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Complete Short Stories
Affairs, obsessions, ardors, fantasy, myth, legends, dreams, fear, pity, and violence—this magnificent collection of stories illuminates all corners of the human experience. Including four previously uncollected stories, this new complete edition reveals Graham Greene in a range of contrasting moods, sometimes cynical and witty, sometimes searching and philosophical. Each of these forty-nine stories confirms V. S. Pritchett’s declaration that Greene is “a master of storytelling.”
This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by Pico Iyer.
This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by Pico Iyer.
594 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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About the author
Graham Greene
816 books6,203 followersHenry Graham Greene was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century.
Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a reputation early in his lifetime as a major writer, both of serious Catholic novels, and of thrillers (or "entertainments" as he termed them). He was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times. Through 67 years of writing, which included over 25 novels, he explored the conflicting moral and political issues of the modern world. The Power and the Glory won the 1941 Hawthornden Prize and The Heart of the Matter won the 1948 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Best of the James Tait Black. Greene was awarded the 1968 Shakespeare Prize and the 1981 Jerusalem Prize. Several of his stories have been filmed, some more than once, and he collaborated with filmmaker Carol Reed on The Fallen Idol (1948) and The Third Man (1949).
He converted to Catholicism in 1926 after meeting his future wife, Vivienne Dayrell-Browning. Later in life he took to calling himself a "Catholic agnostic". He died in 1991, aged 86, of leukemia, and was buried in Corseaux cemetery in Switzerland. William Golding called Greene "the ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man's consciousness and anxiety".
Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a reputation early in his lifetime as a major writer, both of serious Catholic novels, and of thrillers (or "entertainments" as he termed them). He was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times. Through 67 years of writing, which included over 25 novels, he explored the conflicting moral and political issues of the modern world. The Power and the Glory won the 1941 Hawthornden Prize and The Heart of the Matter won the 1948 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Best of the James Tait Black. Greene was awarded the 1968 Shakespeare Prize and the 1981 Jerusalem Prize. Several of his stories have been filmed, some more than once, and he collaborated with filmmaker Carol Reed on The Fallen Idol (1948) and The Third Man (1949).
He converted to Catholicism in 1926 after meeting his future wife, Vivienne Dayrell-Browning. Later in life he took to calling himself a "Catholic agnostic". He died in 1991, aged 86, of leukemia, and was buried in Corseaux cemetery in Switzerland. William Golding called Greene "the ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man's consciousness and anxiety".
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August 25, 2019
Introduction, by Pico Iyer
Suggestions for Further Reading
Twenty-One Stories
--The Destructors
--Special Duties
--The Blue Film
--The Hint of an Explanation
--When Greek Meets Greek
--Men At Work
--Alas, Poor Maling
--The Case for the Defence
--A Little Place Off the Edgware Road
--Across the Bridge
--A Drive in the Country
--The Innocent
--The Basement Room
--A Chance for Mr Lever
--Brother
--Jubilee
--A Day Saved
--I Spy
--Proof Positive
--The Second Death
--The End of the Party
A Sense of Reality
--Under the Garden
--A Visit to Morin
--Dream of a Strange Land
--A Discovery in the Woods
May We Borrow Your Husband?
--May We Borrow Your Husband?
--Beauty
--Chagrin in Three Parts
--The Over-Night Bag
--Mortmain
--Cheap in August
--A Shocking Accident
--The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen
--Awful When You Think of It
--Doctor Crombie
--The Root of All Evil
--Two Gentle People
The Last Word and Other Stories
--The Last Word
--The News in English
--The Moment of Truth
--The Man Who Stole the Eiffel Tower
--The Lieutenant Died Last
--A Branch of the Service
--An Old Man's Memory
--The Lottery Ticket
--The New House
--Work Not In Progress
--Murder for the Wrong Reason
--An Appointment with the General
Newly Collected
--The Blessing
--Church Militant
--Dear Dr Falkenheim
--The Other Side of the Border
Suggestions for Further Reading
Twenty-One Stories
--The Destructors
--Special Duties
--The Blue Film
--The Hint of an Explanation
--When Greek Meets Greek
--Men At Work
--Alas, Poor Maling
--The Case for the Defence
--A Little Place Off the Edgware Road
--Across the Bridge
--A Drive in the Country
--The Innocent
--The Basement Room
--A Chance for Mr Lever
--Brother
--Jubilee
--A Day Saved
--I Spy
--Proof Positive
--The Second Death
--The End of the Party
A Sense of Reality
--Under the Garden
--A Visit to Morin
--Dream of a Strange Land
--A Discovery in the Woods
May We Borrow Your Husband?
--May We Borrow Your Husband?
--Beauty
--Chagrin in Three Parts
--The Over-Night Bag
--Mortmain
--Cheap in August
--A Shocking Accident
--The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen
--Awful When You Think of It
--Doctor Crombie
--The Root of All Evil
--Two Gentle People
The Last Word and Other Stories
--The Last Word
--The News in English
--The Moment of Truth
--The Man Who Stole the Eiffel Tower
--The Lieutenant Died Last
--A Branch of the Service
--An Old Man's Memory
--The Lottery Ticket
--The New House
--Work Not In Progress
--Murder for the Wrong Reason
--An Appointment with the General
Newly Collected
--The Blessing
--Church Militant
--Dear Dr Falkenheim
--The Other Side of the Border
June 14, 2016
Let's forget the stories that read like GG parodies
and focus on some of the best that quiver with irony
and humor. "A Branch of the Service" is a daft comedy
about a spy whose cover is that of a food critic. Thick
soups, rare meats, cheeses and desserts almost kill him.
"May We Borrow Your Husband?" is a distress signal about
sexual naivete: 'The dream wouldn't last.' The universality
of an unlikely tumble is explored lustily in "Cheap in
August" and then there's "The Blue Film," wherein a
discontented wife howls with desire when she learns her
husband, as a youth, made a porn pic. GG serves the driest
and coldest martini. His shaker doesn't bruise the ice.
and focus on some of the best that quiver with irony
and humor. "A Branch of the Service" is a daft comedy
about a spy whose cover is that of a food critic. Thick
soups, rare meats, cheeses and desserts almost kill him.
"May We Borrow Your Husband?" is a distress signal about
sexual naivete: 'The dream wouldn't last.' The universality
of an unlikely tumble is explored lustily in "Cheap in
August" and then there's "The Blue Film," wherein a
discontented wife howls with desire when she learns her
husband, as a youth, made a porn pic. GG serves the driest
and coldest martini. His shaker doesn't bruise the ice.
June 7, 2024
Over the years spanning his career as a novelist, Graham Greene published four volumes of short stories, collected here along with a few additional stories at the end. The read - by turns - is an exhilarating and somewhat ponderous experience. ~ which is to say, collections one and three are consistently top-notch; two and four are, frankly, a bit of an effort to get through. The coda stories are also of less consequence (though one of them, 'Dear Dr. Falkenheim', is singularly creepy).
I had only read one of Greene's novels, 'The Quiet American'. It hadn't occurred to me to read others - mainly because some of Greene's work had been made into fine films directed by Carol Reed ('The Fallen Idol', 'The Third Man', and 'Our Man in Havana') which I still watch on occasion. Greene had served as screenwriter for those films - thus sparing his work the savagery that fiction usually faces en route to screen adaptations - so I made the assumption that the source material was rather intact.
