Novelist, reporter, scriptwriter, storyteller, playwright, columnist, globe-trotter, voluptuary, Catholic: these are the many and versatile facets of Henry Graham Greene, better known as Graham Greene, one of the 20th century's greatest and most influential literary talents. To explore all these eclectic sides to the alternately acclaimed and controversial man would be a suitably epic and enthralling quest but that might take some time, even for a seasoned and self-confessed admirer like me. But I do feel compelled to recommend many a novice and even my dearest friends to take a leap of faith and embark on a thrilling, alternately hilarious and heartbreaking and ultimately enlightening and eye-opening odyssey into the landscape of Greene's literature.
So, here is an unofficial ranking of the 18 novels that I have read so far. There is still a lot of exciting ground to be covered; I am yet to discover his entire collection of short stories, his smaller pieces like Loser Takes All and quite a few more novels of equal standing, both his earlier works like Stamboul Train and It's A Battlefield or the later, more accomplished Monsignor Quixote.
Then, there are those plays and critical essays and columns as well. But for now, these 18 novels, all of them, come highly recommended to all, not just to readers but also those who want to travel across space and time with a discerning eye and an unerring sense of prescient reality.
18- Doctor Fischer of Geneva: Or The Bomb Party (1980)
Presumably written as a sharp-tasting, acerbic response to the crusty, preening and self-aggrandising elite of Swiss society (Greene was then living in Vevey), this slim and surreally dark-witted metaphysical parable on the boundless depths of human greed and built around a grimly comic social experiment might be simplistic but does not go soft on its satirical punch. Its basic, linear structure is made compulsively, perversely readable by Greene's still-flawless penchant for nuance and detail and the titular overlord, far from a Bond villain, himself ranks as one of the writer's most enduringly Machiavellian characters ever.
17- The Man Within (1929)
Greene's first published novel, even with the occasional flowery prose that stops remarkably short of being purple, is a lot more compelling than what its unimpressed author believed. The Man Within lays down the essential groundwork for his trademark style of storytelling: a self-doubting, far from heroic protagonist, the conflict between righteousness and the seductive allure of vice, a deliriously romantic but doomed love story and criminals with hearts of gold. The writer doffs his hat clearly to the classic adventures penned by Robert Louis Stevenson but look closer and you will find enough subversion in his coolly sardonic portrait of corruption in the countryside.
16- A Gun For Sale (1936)
As the earliest of Greene's English crime and espionage thrillers, A Gun For Sale is so luridly thrilling and propelled with such an enthralling sense of nihilism that you might mistake it for a Raymond Chandler paperback, if not for the credibly sordid English atmosphere that this slim thriller reeks of. The plot thunders like a steam engine, the bitter assassin anti-hero Raven transforms into an unforgettable vigilante of the night, there is a strong-willed and spirited heroine in between and as always, Greene blends pre-war paranoia and political intrigue smoothly and seamlessly to add an unmistakable touch of poetic profundity to the pulpy proceedings.
15- The Captain And The Enemy (1988)
Do not be misled by the seemingly simplistic, even low-key facade that had reportedly disappointed and confused critics. Greene's last novel is actually one of his most devilishly, cynically best. The narrative is almost dark-edged and ironical in its unreliability and slipperiness, as Victor Baxter, also known as Jim, chronicles his life with two equally untrustworthy surrogate parents: the enigmatic, elusive Captain and his doomed, fatalistic lover Lisa. Even the second half of the novel, staged like a geopolitical thriller of duplicity, belies the really devastating conclusion to which the writer drives at: love is as self-destructive as King Kong shot to death and every father is a bloody scoundrel.
14- The Third Man (1949)
Before that masterpiece of noir got made, this was the working treatment and subsequently published novella from which Greene devised his flawless screenplay and Sir Carol Reed developed the final film. Inevitably, it suffers a bit in comparison to that still-influential classic. But on its own strengths, it is every bit stealthily sardonic, quietly suspenseful and, on occasion, even more melancholic and sobering than the film. Borrowing gleefully the template of Eric Ambler's The Mask Of Dimitrios and yet infusing a new angle of betrayed friendship and lost innocence, Greene again delivers a timely portrait of a beautiful city battered by war and now again ruled by the utterly amoral.
