(4 1/2 stars) Graham Greene brings charecters together in a wonderful way in this powerful story. Set in provincial Argentinian town of exhausted passion, grim thoughts and absurb hope, Greene revolves this around a political kidnapping.

A mistaken American Ambassador, a pregnant prostitute, a doctor, revolutionarys, a priest, a novelist and a English teacher thrown into the dramatic mist of an affair and kidnapping. All this brings out the complexities of love and faith.
I read with great pleasure a wonderful writer.

I can't believe this book is out of print. It's one of Greene's best novels.

One of Greene's most spare and tension filled novels.

This is Brown, the narrator of "The Comedians", describing his outlook: "I had left involvement behind me...I had dropped it... I had felt myself not merely incapable of love-many are incapable of that-but even of guilt. There were no heights and no abysses in my world-I saw myself on a great plain, walking and walking on the interminable flats." In my judgment, Brown's outlook is a big shortcoming in this book. While "The Comedians" eventually centers on one of Greene's ironically heroic characters, there's not much juice (even with an affair) since the story is told by dull Brown. Bottom line: This is a good story with some personally and politically heroic characters. But this is not Greene's best work.

The novel opens on a cruise ship steaming toward Haiti. We meet a diverse group of characters who are revealed through the device of setting them in a game of cards on board ship.
Brown, the primary character and narrator is returning to Haiti to reclaim a hotel he inherited and through his eyes we see the political changes occurring in the country and are made aware of the ominous threat of the Tonton Macoute secret police that hangs over the entire story adding dramatic tension.
Jones , his fellow passenger is revealed to be a con-man who gets by on his ability to make others laugh (one of the comedians) . Smith a failed presidential candidate from the US is naively seeking to establish a vegetarian center in Haiti seemingly oblivious to the turmoil all around him.
Brown's romance with the wife of a diplomat provides a subplot that mirrors the theme that everyone is deceiving someone. The comedians all prove to be actors playing on a stage filled with political violence and the everpresent threat of more to come.
This was a very engaging novel and if not Greene's most well known book it may be one of his best. I enjoyed it and highly recommend it for it's memorable characters and stunning evocation of a country approaching chaos.

This is one of the most powerful novels ever written. I think it was the best work of Graham Greene. In this book Greene was able to achieve a very masterful dialog, and he developed so powerful an memorable characters. We can witness how the internal struggle of the main characters intermingles with the power struggle in the country and the problems of the time. This is a very strong book that should be read and known.

As someone says on the cover of my edition, the dialogue between the Catholic priest and the Marxist mayor is really Greene talking to Greene. The wonderful Mr. Greene. Rather left leaning in his time and a converted Catholic, one might expect a little propaganda on the subject. But no, Mr. Greene has the honesty, and the intellectual insight, to describe both the strengths and the flaws of these two religions. And of course their common link: a strict, overpowering, bureaucracy. For Father Herrera and the Bishop are not unlike thousands of other aparatchiks, hungry for power and blindly following the faith.

On the other hand the Monsignor and the Mayor are a bit faithless, allowing for, in some cases thankful for, the existence of doubt. They are tolerant. And it is this tolerance that brings them together and allows their friendship to blossom. Tolerance....and a good deal of wine. In the end, of course, the bureaucrats win and both the Mayor and the Monsignor must escape.

This is one of Mr. Greene's lighter novels, lighter even than "Travels with my Aunt". The characters are relaxed, the scenes are picturesque and slow, and there is enough nice dry humor you make you laugh out loud. It's the Greene equivalent of Champagne, light, pleasant and mildly intoxicating. This compared to his other novels which are straight vodka. Highly recommend.

Listening to Monsignor Quixote, (unabridged on audio casette) I found myself instantly transported into the company of these remarkable characters. Green is a master of both dialogue and symbolism. This is the best G. Green work I have yet experienced.

If I had to choose just one Graham Greene book to take to a desert island then this would be it. Its a timeless story of a friendship that grows between seemingly quite distinct personalities and intellects and through the narration of a series of engaging conversations, travel episodes and encounters brings us to its curiously sad but uplifting conclusion.

A great book in any language.

Regards,

Martyn R Jones

Finally, a Graham Greene book I sort of liked (following disappointing experiences with Stamboul Train and This Gun For Hire)! That said, it's not great stuff, but it's at least fairly entertaining, diverting, and sad. The tale is of Henry, a middle-aged bachelor (and presumably virgin) who has been forced to retire from his bank job after 30 years. He's a total zero, dull and timid, with nothing to look forward to but 30 years of watering his dahlias. At his mother's funeral he meets his Aunt Augusta for the first time since his baptism, and she immediately rocks his world by announcing that his mother was in fact not this biological mother. She then proceeds to disrupt his empty life by insisting on his accompaniment for a various trips, notably a ride on the Orient Express to Istanbul, and a furtive trip to Paraguay. She's old, but with way more zest than her nephew, and their interplay is a clear call for everyone to live life and not let it drift by (carpe diem and all that). Of course, her interpretation of this involves smuggling a gold ingot, running around with a young Sierra Leonian pot merchant, and tracking down her Italian war criminal lover-all while spinning tales of her life and loves. Of course, it's obvious to everyone except Henry that his "aunt" is his real mother, but that the one story which goes untold. In the end, it's hard not to feel sad for the pitiful Henry, whose passive approach to life is characterized as being a product of his upbringing.