But I still wanted to read more of what he'd written, so 'Complete Short Stories' seemed the thing to do.
As I was reading the first collection ('Twenty-One Stories'), one aspect made me think of the other short story volume I'd recently read, Elizabeth Taylor's 'You'll Enjoy It When You Get There'. Like Taylor, Greene was exhibiting a marvelous range in subject matter. The bulk of the stories opened up new (often intricate) worlds, spiced with cleverness and wit - and sometimes laced with dark longing or heartfelt poignancy; generally populated with socially awkward people. I was gripped.
But that feeling of being captured almost completely vanished through the second collection, 'A Sense of Reality' (and then again with the concluding bundle, 'The Last Word and Other Stories'). What seemed to be happening (to me, anyway) was I felt Greene was concentrating more on *writing* than on story. He could still certainly write - but, overall (with occasional exception), what he was writing about wasn't all that compelling.
~ which was what made the third set, 'May We Borrow Your Husband?', a refreshing return-to-form - esp. with Greene's singular power of observation joined with his uncanny ability to surprise.
It was an odd thing - noticing this conflicting juxtaposition of tone and intent throughout the volume. Still... when Greene is in top form, he's in-flight - and it's thrilling to be on-board.
Favorite stories:
(from 'Twenty-One Stories':) 'The Blue Film', 'When Greek Meets Greek', 'The Case for the Defence', 'Across the Bridge', 'A Drive in the Country', 'The Basement Room' (the basis for 'The Fallen Idol'), 'Proof Positive', 'The End of the Party'.
(from 'May We Borrow Your Husband?':) Collection title story; 'Chagrin in Three Parts', 'Mortmain', 'Cheap in August', 'The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen', 'Doctor Crombie', 'Two Gentle People'.
I had only read one of Greene's novels, 'The Quiet American'. It hadn't occurred to me to read others - mainly because some of Greene's work had been made into fine films directed by Carol Reed ('The Fallen Idol', 'The Third Man', and 'Our Man in Havana') which I still watch on occasion. Greene had served as screenwriter for those films - thus sparing his work the savagery that fiction usually faces en route to screen adaptations - so I made the assumption that the source material was rather intact.
But I still wanted to read more of what he'd written, so 'Complete Short Stories' seemed the thing to do.
As I was reading the first collection ('Twenty-One Stories'), one aspect made me think of the other short story volume I'd recently read, Elizabeth Taylor's 'You'll Enjoy It When You Get There'. Like Taylor, Greene was exhibiting a marvelous range in subject matter. The bulk of the stories opened up new (often intricate) worlds, spiced with cleverness and wit - and sometimes laced with dark longing or heartfelt poignancy; generally populated with socially awkward people. I was gripped.
But that feeling of being captured almost completely vanished through the second collection, 'A Sense of Reality' (and then again with the concluding bundle, 'The Last Word and Other Stories'). What seemed to be happening (to me, anyway) was I felt Greene was concentrating more on *writing* than on story. He could still certainly write - but, overall (with occasional exception), what he was writing about wasn't all that compelling.
~ which was what made the third set, 'May We Borrow Your Husband?', a refreshing return-to-form - esp. with Greene's singular power of observation joined with his uncanny ability to surprise.
It was an odd thing - noticing this conflicting juxtaposition of tone and intent throughout the volume. Still... when Greene is in top form, he's in-flight - and it's thrilling to be on-board.
Favorite stories:
(from 'Twenty-One Stories':) 'The Blue Film', 'When Greek Meets Greek', 'The Case for the Defence', 'Across the Bridge', 'A Drive in the Country', 'The Basement Room' (the basis for 'The Fallen Idol'), 'Proof Positive', 'The End of the Party'.
(from 'May We Borrow Your Husband?':) Collection title story; 'Chagrin in Three Parts', 'Mortmain', 'Cheap in August', 'The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen', 'Doctor Crombie', 'Two Gentle People'.
January 19, 2017
3.5 stars.
Reading "Complete Short Stories" by Graham Greene was a bit tediously challenging since he has penned his own style in terms of his narration, setting, humor, etc. However, I don't claim I enjoyed all of his 53 stories collected into the following five topics: Twenty-One Stories (21), A Sense of Reality (4), May We Borrow Your Husband? (12), The Last Word and Other Stories (12) and Newly Collected (4). Rather, I found most of them arguably readable while some few fairly manageable. One of the reasons is that, I think, I couldn't fathom to deepen my better understanding due to the context itself of the story in question. Probably I would reread that with more information to clarify any ambiguity I might encounter.
Coming to look at the bright side, I'd like to encourage Greene newcomers to have a try by reading any story that looks appealingly interesting because we can find "Graham Greene in a range of contrasting moods, sometimes cynical and witty, sometimes searching and philosophical." (back cover) Eventually, we would soon find reading him so uniquely amazing and inspiring that we can't help wondering how he has done so fantastically. For instance, I found reading his "May we borrow your husband?" subtly humorous and critical from its 8 parts, 27-odd pages; the story depicting a newly-wed young couple (Peter and Poopy) who obviously look unhappy as observed by the narrator (William) and a duo of seemingly mischievous young men (Stephen and Tony) as social acquaintances who have gradually involved in their affair.
This extract may give us some ideas on the ensuing conflict:
Tony detected the smile. 'A regular body-snatcher,' he said. My breakfast and the young man arrived at the same moment before I had time to reply. As he passed the table I could feel the tension.
'Cuir de Russie,' Stephen said, quivering a nostril. 'A mistake of inexperience.'
The youth caught the words as he went past and turned with an astonished look to see who had spoken, and they both smiled insolently back at him as though they really believed they had the power to take him over ...
For the first time I felt disquiet. (pp. 308-309)
We may wonder how come, in terms of such a roguishly humorous title, and it's a relief to find it in this extract:
And then Stephen produced the master-plan. I could tell it was coming by the way his hands stiffened on his coffee-cup, by the way Tony lowered his eyes and appeared to be praying over his croissant. "We were wondering, Poopy -- may we borrow your husband?" I have never heard words spoken with more elaborate casualness.
She laughed. She hadn't noticed a thing. 'Borrow my husband?'
... (p. 318)
Eventually, it's a bit challenging for us as readers to guess in mind how the end would be and we would soon realize that Greene's ending is different from Maugham's in that he has left his readers to reflect further or judge it ourselves like this story.
Reading "Complete Short Stories" by Graham Greene was a bit tediously challenging since he has penned his own style in terms of his narration, setting, humor, etc. However, I don't claim I enjoyed all of his 53 stories collected into the following five topics: Twenty-One Stories (21), A Sense of Reality (4), May We Borrow Your Husband? (12), The Last Word and Other Stories (12) and Newly Collected (4). Rather, I found most of them arguably readable while some few fairly manageable. One of the reasons is that, I think, I couldn't fathom to deepen my better understanding due to the context itself of the story in question. Probably I would reread that with more information to clarify any ambiguity I might encounter.
Coming to look at the bright side, I'd like to encourage Greene newcomers to have a try by reading any story that looks appealingly interesting because we can find "Graham Greene in a range of contrasting moods, sometimes cynical and witty, sometimes searching and philosophical." (back cover) Eventually, we would soon find reading him so uniquely amazing and inspiring that we can't help wondering how he has done so fantastically. For instance, I found reading his "May we borrow your husband?" subtly humorous and critical from its 8 parts, 27-odd pages; the story depicting a newly-wed young couple (Peter and Poopy) who obviously look unhappy as observed by the narrator (William) and a duo of seemingly mischievous young men (Stephen and Tony) as social acquaintances who have gradually involved in their affair.
