Graham Greene

[fleaaaaaa]

Can anybody recommend what books to read by Graham Greene? I have already read Brighton Rock.

[wessexgirl]

Can anybody recommend what books to read by Graham Greene? I have already read Brighton Rock.


I have just finished "The End of the Affair" a few days ago, so I can only recommend that, as it's the only one I've read. "Brighton Rock" is on my TBR pile at the moment. I loved TEOTA. I was really pleasantly surprised by the book, as I thought he may be overrated. I don't know why I haven't read him before. I can definitely give it a :thumbs_up

[Janine]

I loved the film "The Quiet American" and had planned on reading that book of Greene's. I found it free one day from my library 'give away' pile. I was so pleased, since I have seen the film adaptation a few times now and even own it. The book has to be something special.

[Christophe]

The Power and the Glory. I read it earlier this year, it's not brilliant but certainly vivid.

[subterranean]

His collection of short stories is also very good

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Short-Stories-Penguin-Classics/dp/0143039105/ref=pd_bbs_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221851489&sr=8-5

[Emil Miller]

If you have already read Brighton Rock, you won't read anything that quite matches it but the End of the Affair is very good and so is The Heart of the Matter. I can also recommend Our Man in Havana and The Quiet American as excellent examples of Greene's writing and I also enjoyed England Made Me, It's a Battlefield and The Confidential Agent.
Incidentally, Brighton Rock, which must be one of the best screen adaptations of a novel, is now available on DVD and the author did the screenplay for the film.

[wessexgirl]

If you have already read Brighton Rock, you won't read anything that quite matches it but the End of the Affair is very good and so is The Heart of the Matter. I can also recommend Our Man in Havana and The Quiet American as excellent examples of Greene's writing and I also enjoyed England Made Me, It's a Battlefield and The Confidential Agent.
Incidentally, Brighton Rock, which must be one of the best screen adaptations of a novel, is now available on DVD and the author did the screenplay for the film.

I've just fished out my video of Brighton Rock as I haven't seen it for a while, but I want to read it first. I love the film.

[waryan]

I've only read of Greene the Story collection of which Subterranean speaks but it is a fantastic collection; great great scope of Greene's writing.

[Dark Muse]

I have recently picked up a collection of his short stories, though I haven't acutally read anything by him yet.

[Emil Miller]

I've just fished out my video of Brighton Rock as I haven't seen it for a while, but I want to read it first. I love the film.

Yes, the film is marvellous; it brilliantly captures the seediness of post-war Brighton that Greene mirrors in the novel, and Richard Attenborough's performance as Pinkie Brown is terrific, both in the colloquial and literal sense of the word. Of course, he is meant to personify evil, as opposed to Rose's innocence, but the sinister quality he brings to the part makes it one of the best screen performances I have ever seen.
There is a difference to the way that Pinkie is killed at the end of the novel
and no happy ending as in the film but it doesn't matter, because either way both book and film are excellent.

[kasie]

This has nothing to do with the OP as I cannot suggest a title that has not already been posted, but is an aside to the comments on Brighton Rock.
It was published in 1938, btw, and depicts pre-war Brighton: when I first read it, I passed it over to my father who had lived in Brighton in the mid 1930s. He read it with interest and returned it to me with the comment that it was an accurate picture of the town at the time. He went on to tell me tales of gang warfare, running fights through the streets with people being thrown through shop windows and knives being drawn (with the aside that I was not to tell my mother - he had probably told her at the time that he was living in a quiet seaside town of blameless respectability!) and remarked how adept the non-gang members like himself and his friends were at darting down the many narrow side streets in the town.

[Emil Miller]

This has nothing to do with the OP as I cannot suggest a title that has not already been posted, but is an aside to the comments on Brighton Rock.
It was published in 1938, btw, and depicts pre-war Brighton: when I first read it, I passed it over to my father who had lived in Brighton in the mid 1930s. He read it with interest and returned it to me with the comment that it was an accurate picture of the town at the time. He went on to tell me tales of gang warfare, running fights through the streets with people being thrown through shop windows and knives being drawn (with the aside that I was not to tell my mother - he had probably told her at the time that he was living in a quiet seaside town of blameless respectability!) and remarked how adept the non-gang members like himself and his friends were at darting down the many narrow side streets in the town.

Yes, I was aware that Greene wrote the book pre-war as the film deals with the notorious razor gangs that were a feature of the 1930's, but because the film was made in 1947 and the clothes, set designs and some of the dialogue is more appropriate to the 1940's, I assumed that it had been given a more contemporary presentation by John Boulting, the director.

[Pecksie]

"The End of the Affair" is wonderful and moving.

[fleaaaaaa]

I have now also read......

The heart of the matter

The end of the affair

The comedians

The comedians should not be forgotten as it tells the story of a man who owns a hotel in Haiti, while Haiti is under the regime of Papa Doc. I think that alone makes it a part of history, I didn't know who papa doc was until I had read this book but I found it fascinating, there is always some dictator or tyrant whatever age you live in. It's strange that I had never heard of him before.

[Emmy Castrol]

Is Graham Greene available on the public domain yet?

[dfloyd]

His Entertainments, so called by Greene, were short novels to be read as nothing more than entertaining stories.

1. Stamboul train
2. A Gun For Sale
3. The Confidential Agent
4. The Ministry of Fear
5. The Third Man
6. Our Man in Havana

Many of these were made into movies: a Gun for Sale was called This Gun for Hire and made Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake stars. The Ministry of Fear starred Ray Milland with a Full Head of Hair. He was the bald father in Love Story. The Third Man starred Orson Welles as Harry Lime being pursued by Joseph Cotton in post war Vienna. Our Man in Havana was a farce with a plethora of stars: Alec Guiness, Burl Ives, Noel Coward, and the beautiful Maureen Ohara. All the books are good as are the movies because they are entertaining.

[MANICHAEAN]

My favourite with the wiskey priest in Mexico was "The Power and the Glory."

M.

[Fafnir]

I recently read The Human Factor and really enjoyed it.
It was refreshing to read such an unglamorous espionage novel, it was quite bleak at times.

[Mariner]

Read The Destructors. Donnie Darko can't be wrong!

[kelby_lake]

There is a difference to the way that Pinkie is killed at the end of the novel
and no happy ending as in the film but it doesn't matter, because either way both book and film are excellent.

I wouldn't say that it's a 'happy' ending to the film. I like the ironic twist at the end :)

Has anybody seen the new adaptation?

[Emil Miller]

I wouldn't say that it's a 'happy' ending to the film. I like the ironic twist at the end :)

Has anybody seen the new adaptation?

You have got me worried. God help us, not another schoolboy interpretation?

[kelby_lake]

You have got me worried. God help us, not another schoolboy interpretation?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1233192/

It's set in the sixties.

[Emil Miller]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1233192/

It's set in the sixties.

Yep, another schoolboy interpretation that appears, thankfully, to have sunk without trace.

[tonywalt]

The Comedians is very good, and still relevant today.

I stayed at the Oloffson Hotel in Haiti before the earthquake quite a bit on business in the last 10 years. They named a room after Graham Greene and also one of the characters in the book Aubelin Jolicoeur, (Petit Pierre was the name of his thinly veiled character) hung out at the busy bar in Petionville most nights. Aubelin died a few years ago.