13- Travels With My Aunt (1969)
Never too far away from the contemporary realities of his changing times, Greene set out to take a comic jab at the waning days of the counterculture of the Sixties through the point of view of old-timers trying to make some sense of it all. This entertaining, even unexpectedly poignant adventure follows retired bank manager Henry Pulling and his still-hedonistic Aunt Augusta on a nostalgic and naughty trail across old-school Europe and frolicsome Paraguay. Crammed with lovers and friends, dotty or dying, with warmly funny asides on international smuggling and smoking pot, Travels With My Aunt is a vivid, picaresque read that heralds a new era and still bids a passionate, heartfelt farewell to the old.
12- The Tenth Man (1985)
Unfairly shelved when first written in the Forties, one of Greene's other story treatments was eventually published, with his consent, and the end result is a far more profound piece of work than what its cinematic counterpart could have been. The storyteller's peerless sense of time and milieu is evident here in spades, a terse, drily romantic and heart-rending tale of a rich lawyer in occupied France who pledges his wealth to escape death by law. The consequences that come hurtling down on him exemplify Greene's tremendous flair for chronicling crime, guilt and punishment, culminating, with beautifully orchestrated prose, at a climactic and unexpectedly heroic stab at redemption. Gripping and moving in equal measure.
11- Brighton Rock (1937)
For many admirers and critics, Brighton Rock is the definitive moment in Greene's illustrious career that cemented his reputation and literary style forever: metaphysical and moral dilemmas, anti-heroes and antagonists blinded by their misguided righteousness, a sordid flavour of a city bursting with sin and vice and, of course, unforgettably hypnotic and credibly strong-willed women who hold the reins too. Ida Arnold, the intrepid amateur detective and do-gooder poking her voluptuous, blousy charm into the mystery of a murder in broad daylight, might be the working model for Francis McDormand's determined cop in Fargo. It is also Greene's passionate, heartfelt portrayal of his haplessly crooked Catholics that makes this such a haunting classic.
10- The Honorary Consul (1973)
Ask me about my favourite pulp thriller and instead of all the Sidney Sheldons, Jeffrey Archers and Wilbur Smiths of this world, I would choose The Honorary Consul. The reasons are to be found in the novel itself, a tight, taut drama of a kidnapping gone wrong that turns into a surprisingly thoughtful and humane meditation on the ideas of love and lust, of faith and forgiveness and of the Spanish concept of machismo and even the English stiff-upper-lip. It is ingenious how Greene sustains the brittle, feverish tension right till the end and how he plays off each character devilishly, so much that this book, while crammed with suspense, is also loaded lethally with inconvenient truths.
9- A Burnt-Out Case (1960)
Trust Greene to serve up even the most unsavoury premise into a compelling, beautifully crafted novel, subtly satirical and deeply compassionate in turns, about the human condition. A Burnt-Out Case ranks among one of his darkest novels yet, a literal odyssey into the heart of human suffering and despair in a remote leproserie in Belgian Congo. Newly arrived in this scene of pain and mutilation is Querry, a once-famous architect who has now become coldly indifferent to the world. In the heat, his practised cynicism begins to thaw but his new purpose is exaggerated to sainthood. The majestic prose and the thoughtful themes pose troubling questions, which make us reexamine our knee-jerk belief in falsities.
8- Our Man In Havana (1958)
Sixty years have come and gone and yet, in our present day when the truth is blown wildly out of proportion to ferment trouble, it is no mistake that Our Man In Havana should still be so prophetic and prescient. The passage of time has not quite blunted its still punchy impact as a cheeky, yet eerily believable satire on earnestly crafty spies cooking up tall tales and falling prey to their own shenanigans. If anything, Greene's droll portrait of a world where people are driven to foolhardy ends in the name of patriotism is more resonant than ever. Even his swirling portrait of Havana's seedy beauty and more murky truths is impossible to replicate.