This extract may give us some ideas on the ensuing conflict:
Tony detected the smile. 'A regular body-snatcher,' he said. My breakfast and the young man arrived at the same moment before I had time to reply. As he passed the table I could feel the tension.
'Cuir de Russie,' Stephen said, quivering a nostril. 'A mistake of inexperience.'
The youth caught the words as he went past and turned with an astonished look to see who had spoken, and they both smiled insolently back at him as though they really believed they had the power to take him over ...
For the first time I felt disquiet. (pp. 308-309)
We may wonder how come, in terms of such a roguishly humorous title, and it's a relief to find it in this extract:
And then Stephen produced the master-plan. I could tell it was coming by the way his hands stiffened on his coffee-cup, by the way Tony lowered his eyes and appeared to be praying over his croissant. "We were wondering, Poopy -- may we borrow your husband?" I have never heard words spoken with more elaborate casualness.
She laughed. She hadn't noticed a thing. 'Borrow my husband?'
... (p. 318)
Eventually, it's a bit challenging for us as readers to guess in mind how the end would be and we would soon realize that Greene's ending is different from Maugham's in that he has left his readers to reflect further or judge it ourselves like this story.
July 8, 2011
I tend to prefer novels to short stories; for some reason I can't connect to characters in short stories as well as I might be able to in novels. Greene, though, Greene is different. I have never enjoyed a short story as much as I have with his. He is such a brilliant story teller, and not only are each of his stories different, they each have the ability to stand on their own. They're nothing like the stories I was forced to read in English last year!
What I love about his writings in this book is the sincere, tender, and sometimes heartbreaking aspect of certain stories. It's so beautiful to read a story with characters such as the ones Greene has written. He's my favorite short story author and I will reread these tales for years and years.
PS my current favorite is The Blue Film!
What I love about his writings in this book is the sincere, tender, and sometimes heartbreaking aspect of certain stories. It's so beautiful to read a story with characters such as the ones Greene has written. He's my favorite short story author and I will reread these tales for years and years.
PS my current favorite is The Blue Film!
August 8, 2024
Pretty Great Anthology; a must read if you like Graham Greene or brilliant short fiction
It is almost impossible to award five stars to a short story anthology, especially one as comprehensive as Graham Greene's Complete Short Stories. This is, after all, a complete anthology of his previous short-story anthologies from the length and breadth of his entire 67-year writing career. Most short fiction anthologies fail because, if they showcase numerous writers, there are bound to be a few stinkers in the mix. And if it's a comprehensive collection of a single author who wrote in a variety of genres, there will be some that won't appeal. But Graham Greene is such a masterful writer, the greatest of his generation in my opinion, that even if one doesn't like a story, the plot, the genre, or the characters, you cannot help but marvel at the prose, the plot construction, the use of irony, the observations of life, and the brilliant dialogue.
Graham Greene mastered the art of the short story. His novels are not always this good. And some of the genre's in this collection are not even to my liking (I despise childhood stories and romantic comedies). Yet Graham Greene is such an obvious genius at capturing the subtle nuances of human character and personality that even the stories I hated I read with an unsettled awe. There are, in some of these stories, hints or foreshadows of plots or ideas that would come to fuller fruition in his more popular novels. So some of these stories may pale in comparison to the more complete vision in the novels. But you would only know that if you have read a lot of his work.
Greene was often called a Catholic writer, a title he wore uneasily. He described himself as a Catholic agnostic. And the span of this work, covering his entire lifetime, reflects the ebb and flow of his religious thinking over the years. Many of his early and later periods of fiction do possess strong religious themes or elements. In the middle period of his life, when his marriage floundered (he converted to Catholicism to marry his first wife), he became a stereotype of the post-war secular liberal Englishman who took neither his religion nor his marriage vows seriously and dreamed of affairs with much younger women to give his life more color. Which explains much of the inspiration behind the 1967 adult-themed comedy anthology entitled "May We Borrow Your Husband" that makes up the middle section of this collection. While this material may have been edgy and hip in the 50s and 60s it comes across as dated and anachronistic to post-modern ears.
Many of Graham's stories involve espionage and the adventures of British ex-pats abroad. He spent the war years as an MI5 operative in Sierra Leone (where he worked, ironically, for the notorious traitor, Kim Philby) and the pre-war years as an investigative journalist on behalf of Catholic interests in Mexico during its secular revolution. He wrote two classic travel books about these places and both locales pop up, as would be expected, in this anthology.
Greene always exhibits a lot of resentment for Americans in his novels. So it should come as no surprise that his English parochialism is writ large in these pages whenever an American appears in a story. But that won't surprise regular readers of his work. It was part and parcel of his cantankerous, English liberal chauvinism and it made him popular with cosmopolitan intellectuals who shared his political and social views.
The last story in this collection, "The Other Side of the Border," is an unfinished manuscript for a novel about West Africa Greene started before the war. He writes a brief introduction about it in which he explains why it was never completed. This is the kind of stuff I cherish--to see the inner workings of a great creative mind. But truthfully, it's a pretty terrible effort (as he admits) although mostly because I see it as entirely evocative of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" but with an ensemble cast of British tramps in search of a non-existent West African gold mine. What I did like about it was the way it depicted pre-war British Colonialism, when desperate, depression-era Englishmen signed up to go to desperate places on the declining imperial map in search of the nineteenth century romantic adventures that had once been a part of their cultural heritage.
No one captured the hopes and dreams of the English people amidst the declining global fortunes of mid-20th Century Great Britain as well as Graham Greene... at least until John Le Carre came along.
This is a phenomenal collection that no lover of Graham Greene's work can choose to ignore.
If you love brilliant short-fiction, this anthology is Highly Recommended.
It is almost impossible to award five stars to a short story anthology, especially one as comprehensive as Graham Greene's Complete Short Stories. This is, after all, a complete anthology of his previous short-story anthologies from the length and breadth of his entire 67-year writing career. Most short fiction anthologies fail because, if they showcase numerous writers, there are bound to be a few stinkers in the mix. And if it's a comprehensive collection of a single author who wrote in a variety of genres, there will be some that won't appeal. But Graham Greene is such a masterful writer, the greatest of his generation in my opinion, that even if one doesn't like a story, the plot, the genre, or the characters, you cannot help but marvel at the prose, the plot construction, the use of irony, the observations of life, and the brilliant dialogue.
Graham Greene mastered the art of the short story. His novels are not always this good. And some of the genre's in this collection are not even to my liking (I despise childhood stories and romantic comedies). Yet Graham Greene is such an obvious genius at capturing the subtle nuances of human character and personality that even the stories I hated I read with an unsettled awe. There are, in some of these stories, hints or foreshadows of plots or ideas that would come to fuller fruition in his more popular novels. So some of these stories may pale in comparison to the more complete vision in the novels. But you would only know that if you have read a lot of his work.
Greene was often called a Catholic writer, a title he wore uneasily. He described himself as a Catholic agnostic. And the span of this work, covering his entire lifetime, reflects the ebb and flow of his religious thinking over the years. Many of his early and later periods of fiction do possess strong religious themes or elements. In the middle period of his life, when his marriage floundered (he converted to Catholicism to marry his first wife), he became a stereotype of the post-war secular liberal Englishman who took neither his religion nor his marriage vows seriously and dreamed of affairs with much younger women to give his life more color. Which explains much of the inspiration behind the 1967 adult-themed comedy anthology entitled "May We Borrow Your Husband" that makes up the middle section of this collection. While this material may have been edgy and hip in the 50s and 60s it comes across as dated and anachronistic to post-modern ears.
