flight paths discussion

This topic for the discussion of Graham Greene.

so what is the best entry book for one who has never read anything by him?

'LIKE' - because outside school reading I have had no contact, and school days are a haze.

I think a classic, fairly representative (if it's fair to call any book "representative") book of Graham Greene would be The Power and the Glory. I would recommend that or The Heart of the Matter as best points of entry.

I love those books. Other personal favorites are Brighton Rock (which I already mentioned & consider one of his greatest, but somewhat gritty), The Quiet American, or The Third Man.

Those are more or less my top picks, in order of choice (at least for recommendation).

If you love Greene, then go on The Comedians, Loser Takes All, Travels with My Aunt, and The Human Factor.

By then, you'll be completely hooked and there will be choice: you'll just keep reading Greene!

I added all of those (plus The End of the Affair and A Burnt-Out Case) to the group bookshelf.

I'll be reading The Power and the Glory in October...I'm getting ridiculously excited. :)

Found Shades of Greene and hope nobody buys it before I do....have spent my budget for the month...

So today brought home Shades of Greene and read my first short story, When Greek meets Greek
I was worried for a bit by his rather abrubt style, the convoluted paragraphs, the arcane words and abbreviations, the abundance of punctuation. Quite quickly though, I began to appreciate the sly humor, and before I knew it, I was quite charmed. Very nice progression and resolution.
Thanks folks for the encouragement.

I skipped over the next, longer story to read the next very short one, the Invisible Japanese Gentleman, and it may be that I have stumbled upon the quintessential Greene. Do you know the story?
In very few pages he manages to portray on several levels, worlds in collission. It's a brilliant expose and Greene is obviously a master wordsmith, a sculptor of words. And, yes, a lot of fun. I just loved how he put that tedious pretentious woman in her place.

Kinkajou wrote: "Magdelanye wrote: "I skipped over the next, longer story to read the next very short one, the Invisible Japanese Gentleman, and it may be that I have stumbled upon the quintessential Greene. Do you..."

Just to tweak your memory, this is the story of a self-centred young woman who fancies herself possessed of powerful abilities of observation, which Greene reveals to be scanty to the point of delusion.

The story, though so short, reveals many layers and that's what I'm coming to expect from Greene. Reading on, I find that he covers quite a variety of situations and types. The Destructors was actually chilling (about the boys who destroy a house for fun) and some of the others have a brittle humour that leaks out of the bleak situations they circumscibe.

Just about finished the last story in the Shades of greene collection. This is more like a novella and indicates for me Greenes complexity in a way that the shorter, brisker stories didnt.
This was the perfect read for a weekend of housecleaning. I would finish some particularly vile task and reward myself with the treat of a story. I havent loved evey single one...in fact there were a few chilling tales told, but overall I will never dismiss Greene again and look forward to read more.

It seemed to take forever to get through that last, strange story which revealed yet another facet of his talent."Under the Garden" is almost a fantasy, the most dreamlike certainly, concerning what might be a dream but always with that sense of ambiguity that he is so deft at maintaining.
Thanks again you who pointed him out to me.

I've been rereading Under the Garden and am once again so impressed. I'm going to concentrate on Greene's stories for a while.

NOTICE ALL GRAHAM GREENE READERS:

I have put up a poll of all the books you've mentioned above. As we've discussed, we need to pare this down to the top one or two (maybe three) most bestest and loved books to include on our authors bookshelf. I will link the books to this discussion thread so that those perusing the shelf can then come here to read your comments.