy it and love it.

I am not going to tell you that you should read Don Quixote before reading this book (nobody would ever get to read this marvelous work), although it helps to at least be familiar with Cervantes' picaresque novel. This is a very pleasant retelling of the story, with new twists, and I appreciate the facts that the characters are forthright - they blatantly refer to Don Quixote and consciously imitate the original novel. Funny things happen in this novel, but that's not all that's there. This is not a typical Graham Greene work, so if you're looking for an introduction to the author, look elsewhere. Still, it is a modern classic, in my opinion, as well as a good treatment of the journey motif.

Most authors attempt to write stories that will impress upon the reader some idea or emotion in order to bring about change. Graham Greene writes stories that, rather than impose the idea upon the reader, pull a reaction out of the reader whether he wants to react or not. The stories he tells shock the reader and cause him to question how people or a situation could possibly be as it is. Often, the reader is a little disturbed and upset after reading Greene?s stories. There seems to be no point to them, but they shake the reader and draw out his feelings.
A prime example of Greene?s shock story is ?The End of the Party.? In only a few pages Greene sketches out two young boys, and immediately the reader sympathizes and almost loves them. And then at the end of the story, when one is dead and the other is left devastated and confused, one cannot help but feel devastation and confusion right along with Peter. There is no explanation as to why such a small fright killed Francis, or why Francis? fear still beats inside Peter?s chest, and so the reader feels ?off? and disturbed, and questions the whole story looking for some trace of meaning.
Apparent in his stories is the idea that life is precious and extremely valuable. ?The Wedding Reception? makes this point very bluntly and doesn?t leave much for the reader to guess at. At the end of the story Daintry simply states, ?A man?s dead. He?s irreplaceable too.? Even though this theme doesn?t seem apparent in ?A Shocking Accident,? it is present if one considers the confusion they have at Jerome?s tearless and emotionless response to the death of his father. And then again the puzzlement they experience as Jerome and later his bride-to-be ask about the pig. To the reader the accident is so trivial and senseless, and kills Jerome?s father long before his time, leaving a wasted life behind. The reactions of the reader should cause him to think about what devalues life so in the eyes of the characters.
This theme is again apparent in The Third Man. Harry Lime is willing to illegally distribute a watered down form of penicillin that kills people so that he can have a lot of money. As I read this, Lime?s complete lack of compassion for other humans struck me as hideous. I had a hard time accepting that anyone could be so cold and evil. However, Greene was able to draw me into the scene and make Lime?s cold-heartedness believable. As a matter of fact, Greene handles such hard to believe issues quite well. There is never a sense that the story is too far out to be true. His characters are vivid and his settings are real. I was transported quickly to the worlds of his stories, and was disappointed when I had to leave.
Greene?s style is smooth, yet not simple. The reader must pay attention to what is being read or he may miss important details and key events in the story. His plots are far from shallow, and a lot of wisdom and insight can be gathered from the things he writes. However, his Christianity is very low key. There are very few allusions to God and Christianity in his writing. However, I think that this is what gives depth to his writing; he is not displaying his values in neon lights. Rather they are a part of the story in the same way that they should be a part of a person.

With this anthology of Greene's work, it's clear just how good, and just how often, the author could write. Everything he touched turned to literary gold. If you like Hemingway or Robertson Davies, mysteries or serious fiction, pontifications or potboilers, then Greene is your man. This collection is an impeccable introduction for the uninitiated, and it's a great reference tool for the longtime Greene fanatic. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes to read. Greene is a brilliant writer who makes the language jump off the page and who is a master storyteller.

This book -- all 800 or so pages -- is a goldmine for Greene fans. It's chock full of reviews, essays, articles, and letters, and it shows Mr Greene at his wittiest. Some of the reviews are absolutely scathing, and his insight into the film business is enlightening. Buy it.

a.f.cassis, the editor,has provided readers with a wide variety of interviews with graham greene from such diverse sources as his cousin barbara greene, his school friend claud cockburn, anthony burgess,v.s.pritchett, and evelyn waugh-well-known writers. there are fifty-seven excerpts in this book. Pritchett (pages 281-282) writes of Greene "as one of those tall,long-legged Englishman,wearing the dark grey suits of club members and a look of misleading anonymity common to members of the professional class..." The interviews show the reader a great storyteller who believes that we are all equal before God and a writer with deep concerns about injustice.If you enjoy Greene you will love this book.