Many of Graham's stories involve espionage and the adventures of British ex-pats abroad. He spent the war years as an MI5 operative in Sierra Leone (where he worked, ironically, for the notorious traitor, Kim Philby) and the pre-war years as an investigative journalist on behalf of Catholic interests in Mexico during its secular revolution. He wrote two classic travel books about these places and both locales pop up, as would be expected, in this anthology.
Greene always exhibits a lot of resentment for Americans in his novels. So it should come as no surprise that his English parochialism is writ large in these pages whenever an American appears in a story. But that won't surprise regular readers of his work. It was part and parcel of his cantankerous, English liberal chauvinism and it made him popular with cosmopolitan intellectuals who shared his political and social views.
The last story in this collection, "The Other Side of the Border," is an unfinished manuscript for a novel about West Africa Greene started before the war. He writes a brief introduction about it in which he explains why it was never completed. This is the kind of stuff I cherish--to see the inner workings of a great creative mind. But truthfully, it's a pretty terrible effort (as he admits) although mostly because I see it as entirely evocative of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" but with an ensemble cast of British tramps in search of a non-existent West African gold mine. What I did like about it was the way it depicted pre-war British Colonialism, when desperate, depression-era Englishmen signed up to go to desperate places on the declining imperial map in search of the nineteenth century romantic adventures that had once been a part of their cultural heritage.
No one captured the hopes and dreams of the English people amidst the declining global fortunes of mid-20th Century Great Britain as well as Graham Greene... at least until John Le Carre came along.
This is a phenomenal collection that no lover of Graham Greene's work can choose to ignore.
If you love brilliant short-fiction, this anthology is Highly Recommended.
December 22, 2020
Complete Short Stories by Graham Greene
Here are the stories that I really liked.
1. The Blue Film - a risqué story about a husband and wife overseas who go to see a smut show where they recognize one of the actors.
2. A Drive in the Country - a young lady gets into trouble with a dangerous man.
3. The Basement Room - a masterpiece. A man recalls a tragic incident when he was a small boy involving the family butler.
4. The Last Word - A sci-fi story involving the last Christian on a futuristic Earth.
3.5 stars. Greene is one of my favorite novelists but the majority of the 52 stories here in this collection were just too short. Greene’s writing style is more of a slow burn.
Here are the stories that I really liked.
1. The Blue Film - a risqué story about a husband and wife overseas who go to see a smut show where they recognize one of the actors.
2. A Drive in the Country - a young lady gets into trouble with a dangerous man.
3. The Basement Room - a masterpiece. A man recalls a tragic incident when he was a small boy involving the family butler.
4. The Last Word - A sci-fi story involving the last Christian on a futuristic Earth.
3.5 stars. Greene is one of my favorite novelists but the majority of the 52 stories here in this collection were just too short. Greene’s writing style is more of a slow burn.
October 9, 2015
As the book's title implies, it collects ALL of Graham Greene's short stories, so those other collections? like Twenty-one Stories, May We Borrow Your Husband & Other Comedies of the Sexual Life, The Last Word and Other Stories? Yep, they're all in here, along with some other stories, 4 of which are 'newly collected', for a grand total of 53 stories.
For my impressions on the 3 individual short story collections mentioned above, I invite you to click on their respective links.
Usually with short story collections, I find that I have to read only a few (stories) at a time - in between other books, let's say - so that the book doesn't become a chore and I don't find myself growing disinterested (or worse: bored!). Sometimes even that is insufficient and I still get bored. Such culprits include Thomas Mann's Collected Stories and Burton's The Arabian Nights. This may change, but right now I can't even go anywhere near these 2 books.
There have been many happy (for me) exceptions to this rule, when the quality of the stories is so constantly good, that I read through the whole thing very fast. This book is a such an exception, and it joins a select club, whose exclusive membership include such gems as The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh, Boccaccio's The Decameron, Dashiell Hammett's Crime Stories and Other Writings, and Penguin's 4 short story collections of W. Somerset Maugham - oh, and Rudyard Kipling's Collected Stories.
So it goes without saying that if you like short stories and/or Graham Greene, you should get this collection, because it is 'complete' and you will probably save yourself some $$ by buying one book instead of three.
Okay, okay. Here are some of the stories that I enjoyed more than others:
- Special Duties
- When Greek Meets Greek
- Alas, Poor Maling
- Across The Bridge
- The Basement Room
- The End Of The Party
- A Visit To Morin
- Dream Of A Strange Land
- May We Borrow Your Husband?
- A Shocking Accident
- Doctor Crombie
- The Root Of All Evil
- The Last Word
- The News In English
- A Branch Of The Service
- The Blessing
- Dear Dr Falkenheim
* Excluding this sentence, the word 'stories' was used 11 times in this review, and 'story' was used 3 times. Sorry about that.
For my impressions on the 3 individual short story collections mentioned above, I invite you to click on their respective links.
Usually with short story collections, I find that I have to read only a few (stories) at a time - in between other books, let's say - so that the book doesn't become a chore and I don't find myself growing disinterested (or worse: bored!). Sometimes even that is insufficient and I still get bored. Such culprits include Thomas Mann's Collected Stories and Burton's The Arabian Nights. This may change, but right now I can't even go anywhere near these 2 books.
There have been many happy (for me) exceptions to this rule, when the quality of the stories is so constantly good, that I read through the whole thing very fast. This book is a such an exception, and it joins a select club, whose exclusive membership include such gems as The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh, Boccaccio's The Decameron, Dashiell Hammett's Crime Stories and Other Writings, and Penguin's 4 short story collections of W. Somerset Maugham - oh, and Rudyard Kipling's Collected Stories.
So it goes without saying that if you like short stories and/or Graham Greene, you should get this collection, because it is 'complete' and you will probably save yourself some $$ by buying one book instead of three.
Okay, okay. Here are some of the stories that I enjoyed more than others:
- Special Duties
- When Greek Meets Greek
- Alas, Poor Maling
- Across The Bridge
- The Basement Room
- The End Of The Party
- A Visit To Morin
- Dream Of A Strange Land
- May We Borrow Your Husband?
- A Shocking Accident
- Doctor Crombie
- The Root Of All Evil
- The Last Word
- The News In English
- A Branch Of The Service
- The Blessing
- Dear Dr Falkenheim
* Excluding this sentence, the word 'stories' was used 11 times in this review, and 'story' was used 3 times. Sorry about that.
Want to read
December 4, 2023Contains the stories (noted by collection below):
Twenty-One Stories
The Destructors
Special Duties
The Blue Film
The Hint of an Explanation
When Greek Meets Greek
Men At Work
Alas, Poor Maling
The Case for the Defence
A Little Place Off the Edgware Road - 4/5 - be careful who you sit next to in the theater
Across the Bridge
A Drive in the Country
The Innocent
The Basement Room - 3/5 - basis for the film The Fallen Idol
A Chance for Mr Lever
Brother
Jubilee
A Day Saved
I Spy
Proof Positive
The Second Death
The End of the Party
A Sense Of Reality
Under the Garden
A Visit to Morin
Dream of a Strange Land
A Discovery in the Woods
May We Borrow Your Husband? & Other Comedies of the Sexual Life
May We Borrow Your Husband?
