 "Greene, A Master of Intrigue" | 2009-06-07 |
| - Reviewed By bookjack4 |
"The Third Man," the novella by Graham Greene, was prepared as a sort of film treatment to accompany the screenplay he was writing for the movie of the same name. The movie came out in 1949, and Greene decided to publish this brief work in 1950. It's a brilliant piece with a number of minor differences between book and movie.
In the book there are changes: Holly is called Rollo; the appearance of Harry Lime is briefer probably because star Orson Welles was playing "the third man" in the flick; Lime has a signature tune he whistles while in the movie it's the zither music theme; the narrator is the British colonel which is somewhat awkward because we actually have to follow Rollo's movements; Popescu in the movie is an American named Cooler; and we learn that Lime qualified as a doctor but never practiced which makes his penicillin racket even more heinous.
This is one case where the movie is better than the book although Greene demonstrates in print he is a master stylist: the tombstones wore "a toupée of snow." He puts down a writer by saying "he has been ranked as a stylist with Henry James, but he has a wider feminine streak than his master--indeed his enemies have sometimes described his subtle, complex, wavering style as old-maidish...his passionate interest in embroidery and his habit of calming a not very tumultuous mind with tatting--a trait beloved by his disciples--certainly to others seems a little affected."
Greene's own style is pure, robust, direct, and is narrative-driven with no unnecessary embellishments. Lime, he says "had a cheerful rascality, a geniality" and a "boyish conspiratorial smile." Lime, playfully and amicably, calls Rollo "old man."
As in many crime novels Rollo plays amateur detective (at first to prove Lime innocent) and solves the fascinating mystery leaving the police in the dust.
This novella and the movie help me relive my own experiences in Vienna in 1954 as a U.S. military policeman. It was a city of intrigue and mystery then too. In `54 I rode the Riesenrad, the giant ferris wheel in the Prater amusement park just as Rollo and Harry did.
Like the movie, this is a superb work of art.
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| "Perhaps Greene's Finest?" | 2008-10-26 |
| - Reviewed By jgrossz |
| I'll start this by saying I have held Graham Greene as a library must for about 12 years now. I haven't read everything, but nearly everything. As you may know, Greene classified his own work as either "serious" or "entertainments," and this would be categorized as the latter. However, don't take Greene's labels too seriously; this book has a great depth. The story revolves around a man who may or may not have fallen into the illegal underworld in postwar Vienna; he's pursued by a former colleague, with whom he as an inevitable interaction; that scene is one of the most powerful I've seen in Greene. If you haven't read Greene, this is a great starting point; if you have read Greene, then you must must must read this. The movie is excellent, but this is one of the few books where book and movie can stand together. Read the book first. |
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| "Well done again Mr Jarvis! (Review of the audiobook)" | 2007-10-18 |
| - Reviewed By il_vecchio_gufo |
A splendid audio rendition of a good book by Mr Jarvis, who would be able to make the reading the yellow pages entertaining... Mr Jarvis is an excellent actor, his voice is loud and clear, and he assigns different voices (and different accents!) to each different character (without falling in the annoying habit of many male readers of using falsetto when playing women). I think his voice is especially well-suited to express cynicism, of which you will find a lot in this story.
If you like audio book, Mr Jarvis is one of the best voices around (you may want to check out his marvelous Dickens audio renditions). This audiobook is fairly short, 4 tapes only, but it is also very inexpensive. I like Greene's writing style a lot, and even if the book is probably not as much of a masterpiece as the movie (whose tune though remains here as well in the audio rendition), the audiobook is certainly worth its price, and I am actually writing this review while I approach the end of my second listening.
So, highly recommended. |
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 "The Second Version" | 2006-11-29 |
| - Reviewed By slokes@optonline.net |
This book spent two decades on my shelf without my so much as touching it. Now I've read it, and I wish I had read it a long time and several Harry Limes ago in my life.