For we, myself included, who number among those addicted to the writing of Greene, this volume of collected stories truly falls into the 'must-have' category. Spanning almost his entire career, this represents a broad variety of stylistic and narrative approaches employed.

As an introduction to Greene, though, this may be relatively less ideal. Perhaps better might be one of his novels, or for something lighter, one of his entertainments. Though the breadth and depth of variation apparent in Greene's work is well-represented here, a better feel for the true character of his writing might be found more readily in others of his works: simply put, I really don't think the medium of a short story allows the unfamiliar reader to sufficiently develop the rich relationship with the material that I find myself desiring.

Regardless of that, this an outstanding collection of stories, the title story ("The Last Word") being one that I find particularly poignant. This volume is a very fine assemblage of material, and possesses a sense of overarching thematic unity which renders it both comparatively cohesive (in terms of short-story collections) and a joy to read. Highly recommended.

In early September, 1939 Great Britain and France declared war on Germany when Hitler's forces invaded Poland. Little happened for months. The French remained behind the Maginot Line; the Germans were secure behind the newly completed Siegfried Line.

Eric Ambler wrote Journey into Fear during this period of relative calm. Ambler, as well as most Europeans, expected a replay of the trench warfare of WWI. Hitler's unexpected blitzkrieg across Belgium, Holland, and France was yet to come.

As with his previous story, A Coffin for Dimitrios (1939), the setting begins in Istanbul and we again briefly meet Colonel Haki, head of the Turkish secret police. Mr. Graham, a naval ordnance engineer for an English armament manufacturer, has been assisting Turkey with plans for modernizing their naval vessels. The project was tiring and Graham is anxious to return home. But German agents have other plans.

Journey into Fear would have worked effectively as a Hitchcock thriller involving a common man in an uncommon situation (and undoubtedly Ambler's stories influenced Hitchcock). Graham is unprepared to play the role of an assassin's target. He is just an engineer doing his job. His efforts to escape are often ineffective and even amateurish, but would we readers have done differently? We share his frustration and fear at his inability to prevent the noose from tightening.

For those new to Eric Ambler, I would recommend beginning with A Coffin for Dimitrios (also titled The Mask of Dimitrios) and to be followed by Journey into Fear. Both are good stories. I would rate A Coffin for Dimitrios slightly higher.

Journey into Fear was made into movie in 1942, produced by Orson Welles' Mercury company, directed by Norman Foster, and starred Joseph Cotton and Dolores Del Rio.

Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet, and Zachary Scott starred in The Mask of Dimitrios in 1944. It was directed by Jean Negulesco.

To read or not to read the great spy novels of Eric Ambler? That is the question most people ignore because they are not familiar with Mr. Ambler and his particularly talent.

Mr. Ambler has always had this problem. As Alfred Hitchcock noted in his introduction to Intrigue (an omnibus volume containing Journey into Fear, A Coffin for Dimitrios, Cause for Alarm and Background to Danger), "Perhaps this was the volume that brought Mr. Ambler to the attention of the public that make best-sellers. They had been singularly inattentive until its appearance -- I suppose only God knows why." He goes on to say, "They had not even heeded the critics, who had said, from the very first, that Mr. Ambler had given new life and fresh viewpoint to the art of the spy novel -- an art supposedly threadbare and certainly cliché-infested."

So what's new and different about Eric Ambler writing? His heroes are ordinary people with whom almost any reader can identify, which puts you in the middle of a turmoil of emotions. His bad guys are characteristic of those who did the type of dirty deeds described in the book. His angels on the sidelines are equally realistic to the historical context. The backgrounds, histories and plot lines are finely nuanced into the actual evolution of the areas and events described during that time. In a way, these books are like historical fiction, except they describe deceit and betrayal rather than love and affection. From a distance of over 60 years, we read these books today as a way to step back into the darkest days of the past and relive them vividly. You can almost see and feel a dark hand raised to strike you in the back as you read one of his book's later pages. In a way, these stories are like a more realistic version of what Dashiell Hammett wrote as applied to European espionage.