Beauty
Chagrin in Three Parts
The Over-Night Bag
Mortmain
Cheap in August
A Shocking Accident
The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen
Awful When You Think of It
Doctor Crombie
The Root of All Evil
Two Gentle People
The Last Word and Other Stories
The Last Word
The News in English
The Moment of Truth
The Man Who Stole the Eiffel Tower
The Lieutenant Died Last
A Branch of the Service
An Old Man's Memory
The Lottery Ticket
The New House
Work Not In Progress
Murder for the Wrong Reason
An Appointment with the General
Newly Collected
The Blessing
Church Militant
Dear Dr Falkenheim
The Other Side of the Border
Twenty-One Stories
The Destructors
Special Duties
The Blue Film
The Hint of an Explanation
When Greek Meets Greek
Men At Work
Alas, Poor Maling
The Case for the Defence
A Little Place Off the Edgware Road - 4/5 - be careful who you sit next to in the theater
Across the Bridge
A Drive in the Country
The Innocent
The Basement Room - 3/5 - basis for the film The Fallen Idol
A Chance for Mr Lever
Brother
Jubilee
A Day Saved
I Spy
Proof Positive
The Second Death
The End of the Party
A Sense Of Reality
Under the Garden
A Visit to Morin
Dream of a Strange Land
A Discovery in the Woods
May We Borrow Your Husband? & Other Comedies of the Sexual Life
May We Borrow Your Husband?
Beauty
Chagrin in Three Parts
The Over-Night Bag
Mortmain
Cheap in August
A Shocking Accident
The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen
Awful When You Think of It
Doctor Crombie
The Root of All Evil
Two Gentle People
The Last Word and Other Stories
The Last Word
The News in English
The Moment of Truth
The Man Who Stole the Eiffel Tower
The Lieutenant Died Last
A Branch of the Service
An Old Man's Memory
The Lottery Ticket
The New House
Work Not In Progress
Murder for the Wrong Reason
An Appointment with the General
Newly Collected
The Blessing
Church Militant
Dear Dr Falkenheim
The Other Side of the Border
September 6, 2007
Part of my GG binge this summer, his short stories are marvelous.
The edition I had was not paperback, but contained all the included stories. In the foreword, Greene states that he can never achieve the level of story of "The Lady with the Dog" by Chekhov, and describes himself as a novelist who writes short stories instead of the other way around (like Chekhov).
While not every one of the stories was as good as the first (in my collection) titled "May We Borrow Your Husband?", Greene masterfully, and honestly, connects with several top tier stories. "The Destructors" is marvelous, while "I Spy" which Greene considers his finest story in the collection, is heartbreaking. "Under the Garden" is also amazing.
Reading his collection straight-up is like reading two Greenes. One is silly, jovial, and slap-stick, while the other is collegiate, serious, and vicious. Both Greenes are honest about the subject matter, although the first Greene (the one that writes 'entertainments') is less serious in his honesty and more flippant, perhaps, in a forgivable way.
I recommend his complete collection to everyone who is in the mood for comedy, tragedy, and everything in-between. The story about the Canadian Santa Claus being decapitated (I shit you not) is laugh-out-loud funny.
The edition I had was not paperback, but contained all the included stories. In the foreword, Greene states that he can never achieve the level of story of "The Lady with the Dog" by Chekhov, and describes himself as a novelist who writes short stories instead of the other way around (like Chekhov).
While not every one of the stories was as good as the first (in my collection) titled "May We Borrow Your Husband?", Greene masterfully, and honestly, connects with several top tier stories. "The Destructors" is marvelous, while "I Spy" which Greene considers his finest story in the collection, is heartbreaking. "Under the Garden" is also amazing.
Reading his collection straight-up is like reading two Greenes. One is silly, jovial, and slap-stick, while the other is collegiate, serious, and vicious. Both Greenes are honest about the subject matter, although the first Greene (the one that writes 'entertainments') is less serious in his honesty and more flippant, perhaps, in a forgivable way.
I recommend his complete collection to everyone who is in the mood for comedy, tragedy, and everything in-between. The story about the Canadian Santa Claus being decapitated (I shit you not) is laugh-out-loud funny.
December 30, 2011
I prefer his novels to his stories.
June 12, 2016
Mixed bag.
Review to follow.
Review to follow.
October 30, 2018
While I read the vast bulk of these stories in their component volumes (21 STORIES, UNDER THE GARDEN, MAY WE BORROW YOUR HUSBAND? and THE LAST WORD) I did sneak a look at this gigantic compilation so as to read a story which hadn't made any previous collection. Actually, three other stories which this volume claims were never previously collected DO appear, snuck into COLLECTED STORIES which Graham Greene himself compiled in 1972. (And I do mean "snuck" in; the three extra stories suddenly became part of UNDER THE GARDEN in its COLLECTED STORIES incarnation. If you get a stand-alone copy of UNDER THE GARDEN, though, you'll find those stories aren't in it. So, to be clear, three of the four stories which COMPLETE SHORT STORIES says appear in book-form for the first time in COMPLETE SHORT STORIES actually first appeared in book-form in the UNDER THE GARDEN section of COLLECTED STORIES.)
Having now read ALL Green's stories I can say he achieves mastery with his 1967 book of stories, MAY WE BORROW YOUR HUSBAND? Just as Joyce's DUBLINERS has a theme, MAY WE BORROW YOUR HUSBAND? is made up of themed stories. Greene wrote that he devised those stories just for that book. This may be a key to its success. His other three collections are, indeed, collections. MAY WE BORROW YOUR HUSBAND? is made up of stories written one after the other for the book. My feeling is that, as good as any one story in his other collections is, none of them reaches the height of the story "May We Borrow Your Husband?" I am of the opinion that MAY WE BORROW YOUR HUSBAND? is the best book he ever wrote. I've read all of his novels. And, as I've said, I've now read all the stories. If he'd never published the book MAY WE BORROW YOUR HUSBAND? I'm not certain I would rate any of the other story collections as on a par with the novels THE POWER AND THE GLORY, THE HONORARY CONSUL or THE COMEDIANS.
But Greene sets the bar very high. He is generally brief and to the point, but in his longer stories he is still aware of the merit of the one-two-punch. He continually startles the reader. COMPLETE SHORT STORIES has the merit of preserving the four collections Greene saw in his lifetime. Penguin Books has wisely not chosen to re-arrange the story order of any one of the four original volumes. The four previously uncollected stories are placed at the end (although, as I've said, three of them WERE previously collected.)
If you are going to read only a few, the best stories are: "Cheap In August," "The Basement Room," "The End Of The Party," "The Destructors," "The Lottery Ticket" "May We Borrow Your Husband?" and one, the title of which I cannot conjure, about a Swiss doctor and a leper.
Having now read ALL Green's stories I can say he achieves mastery with his 1967 book of stories, MAY WE BORROW YOUR HUSBAND? Just as Joyce's DUBLINERS has a theme, MAY WE BORROW YOUR HUSBAND? is made up of themed stories. Greene wrote that he devised those stories just for that book. This may be a key to its success. His other three collections are, indeed, collections. MAY WE BORROW YOUR HUSBAND? is made up of stories written one after the other for the book. My feeling is that, as good as any one story in his other collections is, none of them reaches the height of the story "May We Borrow Your Husband?" I am of the opinion that MAY WE BORROW YOUR HUSBAND? is the best book he ever wrote. I've read all of his novels. And, as I've said, I've now read all the stories. If he'd never published the book MAY WE BORROW YOUR HUSBAND? I'm not certain I would rate any of the other story collections as on a par with the novels THE POWER AND THE GLORY, THE HONORARY CONSUL or THE COMEDIANS.