Underneath the facade of a frothy farce about a Caspar Milquetoast banker and his eccentric and adventurous aunt lies a dark tale of a totally selfish adventuress and the illegitimate son whom she corrupts. The so-called aunt is actually part of the demi monde , smuggler and prostitute, abettor of a Nazi collaborator and a con man, possibly an adjunct to a murder. The British Empire-type characters might have been fashioned by Agatha Christie in the 20's and 30's. The only hint that the book was written in the '60's is the young American hippie girl the banker meets on the Orient Express to Istanbul. The existential parts have to do with middle age and mortality. It was a quick and interesting read, not typical of earlier books by Graham Greene, such as The Power and the Glory.

'Travels' is not a great novel, not even a great Graham Greene novel. It is flawed, mannered, contrived, old-fashioned, complacent; the work of a writer who has earned his laurels and is content to lounge on them. The frequent allusions to then-modish Latin American fiction (the novel ends up in Paraguay) only exposes its lack of adventurousness. Sometimes you wonder whether the maddening primness is the narrator's or the author's. Too often, Greene resorts to caricature rather than character, and even the splendid figure of Aunt Augusta feels like a writerly short-cut.

But.

'Travels' is one of the most purely pleasurable books I have ever read, largely due to the perfectly captured narrative voice, a middle-aged virgin, retired bank manager and dahlia expert unwittingly thrown into a world of smuggling, soft drugs, hippies, war criminals, CIA operatives, military dictatorships, and whose decent, limited tolerance keeps the fantastic narrative believable, but also blinds him to genuine horrors.

The book contains some of Greene's funniest writing; if he'd written it 30 years earlier he's have called it an 'entertainment', those more generic or populist works that weren't overtly concerned with great moral themes. Today, these entertainments seem to have dated better than the 'serious' books.

Of course, 30 years on and Greene can relax his style - the plot is less vice-like, the words don't imprison - rather, they eloquently express a developing consciousness and sensibility. This is a story that proliferates with stories, some comic, some tragic, some parable-lie, all leading inexorably towards one untold story. Like all Greene's novels, 'Travels' concerns modern man's search for home, and the ending is devastating, mixing imagistic beauty with characteristically flat cynicism.

Greene is a master of understatment and restraint. This book is a lovely if self-effacing coming-of-literary-age memoir that is fun and reader friendly. It's invaluable for its precious glimpses into the vanished world of the 10's and 20's England. Full of curious detail too: I didn't know that Greene was related to R.L. Stevenson for example. The book ends just around the time of his first literary success. I don't know if there are any further memoirs but I wouldn't mind reading them.

I work in Liberia running a safari camp and have for the past 15 years. I have been to most of the places in the book I think, many of which have different names today. A lot of the attitudes of the people have not changed from Greene's trip in 1935. For me the book was a great experience and puzzle trying to figure out where he was. There are better roads today (in some places), the people have watches, radios, but not much else has changed. For the visitor to Liberia or someone who has been there, it is a great story and very insightful into the minds of the people.

Not an adventure when compared to fictional safari tales in which the intrepid travellers fight off fierce lions and savage "natives" in every chapter. Instead, an enjoyable and realistic account of Greene's arduous and near-disasterous trek through Liberia. Greene travelled with his cousin, Barbara Greene, who also wrote an account of their journey--Too Late to Turn Back. Interesting contrasts between the two books if you can find copies of both. I had to order a copy of Barbara's book from a used book store in England.

"The Man Within" by Graham Greene was Greene's first published novel, and, I think, the reader can tell. The story centers around a man, Andrews, who has been involved in smuggling with some blackguards, and who has fled the group after a crime was committed. He flees right into the home of a woman, Elizabeth, who is in the process of burying the man who has been her guardian of sorts. She convinces him to testify against the other smugglers at the trial, and he goes to the city to do so. When he returns they profess their love for each other but face further dangers together. In the end, Andrews must face the negative influence his father has been on him in his life and the actions he has committed in reaction to that influence.

While there were some interesting facets of the book and its characters, I took a long time to get into it. The beginning, particularly, is VERY slow moving. The novel lacks the things one loves Greene for; the subtly written yet overwhelmingly powerful struggles the characters engage in with morality and/or religion, as well as a narrator who is unreliable and yet sympathetic.

*The Man Within* follows a fellow named Andrews through his horrifying experiences of paranoia and self-doubt, made all the worse by the fact that some people want to kill him. Andrews is wanted by the police in connection to the murder of an officer, pursued by his former co-smugglers because of his betrayal, and loathed by the locals because of his testimony against a group of popular criminals. There is only one person - the angelic Elizabeth - who provides him with any support, but she also creates for Andrews his biggest dilemma: to face death for someone whom he may never be able to love, or to find a new life, but without the one person who would make it worth living.

The writing does not show Greene at his peak, but it does demonstrate an early ability to craft brilliantly complicated characters and problems of morality in a manner similar to Dostoevsky..

The Man Within is a fantastic book about love and fear. It has elements of action, courtroom drama and good old-fashioned romance. The main character constantly assures us that he is a coward and unworthy of the love given him by the farm girl Elizabeth and also of his former associate whom he betrays in the begining of the book, yet he continues to perform uncharacteristic acts of bravery. His motives for these acts of bravery bring into question the true nature of courage and greatness. This book is surprising at every turn and yet every event, and every conversation makes total sense. It's a difficult book to put down, and you'll probably want to read it again.