7- The Ministry Of Fear (1943)
Arguably the greatest of his British thrillers (I have to read The Confidential Agent yet), The Ministry Of Fear is more than just a rattling wrong-man yarn that Alfred Hitchcock served out regularly; it is an incisive, unsettling portrait of a country and its people driven to paranoia in the mists of war and in bleak, pitch-dark atmosphere, it has no other rival. In the embittered Arthur Rowe, we find one of his hauntingly memorable sufferers, pursued across a bombed London by a dedicated organisation of spies and murderers. With its unrelenting grip of almost menacing, nihilistic dread and with no relief in sight, the book seems to have inspired not only wartime thrillers but also 1984.
6- The Human Factor (1978)
Greene might have inspired the likes of John Le Carre and Alan Furst to come up with their own grittier and grimmer spy thrillers that refute Ian Fleming's entertaining extravaganza of grand conspiracies and glamour. But it was with The Human Factor, possibly the lost cousin of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, that he delivered his most enduring novel of the genre. Initially disliked because of the deeply cynical portrait of a bureaucratic and back-dealing British intelligence, this colourless, coldly nihilistic and frequently heart-rending novel is actually a richly drawn and exceptionally resonant piece of work. The way he equates the vulnerability of honesty to the duplicity of love with the skulduggery of espionage is unforgettable.
5- The End Of The Affair (1951)
Even when he is writing romance, Greene shows no signs of mellowing. Maurice Bendrix, the bitterly sarcastic protagonist, describes his inexplicably aborted affair with the married Sarah Miles as a story of hate. Indeed, there seems to be a sense of malice, almost impulsive anger in how the writer lets Bendrix narrate his part of the story, going back from his new-found pangs of sexual jealousy to their shared passions. Then, he sneaks in and reveals Sarah's painful confessions recorded in her diary and what strange force compelled her, on that fateful afternoon, to bring an end to her affair. That strange force, as this hauntingly hypnotic novel reveals, is faith, something which is both all-consuming and frustrating in its obstinacy.
4- The Heart Of The Matter (1948)
Nowhere else is Greene's mastery of multiple genres evident to a greater degree than in The Heart Of The Matter, his dark and dank novel about a well-intentioned police inspector in Sierra Leone who is seduced by the Devil when his all-too-generous pity gets the better of him. As a study of the infidelity we are all capable of to the concepts of marriage and faith, the novel arrives at harrowing conclusions and a particularly disturbing climax. But before that, the compellingly plotted narrative, blending a turbulent socio-political premise with a deeply personal story of guilt and redemption and populated with plausible, believable characters also makes for one of the most powerful reading experiences ever.
3- The Comedians (1963)
Never the one to compromise on his hard-bitten political stance, Greene's anger and anguish over Haiti's brutal dictatorship, reigned by the intimidating Papa Doc Duvalier and sponsored secretly by America, find their manifestation in this stunning, sobering novel. With a cinematic, elaborate and even elegiac narrative of exceptional depth, The Comedians uses its multiple-thread narrative, of idealistic American vegetarians and confidence men trying their luck in this failed country, to paint a convincing portrait of totalitarian terror and the grimly comic incapacity of the West to understand these grimy realities. It also features one of his most enduringly tragic heroes in the luckless Major Jones, who also proves to be the finest comedian of them all.
2- The Quiet American (1955)
It would be hard to find a more perfectly structured and powerfully prophetic novel than The Quiet American. Like The Comedians, it compels Greene to argue potently about the insidiously dangerous nature of America's foolhardy intervention into the turbulent chaos of the third-world that would lead, twenty years later, to the self-destructive humiliation of the Vietnam War. But more than that, it is a brilliantly constructed love triangle that becomes even a dramatic battleground for ideologies and interests. It also demonstrates Greene's flair for professional dexterity and economy. Real-life observations of the ravages of war fought then by the colonials find their way organically into the narrative and it is still impossible to look beyond that moral - that even the best intentions can be more dangerous than merely evil ones.
1- The Power And The Glory (1940)