But Greene sets the bar very high. He is generally brief and to the point, but in his longer stories he is still aware of the merit of the one-two-punch. He continually startles the reader. COMPLETE SHORT STORIES has the merit of preserving the four collections Greene saw in his lifetime. Penguin Books has wisely not chosen to re-arrange the story order of any one of the four original volumes. The four previously uncollected stories are placed at the end (although, as I've said, three of them WERE previously collected.)
If you are going to read only a few, the best stories are: "Cheap In August," "The Basement Room," "The End Of The Party," "The Destructors," "The Lottery Ticket" "May We Borrow Your Husband?" and one, the title of which I cannot conjure, about a Swiss doctor and a leper.
May 24, 2022
What began as a casual interest in a single short story by one of those fringe authors you hear about in British Literature classes quickly morphed into a buffet of delightful late-night reading.
Greene is best read at night. Preferably with the window cracked, a quiet howl shimmying its way through the mountains, and yellow lamplight guiding the way.
While most stories contain a highly stylized death, they hardly veer into the satirical 1001 ways to die territory. No, Greene would likely have scoffed at the idea of that TV show. But somehow snuck his way into the writers room to snag an idea or two for his next batch of stories.
Yes, death is a theme. But what else is there to write about than our universal equal?
Stories like "The Blue Film" and "A Little Place off the Edgware Road" approach the flair of surrealism and individual voyuerism common with modern literature.
Greene's longer stories are splendid. Though, they do feel more like novels pared down to story form rather than stories kept within the narrower point of view.
Much of literary criticism focuses on mood. And with good reason. Though, there's more to mood than stopping at how it makes the reader feel, think or see. For Greene, and many of the great British writers before and behind him, it's about those specific moods that surround the characters before, during and after we readers find them in their individual stories.
Greene is best read at night. Preferably with the window cracked, a quiet howl shimmying its way through the mountains, and yellow lamplight guiding the way.
While most stories contain a highly stylized death, they hardly veer into the satirical 1001 ways to die territory. No, Greene would likely have scoffed at the idea of that TV show. But somehow snuck his way into the writers room to snag an idea or two for his next batch of stories.
Yes, death is a theme. But what else is there to write about than our universal equal?
Stories like "The Blue Film" and "A Little Place off the Edgware Road" approach the flair of surrealism and individual voyuerism common with modern literature.
Greene's longer stories are splendid. Though, they do feel more like novels pared down to story form rather than stories kept within the narrower point of view.
Much of literary criticism focuses on mood. And with good reason. Though, there's more to mood than stopping at how it makes the reader feel, think or see. For Greene, and many of the great British writers before and behind him, it's about those specific moods that surround the characters before, during and after we readers find them in their individual stories.
May 17, 2018
Simply put, an exceedingly dynamic collection of short stories covering an eclectic range of genres from a complex author. It is a great collection of work from Greene, and is great bang for buck if you enjoy his varied moods.
February 24, 2008
Whether you liked or disliked "Atonement" -- and I haven't read it, just know everything that happens -- read Graham Greene's marvelous story "The Basement Room," which may well have informed the Briony character, except that this protagonist is the young son of the French ambassador to London, alone at the embassy one weekend with the butler, whom he adores, and his cruel wife, and witnesses something he gravely misinterprets. Graham's evocation of a child's consciousness -- the deafness to nuance, the indifference to code, the hapless efforts to mimic adult speech (that is, to lie) -- is one of the more honest. (Carol Reed's film adaptation, "The Fallen Idol," is even better.)
Read
December 13, 2007too much early twentieth century british anti-big-brother commentary. and i'm not one to fall asleep while reading but the sheer density of his style (admittedly another product of when he's writing) has a narcoleptic effect. it's just not for me.
that being said, i recommend you just pick this book up at the bookstore and read the very first story and reshelve it. the first story is worth it, entirely downhill after that.
that being said, i recommend you just pick this book up at the bookstore and read the very first story and reshelve it. the first story is worth it, entirely downhill after that.
March 13, 2008
I read A Sense Of Reality which is a collection of 4 GG short stories, but I could not find it on this site to add. GG does reality, seering hard edged human reality in all his best novels. In this collection however, the stories all have touches of fantasy, which is an unusual departure. Only 100 pages, flew through this in a day thanks to CTA delays making my commute this morning over an hour. Sort it out Daley, you crook.
Read
December 22, 2019For me, I find that the short stories of certain authors are largely preferable over their novels. Two quick examples come to mind: T.C. Boyle and Conan Doyle (over both his Holmes' novellas and his tedious medieval romances, which he hoped he'd be most famous for).
Graham Greene is the opposite. I much prefer his novels to his short stories.
Graham Greene is the opposite. I much prefer his novels to his short stories.
November 5, 2022
Hit or miss. Mostly miss with a few good hits.
July 18, 2017
There are a number of authors that, despite having a couple of novels under their belt, are primarily known as short story writers simply because they were either more prolific or produced better work when restricted to the shorter format. As almost any prose writer will tell you, its a skill that requires two entirely different sets of muscles.
However, for the most part it seems that the only major muscles Graham Greene possessed were novel writing ones. They made him look pretty buff, granted, but I guess its like focusing your entire sports career on conditioning the running muscles and not the throwing ones. You'll still be able to throw stuff, but when you do try its going to make people wonder if its just easier to buy you a slingshot and save you some misery.
But honestly I don't believe Greene is even known as a short story writer and not simply because his peaks as a novelist overshadow everything else. I bought this because I am apparently easily seduced by packages that market themselves as "complete", to the point where I'd probably eagerly purchase a "Complete Set of Vengeful Assassins" and that'll be that for me.
This one collects basically all the stories that Greene wrote over the course of his career in one near six hundred page volume and one thing that will become clear is that six hundred pages of Greene's short fiction is perhaps more than you'll possibly need. All the elements that make his novels so interesting for me, namely the crushing sense of inevitability, the exotic settings seen through a reporter's eye, the examination of the religious and social themes, seem to work better when played out over the course of several hundred pages instead of ten. Reduced to a shorter format, most of the stories, especially the early ones, appear to act more like sketches or scenes searching for a novel. Most of them set up a scenario and let it play through briefly before ending on some kind of chilling twist. This does make them effective in surts but its like having nothing but chewy snacks instead of a full meal.
What's interesting is how early on he seemed to be trying out different genres, with a couple stories either hinting at spiritual or otherworldly elements or simply doing their best to be outright creepy. Even more intriguing is a couple stories that fell into the "A Sense of Reality" collection (namely "A Discovery in the Woods" and "Under the Garden") that swerve very close to a peculiar version of fantasy that you almost wish he could have developed further, if only for the novelty of seeing what else he could do with it.
