Play Book Tag discussion

Rollo Martins arrives in Vienna shortly after the end of World War II, when the city is divided into four occupation zones. He has come to take up his old friend Harry Lime's offer of a job, but he arrives instead just in time to attend Lime's funeral. Martins is told that Lime's death was an accidental car crash, but Martins soon decides that this story seems suspect and begins to investigate further.

I have a bit of a history with this story. I speak fluent German and studied abroad in college in Vienna, where I absolutely fell in love with the city and have wonderful memories associated with it. While on our trip, the professors organizing the study abroad took us to (I believe, if memory/Google serves me correctly) the Burg Kino to watch the film version of The Third Man, after which we went on a tour of the Vienna sewer system. This is just to say that, going into this book, I knew both the story and the city in which it's set decently well, and my view of the book's merits (as such) is probably not the most objective one.

Greene's preface states that "The Third Man was never written to be read but only to be seen." To be completely honest, I do think that this story is better seen than read. The edition of the book that I read was an updated ebook celebrating the release of a restored version of the film, and it was really interesting in that it had short video clips from the movie interspersed with the text, as well as the entire screenplay as an appendix. The clips were great for evoking the mood of the film, but in all honesty, the writing itself felt pretty sparse, and I found this book a bit less suspenseful/dramatic than how I remember the film. I'm glad I read it, as it was fun to return to this world and this city, but I think this might be a rare occasion where I'd recommend the film over the book (or at least definitely in addition to the book).

Great review! I guess I'll look for the movie. I'm pretty sure that I saw it a long, long time ago.