Since Mr. Ambler wrote, the thrillers have gotten much bigger in scope . . . and moved beyond reality. Usually, the future of the human race is at stake. The heroes make Superman look like a wimp in terms of their prowess and knowledge. There's usually a love interest who exceeds your vision of the ideal woman. Fast-paced violence and killing dominate most pages. There are lots of toys to describe and use in imaginative ways. The villains combine the worst faults of the 45 most undesirable people in world history and have gained enormous wealth and power while being totally crazy. The plot twists and turns like cruise missile every few seconds in unexpected directions. If you want a book like that, please do not read Mr. Ambler's work. You won't like it.

If you want to taste, touch, smell, see and hear evil from close range and move through fear to defeat it, Mr. Ambler's your man.

On to Journey into Fear. Many people rate Journey into Fear to be one of the greatest novels of physical terror and a chilling treat. Almost everyone agrees that it is one of Mr. Ambler's best novels.

The book opens with the engineer Graham boarding a ship, the Sestri Levante, along with 9 other passengers in Turkey during December 1939. Safely in his cabin, he muses on his injured hand, which "throbbed and ached abominably" from being grazed by a bullet the night before. Alone, he realizes that he has "discovered the fear of death."

He then remembers the events that led up to the hectic last 24 hours. He has been in Turkey to help England's ally prepare its defenses against potential invasion. Foreign agents have been assigned to kill him so that the defenses will not be completed before an attack occurs. The assassin shoots at him when he returns to his hotel room from an evening at a night club, and just nicks him. Colonel Haki (of A Coffin for Dimitrios) takes charge of Graham, and arranges for him to leave by ship to avoid another attempt. Air flights have been suspended due to an earthquake, and the train is too hard to guard. The colonel vouches for all of the passengers. Graham reluctantly agrees.

As the boat sails off, Graham recognizes the tenth passenger as the assassin assigned to kill him, Banat. Seized by terror and knowing he's trapped aboard the ship, he tries everything he can think of to save his life. Will his best be enough?

For those who like stories involving the psychology of chilling terror, this book will be a delight. For those who want nonstop action, this book will be boring.

Mr. Ambler has provided us with an in-depth look at the psychology of killers and their prey that reminds one of the famous short story, "The Most Dangerous Game." As Colonel Haki notes, "The real killer is not a mere brute. He may be quite sensitive." Colonel Haki's theory is that killers have "an idee fixe about the father whom they identify . . . with their own [weakness]. When they kill, they are killing their own weakness." The hunted can crash about in the underbrush and merely draw the killer, or learn to control fear and think out a solution. Ambler is clearly interested in the subject of whether the rational mind will win out over the abnormally compulsive one. Along the way, Graham also learns a great deal about himself, a sort of self analysis through terror.

In addition, Graham is introduced to Mademoiselle Josette in the night club, and must from then decide how he will deal with the temptations she presents to him as a married man. This subplot greatly strengthens the story rather than being a distraction from it.

After you finish this impressive story, please think about when you have been terrified. What did you learn from that experience? Does this story add to your understanding of what one needs to do when terribly frightened?

Since other reviewers described very accurately the plot and the tone of the novel, I skip that part. I also consider this novel a very scary novel because anyone person can be in place of Graham [the main character]. The difference between this novel and the others where an innocent man is accused or chased by the criminals or the police is that the people who are trying to kill him have a legitimate and convincing [from their point of view] reason to kill him. And this is where the suspense comes from. I consider this and the and a few of Le Carre's novels to be the best spy novels of all time.

(This review refers to the Viking Critical Library edition, edited by John Clark Pratt)

Graham Greene's novel of Pyle, the "quiet American", employed by a barely-disguised fronting organisation of the CIA, narrated by Fowler, a British journalist who comes across by turns as weary and worldly, is immensely interesting. In it, Greene offers up perhaps his most incisive and insightful political commentary, treating the danger of allowing people guided solely by ideology and schools of academic thought to be responsible for intelligence fieldwork. Pyle, a graduate of Harvard, goes into Indochina, believing intensely in the necessity of enabling a "third column", General The's men, and employing them as an American proxy force.