But for the most part you get fairly standard Greene concerns (not religion, oddly enough, even if Catholicism is referenced a few times it seems he saved the heavy explorations for the novels themselves) so you have spouses cheating on each other (often the best ones, like "May We Borrow Your Husband", where a man falls in a love with a lady whose husband is being seduced by two other men, "Cheap in August", which has the lived in and grimy room feel of his good stuff, and "Two Gentle People", which manages to avoid being manipulative by a very small margin and thus works), stories set briefly in other territories (but without that heavy sense of place the novels manage), a smattering of tales involving spies or dictators or revolutionaries, but all of them functioning as a kind of Greene-lite, showing you what he can do without really delving into the meat of it.
Are any of them bad? Actually, no. Greene is still Greene is still Greene so his prose remains clear-eyed and even when the plot isn't exactly crackling with drama he's pretty good at telling a story. Sometimes he's too clever for his own good and clarity becomes somewhat of an issue, but when he's good in small doses you almost wish he had worked as hard as he did on the novels. But when you have novels as good as "The Heart of the Matter", "Brighton Rock", and "The Power and the Glory" it seems selfish to demand that he write iconic short stories as well. Completists will certainly want to take a long, especially for the roads not traveled but everyone else will probably be happy with the longer works.
However, for the most part it seems that the only major muscles Graham Greene possessed were novel writing ones. They made him look pretty buff, granted, but I guess its like focusing your entire sports career on conditioning the running muscles and not the throwing ones. You'll still be able to throw stuff, but when you do try its going to make people wonder if its just easier to buy you a slingshot and save you some misery.
But honestly I don't believe Greene is even known as a short story writer and not simply because his peaks as a novelist overshadow everything else. I bought this because I am apparently easily seduced by packages that market themselves as "complete", to the point where I'd probably eagerly purchase a "Complete Set of Vengeful Assassins" and that'll be that for me.
This one collects basically all the stories that Greene wrote over the course of his career in one near six hundred page volume and one thing that will become clear is that six hundred pages of Greene's short fiction is perhaps more than you'll possibly need. All the elements that make his novels so interesting for me, namely the crushing sense of inevitability, the exotic settings seen through a reporter's eye, the examination of the religious and social themes, seem to work better when played out over the course of several hundred pages instead of ten. Reduced to a shorter format, most of the stories, especially the early ones, appear to act more like sketches or scenes searching for a novel. Most of them set up a scenario and let it play through briefly before ending on some kind of chilling twist. This does make them effective in surts but its like having nothing but chewy snacks instead of a full meal.
What's interesting is how early on he seemed to be trying out different genres, with a couple stories either hinting at spiritual or otherworldly elements or simply doing their best to be outright creepy. Even more intriguing is a couple stories that fell into the "A Sense of Reality" collection (namely "A Discovery in the Woods" and "Under the Garden") that swerve very close to a peculiar version of fantasy that you almost wish he could have developed further, if only for the novelty of seeing what else he could do with it.
But for the most part you get fairly standard Greene concerns (not religion, oddly enough, even if Catholicism is referenced a few times it seems he saved the heavy explorations for the novels themselves) so you have spouses cheating on each other (often the best ones, like "May We Borrow Your Husband", where a man falls in a love with a lady whose husband is being seduced by two other men, "Cheap in August", which has the lived in and grimy room feel of his good stuff, and "Two Gentle People", which manages to avoid being manipulative by a very small margin and thus works), stories set briefly in other territories (but without that heavy sense of place the novels manage), a smattering of tales involving spies or dictators or revolutionaries, but all of them functioning as a kind of Greene-lite, showing you what he can do without really delving into the meat of it.
Are any of them bad? Actually, no. Greene is still Greene is still Greene so his prose remains clear-eyed and even when the plot isn't exactly crackling with drama he's pretty good at telling a story. Sometimes he's too clever for his own good and clarity becomes somewhat of an issue, but when he's good in small doses you almost wish he had worked as hard as he did on the novels. But when you have novels as good as "The Heart of the Matter", "Brighton Rock", and "The Power and the Glory" it seems selfish to demand that he write iconic short stories as well. Completists will certainly want to take a long, especially for the roads not traveled but everyone else will probably be happy with the longer works.
October 8, 2021
oh wow, oh wow, oh wow
so some stories i didn't like much, as is only natural. Graham Greene himself didn't like some of his stories. and some of those were pretty long--like the one about the kids who destroy the old man's house. i HATED that story, and it was looooong and just... so pointless...
BUT some stories i absolutely LOVED. and they were all so different even if they were all so Greene! there's the dystopian story about the bow-legged kids and people in that island... there's freaking sci fi here!!!! i mean, seriously!! who knew!??! and the lesbian story!!!! Here you have one of those authors for whom women are... they're somehow... women are not something that he understands and they're not subjects in their own right in his writing, they are there for the men in his stories, and it seems as if they were there for him (or against him or about him, but not as peers, not as "companions in equality" because they are different, it seems, to Greene... well, men are different, to me. like Greene, i don't get the opposite sex, i do not comprehend the opposite sex, everything they do and everything they don't do is inexplicable, and if i wrote novels and stories, my "men" would probably be there as objects for the female characters: they would complement the stories i could tell through the women's eyes... the difference is, i think, that my incomprehension does not make me believe that men are, somehow, objects... My lack of understanding does not lead me to believe that men and women are somehow different species, just, different...
And then Greene has these women in this story!!! It's like, a whole new window into the man...
This book was so much fun, so much fun!!!! It made me appreciate Graham Greene even more than i already do, which is a lot, really, come to think of it... He is my favorite misogynist author in the whole world!
so some stories i didn't like much, as is only natural. Graham Greene himself didn't like some of his stories. and some of those were pretty long--like the one about the kids who destroy the old man's house. i HATED that story, and it was looooong and just... so pointless...
BUT some stories i absolutely LOVED. and they were all so different even if they were all so Greene! there's the dystopian story about the bow-legged kids and people in that island... there's freaking sci fi here!!!! i mean, seriously!! who knew!??! and the lesbian story!!!! Here you have one of those authors for whom women are... they're somehow... women are not something that he understands and they're not subjects in their own right in his writing, they are there for the men in his stories, and it seems as if they were there for him (or against him or about him, but not as peers, not as "companions in equality" because they are different, it seems, to Greene... well, men are different, to me. like Greene, i don't get the opposite sex, i do not comprehend the opposite sex, everything they do and everything they don't do is inexplicable, and if i wrote novels and stories, my "men" would probably be there as objects for the female characters: they would complement the stories i could tell through the women's eyes... the difference is, i think, that my incomprehension does not make me believe that men are, somehow, objects... My lack of understanding does not lead me to believe that men and women are somehow different species, just, different...
And then Greene has these women in this story!!! It's like, a whole new window into the man...
This book was so much fun, so much fun!!!! It made me appreciate Graham Greene even more than i already do, which is a lot, really, come to think of it... He is my favorite misogynist author in the whole world!
April 9, 2018
This collection of short stories spans Graham Greene's career, from the 1920s to 1990. Many pick up on the same themes prevalent in his novels, especially the experience of World War II in Britain, life in Africa, Mexico, and the non-western world, and, to a lesser extent, the struggle of the reflective person with faith.
I hadn't read much of Greene's short fiction, and this gave me a chance to see a different side of him. Short stories give him a chance to focus tightly on particular personality traits or particular tensions -- it's something I think he's really good at. This is the kind of fiction that makes you think as well as entertains.
There were a few surprises for me in this collection. In particular, the short story, Under the Ground, presented a kind of disquieting surreal experience -- something I wasn't used to from Greene's novels, which tend to live in noirish themes or in the tension of political or religious faith. It turns out that that story is part of a collection with a running surreal theme, something I hadn't seen in his novels.