You don't need enemies with friends like Harry Lime. For starters, he effectively strands his old school friend Rollo Martins in postwar Vienna. Lime is occupied with other matters at that moment, like his own funeral, but it still leaves a sour taste, especially after a number of questions are raised in Rollo's mind. Did Harry really kill children by selling tainted penicillin? What secrets about Harry does his former lover Anna hold so close? And who was that third man seen helping move Harry's body after he was hit by that car?
Though it was written before the more celebrated movie of the same name Graham Greene worked on with director Carol Reed, "The Third Man" came out a year after the film in 1950, well in advance of le Carre and Fleming and the spy thriller. Short and to the point, Greene seems to employ an almost Hemingwayesque terseness to his narrative, describing a shattered Austrian city so: "A thaw set in that night, and all over Vienna the snow melted, and the ugly ruins came to life again: steel rods hanging like stalacitites, and rusty girders thrusting like bones through the grey slush."
There's not much of Greene's layered depth to be found here; Rollo drinks a little and is bad with women, but otherwise he's pretty much exists for the sake of drawing out Harry Lime. Because Martins "believed in friendship," as explained on the first page, he is set to suffer at the hands of Lime, dead or alive, as Rollo discovers a cold heart he never knew. For Rollo, it makes a difference what kind of man Harry was; to his surprise others are more indifferent about it.
The movie presents a few key differences, such as the oft-quoted line about the Swiss contribution to mankind and the resolution of Martins' relationship with Anna, one of cinema's most arresting images which feels empty here. Rollo goes by the name "Holly" in the movie and is played as an American, not a Brit, by actor Joseph Cotton. He still writes cheap westerns but doesn't suffer exactly the same indignities for it Rollo does in the book. Greene notes in a preface that he himself thinks the movie works better, and he's right, but like other reviewers here say, you get an interesting line here on the thought processes of the central players, not to mention another examination of sin and salvation from the author of "Brighton Rock" and "The Power And The Glory."
People can be like ants when seen from high above, but when someone looks down on them and asks: "Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving - forever?" it's not the humanity of those down below that's being obscured. Rollo finds himself with a difficult choice between concrete loyalty and abstract morality, and though "The Third Man" doesn't press this point so much as simply raise it, it makes for an examination of man's duality you would do well not to leave on the shelf as long as I did. |
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 "It's not as good as the movie" | 2005-09-05 |
| - Reviewed By curiousbill |
| When I bought this book I did not realize that it was written after the movie. It is not good Graham Greene. The book follows the movie closely but, it adds very little. As I read the story I miss the music. Save your money and buy the DVD. |
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| "Not supposed to be read, and yet a great reading" | 2005-08-22 |
| - Reviewed By alysson_oliveira |
As Graham Greene admits in the preface of the novella "The Third Man", this story 'was never written to be read but only to be seen'. When invite by director Carol Reed to write a screenplay, the British novelist decided to write a short story first and then develop the script. As he confess, it is too hard to write a movie without having worked on the story previously, because the movie depends also on characterization, mood and atmosphere, and these are hard to be captured in the first time in a screenplay.
That is a mark of a genius. He wrote "The Third Man" only as a blueprint for the script and, nevertheless, both story and movie are great. It is a novella with a little more than 100 pages, and yet largely entertaining, as the writer wanted it to be. Not many writers are capable of doing such a amazing story without pretension -- because it is not easy to acquire simplicity.
The plot is not complicated as well. A British writer arrives in the pos-War divided Vienna to meet an old friend, who turns out to be dead. But there are some suspicious events surrounding his death -- and he also has a gorgeous girlfriend, who is very sad. Rollo, the main character, ends up investigating the death and there comes many twists in the plot of the story.
"The Third Man" is a very short narrative, nevertheless, Greene succeeded in all he wanted. More than anything, the story has atmosphere. Vienna is destroyed, picking up the pieces -- so are the characters who are caught in a plot bigger than themselves. However much Rollo doesn't want to be involved with his friend's death -- he can't avoid due to the train of events that catch him.
The writing is Greene at his best. The plot is convincing and well built with tension and fun coming from every page. Although the novel is slightly different from the movie, fans of Carol Reed's genial "The Third Man" can't be disappointed with the short story that was the genesis of this that is considered the best British movie ever.
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