Whether or not Pyle himself sees the implicit incompatibility of this abstract idea and reality is never quite clear: certainly Pyle plays witness to the destruction that his attempts to mobilise a third column bring about. He is not subject, though, to the gross revulsion at the wanton destruction of life that Fowler is. Equally certainly, Pyle's political views cost him his life: open to question, still, is whether or not Pyle himself was ever conscious of his fallacies, or if he remains blinded throughout. Rather than being a novel of a man's moral revelations, or telling of his relationship with the Divine, "The Quiet American" is far more a parable.

Greene's structure, his combined simplicity and complexity, and the thematic relevance of this novel, render it a deserving read. Additionally, the chronologies and commentaries upon foreign involvement in Indochina/Vietnam are both valuable and blessedly concise, and the collected reviews and critcal commentaries upon the novel serve as valuable tool for understanding.

The Viking Critical Library's version of Graham Greene's "The Quiet American" is an indispensible text for full appreciation of Greene's perceptions of Indochina, France's war there, and America's budding involvement. The editor, John C. Pratt carefully selects criticism of Greene's TQA that creates a complete and rich discourse on Greene's life and writings that serves as a backdrop to his novel. Added to that backdrop are histories, such as Frank Futrell's thirteen-page explanation of how the United States became involved in Vietnam, and official documents from the State Department, to interviews with former South Vietnamese generals and Ho Chi Minh.

TQA itself a wonderful book that,to an American, probes at our treasured notion high-minded idealism and our "can-do" spirit that has served us well at times and not so well at others. Greene's symbolism is telling and insightful, given that it was published well before the United States' full-blown involvement in that region of the world. While Greene relates many things that he experienced or felt in Indochina as a journalist, the book is not solely a "war novel". TQA, like many of Greene's books, takes the readers on the author's journey of personal morality and matters religious.

In what is really the grandfather to all noir, foreign intrigue novels, Graham Greene produces not only one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, but also provides a scathing look at American and French policy in Vietnam. It is strange to read The Quiet American now, so long after the disastrous wars that killed millions of people and tore American apart. I would call it an almost tragic read, for in the pages of this provocative novel, Greene provides the roadmap for future disasters. The story is so scathing, so insightful, that one cannot help but to be forever affected. Greene?s tale is made even more effective in this wonderful volume, which provides the reader with numerous criticisms, defenses, and background documents.

Greene?s main character in the epic tale is Fowler, an amazingly interesting and complex British journalist covering the endless civil war in French Indochina. Fowler is one of the most engrossing literary characters I have ever read, as he is both worldly and horribly cynical. As if his own inner politics and views were not enough, his personal life also provides intriguing details. His wife back home in England is distant, foreign to him. In the meantime, Fowler has fallen in love with Phuong, a young Vietnamese woman. He finally feels some degree of happiness, of stability, even as the world rages on around him. The inquisitive Fowler is our eyes and ears as we watch a decrepit and corrupt colonialist system fight a hopeless war against ruthless insurgents. All the intricacies of French life in Indochina are described in picturesque detail, giving the book a beautiful travel book element to it.

The wartime peace Fowler has found is shattered with the arrival of Pyle, an American consulate official. Pyle is young, Ivy League, and idealistic to a dangerous degree. He is way over his head, as he knows little of the country or of its politics. The ?Quiet American?, as he is known, is a timid young man looking for the ?third way?, a way out of the civil war between communism and colonialism. Although known for his good heart and his boyish enthusiasm, Pyle hides a much darker side, revealed in a shocking way later on in the book. He strikes up a kind of friendship with Fowler, and, to Fowler?s dismay, falls in love Phuong. The book progresses, weaving the amazing story lines of war and love together in an unbelievably interesting book. The message Pyle gives us is a haunting reminder of American innocence about to be eaten alive in the confusing and shadowy jungles of Southeast Asia. The conclusion is just stunning, and it really stays with you.

Not only does this version include the wonderful novel, it also contains other samples of Greene?s writing concerning Indochina. The editor, Mr. Pratt, did a really marvelous job compiling a lot of disparate documents into a really effective overview of the war and the story itself. This edition should be the first and last volume any Greene fans need, as it amazingly thorough and respectful of Greene?s brilliant work.