The quality of the stories run from the finely finished to the sketchy, but that's okay. This is another side of Greene that's well worth trying out.
I hadn't read much of Greene's short fiction, and this gave me a chance to see a different side of him. Short stories give him a chance to focus tightly on particular personality traits or particular tensions -- it's something I think he's really good at. This is the kind of fiction that makes you think as well as entertains.
There were a few surprises for me in this collection. In particular, the short story, Under the Ground, presented a kind of disquieting surreal experience -- something I wasn't used to from Greene's novels, which tend to live in noirish themes or in the tension of political or religious faith. It turns out that that story is part of a collection with a running surreal theme, something I hadn't seen in his novels.
The quality of the stories run from the finely finished to the sketchy, but that's okay. This is another side of Greene that's well worth trying out.
October 5, 2025
I’ve never known a blessing save a life. But then, if you wanted to bless, you bless. It would be better to love, but that’s not always possible.
The analysis of a child must be to some extent an analysis of his parents.
He felt for a while, all by himself in the first class, that he hadn’t failed, he’d been experimenting, seeing life.
He was like an adolescent struck suddenly with the curse of physical age: the ignobility of the years weakened his mouth while he dreamed.
You’d think you’d get used to new jobs and going away from the places you know, but the loneliness repeats itself every time.
You can always disguise a frayed sleeve; no one can see much of your socks and your shirt’s well out of sight; it’s the shoes which give you away. That’s why strange women always look at your shoes.
England was like a magnet which has lost its power.
A may is like a crystal in which men see many different things- success and failure…
Life for a moment had been frozen by failure, but now it thawed, it dripped on.
There were two places where he could be alone hold with his pride and his resentment
She comes of a cultured family.
A leader has the hell of a lot of responsibility.
Perhaps it’s fate. A man’s sometimes kept- for the biggest things.
The analysis of a child must be to some extent an analysis of his parents.
He felt for a while, all by himself in the first class, that he hadn’t failed, he’d been experimenting, seeing life.
He was like an adolescent struck suddenly with the curse of physical age: the ignobility of the years weakened his mouth while he dreamed.
You’d think you’d get used to new jobs and going away from the places you know, but the loneliness repeats itself every time.
You can always disguise a frayed sleeve; no one can see much of your socks and your shirt’s well out of sight; it’s the shoes which give you away. That’s why strange women always look at your shoes.
England was like a magnet which has lost its power.
A may is like a crystal in which men see many different things- success and failure…
Life for a moment had been frozen by failure, but now it thawed, it dripped on.
There were two places where he could be alone hold with his pride and his resentment
She comes of a cultured family.
A leader has the hell of a lot of responsibility.
Perhaps it’s fate. A man’s sometimes kept- for the biggest things.
June 15, 2019
My experience with collections of stories is, even with very good story writers such as Hemingway or Jack London, there are only a few stories in a large collection that stand out as exceptional (I always have to wade through many boring, confusing, or meaningless stories to get to the diamonds in the rough). Then there are short story writers that are able to crank out one perfect story after another, consistently hitting the mark. The few writers that come to mind in this rarefied group are Flannery O'Connor and Saki. Graham Greene has joined my particular, exclusive group of the few writers who are masters of the short story.
Most of these 49 stories are much like his novels, distilled into bite sizes. If you've read them you know what I mean. Others are wickedly funny (Doctor Crombie and Dear Dr Falkenheim). All of them will make you think. There was only one or two that I didn't care for, but they were short ones. Perhaps the best one is the only one I had previously read before (The Basement Room, which I knew as The Fallen Idol). Absolutely brilliant.
Most of these 49 stories are much like his novels, distilled into bite sizes. If you've read them you know what I mean. Others are wickedly funny (Doctor Crombie and Dear Dr Falkenheim). All of them will make you think. There was only one or two that I didn't care for, but they were short ones. Perhaps the best one is the only one I had previously read before (The Basement Room, which I knew as The Fallen Idol). Absolutely brilliant.
November 20, 2024
(3.5)
I saw this in the bookstore shortly after I finished reading The End of the Affair. I was entranced with Graham Greene's writing. This book has a variety of different stories.
I can't say I liked a lot of them. Most I found extremely dated, regional, and frankly, boring with no plot or character development even for a short story. The ones I liked I loved intensely. The length of the stories ranges from a few pages to a couple dozen pages.
Despite it not being an all-around five-star read for me, I feel like I came away with a lot of insight and even some inspiration. My favorite stories were The Hint of an Explanation, The Last Word, A Visit to Morin, and An Old Man's Memory.
I saw this in the bookstore shortly after I finished reading The End of the Affair. I was entranced with Graham Greene's writing. This book has a variety of different stories.
I can't say I liked a lot of them. Most I found extremely dated, regional, and frankly, boring with no plot or character development even for a short story. The ones I liked I loved intensely. The length of the stories ranges from a few pages to a couple dozen pages.
Despite it not being an all-around five-star read for me, I feel like I came away with a lot of insight and even some inspiration. My favorite stories were The Hint of an Explanation, The Last Word, A Visit to Morin, and An Old Man's Memory.
August 6, 2024
Not much to say about this one, except read-it-if-you-can. Greene has a lot of range and has certainly mastered storytelling; if there is a flaw in these stories, it is that they are a little too much of their place and time, making it easy to roll one's eye at yet another English life of quiet desperation, or to scoff at a time when ne'er-do-wells could thumb their nose at the law and not get gunned down for it out of spite.
Definitely not going to pick favorites out of these, though a few were pointless and a couple overstayed their welcome. This was a tome I savored for many months whenever other reading was hard-going, and I am a little melancholy to have finished it.
Definitely not going to pick favorites out of these, though a few were pointless and a couple overstayed their welcome. This was a tome I savored for many months whenever other reading was hard-going, and I am a little melancholy to have finished it.
August 14, 2025
I didn't think any of these short stories rises to the level of Graham Greene's best novels. Some of them felt like fragments of novels, as if an idea had been abandoned before its completion.
As is to be expected from Graham Greene, the stories come with heavy doses of irony and often are seasoned with Roman Cathollic spirituality.
They also are sprinkled with phrases only Graham Greene would write, such as this, in "Across the Bridge":
"Otherwise, he looked a small, set, gentle creature with silver hair and a silver moustache and gold-rimmed glasses, and one gold tooth like a flaw in character."
As is to be expected from Graham Greene, the stories come with heavy doses of irony and often are seasoned with Roman Cathollic spirituality.
They also are sprinkled with phrases only Graham Greene would write, such as this, in "Across the Bridge":
"Otherwise, he looked a small, set, gentle creature with silver hair and a silver moustache and gold-rimmed glasses, and one gold tooth like a flaw in character."
September 10, 2023
I’ve always enjoy reading Grahame Greene’s novels. His short stories are equally as good. These many unique stories, often setting it in different locales, maintain the same cynical wit that characterize the author’s style. My only complaint is that I’d prefer each entry prefaced with a date to add context.
February 11, 2021
This one has all the short stories written by Greene ...Some are mind blowing , as you would expect , some great , some good and a few of them obscure , as in totally obscure ...not sure what he is trying to say ...
Nevertheless, it's Greene , so rated 5 🌟
Nevertheless, it's Greene , so rated 5 🌟
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