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Title: Ministry of Fear (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) by Graham Greene ISBN: 0-14-018536-4 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 1978 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.4 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Perhaps Greene's best book, a brilliant moral thriller
Comment: British author Graham Greene divided his early novels into two distinct groups: 'serious' novels, like "The End of the Affair," "Brighton Rock," and "The Power and the Glory"; and 'entertainments,' his term for his espionage and suspense thrillers. This second group includes "A Gun for Sale" (U.S. title: "This Gun for Hire"), "Stamboul Train," "The Confidential Agent"...and "The Ministry of Fear." Looking back on Greene's long career, this distinction seems very artificial and almost silly; it perhaps made market sense back then, but Greene's entertainments are every bit as serious-minded as his non-genre work. These books are in no way lightweight time-wasters. They are as concerned with character, drama, and the human condition as any of his other books. In fact, I honestly prefer his entertainments; through the mode of the thriller, they actually stab deeper into the reader's mind.
"The Ministry of Fear," published in 1943 when World War II was raging in London's skies, is perhaps Greene's finest entertainment and my personal favorite of his novels. Greene produces here a quintessential noir novel using a premise we often associate with Alfred Hitchcock's films: an innocent man accidentally stumbles upon a secret that turns him into a man marked for death and hunted by the law. However, Greene's main character, Arthur Rowe, is hardly innocent. He is a solitary, lonely individual who harbors a deep guilt over a crime he committed in the past. When he speaks the wrong phrase to a fortune-teller at a fair, he suddenly finds himself the target of a shadowy group of spies in London -- the Ministry of the title. Soon he's fleeing through blitz London, framed for murder, desperate and near-suicidal, but harboring an anger toward the people who have tried to kill him.
Suddenly, Greene pulls a massive plot switch on the reader. The novel makes an abrupt shift that alters the whole nature of the plot. Rowe's story becomes that of possible redemption and the washing away of past sins..but at the expense of feeling whole and complete. To say much more would ruin the surprises of the novel and the internal odyssey of the main character. It's one of the most fascinating moral and character-driven thrillers ever written. And the backdrop of war-torn London, facing daily rains of bombs, is astonishing. It's almost a fantasy world, albeit a horrific one.
Greene's language can sometimes feel too exact and literary for some readers' tastes -- he certainly writes nothing like today's typical churner of bestsellers -- and his peculiar 1940s British terms may cause some head-scratching for American readers. However, Greene had a magical way of expressing ideas that anyone can relate to. He writes in flashes of truth that can make the reader shiver with realization. Only the greatest authors can do this, and Greene does it over and over again in "The Ministry of Fear."
If you've only read Greene's non-genre novels, I urge you to delve into "The Ministry of Fear." It will make you wonder why Greene even bothered to divide up his books. For any lover of thrillers, espionage stories, or World War II, this book will fill all your needs and give you much more in the bargain.
Rating: 4
Summary: A cry for help
Comment: The sense of dread and agony pervading this novel makes 'Crime and Punishment' seem like an upbeat self-help guide. I couldn't help but feel that this orginiated in the author; clearly, it reflects the psyche of a person who wrestled with a lot of difficult questions and who didn't always find easy answers, and it makes the smug liberalism of his later works seem all the more ridiculous. As for a more concrete description of the novel, though, I think of it as a less life-affirming 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest,' evoking similiar nightmares of control, full of grotesque scenes and characters, with the occasional glimpse of hope - but even the few happy moments the protagonist is offered are tinged with doubt. The immense guilt that he feels for having killed his wife in an act of mercy - I can't help but feel there's some kind of religious undertone here - can never really be erased, but the world around him is so awful that his own crime is often put in perspective.
Rating: 5
Summary: Rowe's Struggle Is Ours
Comment: Arthur Lowe's (uh, Rowe's) struggle to quiet his life from the awful memory of his merciful killing of his dying wife because he cannot stand to see her suffer is really a low point(if you will) for this man, yet we still feel sorry for him and his battle. He finds great pity at seeing anyone or thing suffer, so much so that he is blind to the moral imperative that murder is wrong and is a crime. Lowe gets away with it in the story, but not in his mind. We see Arthur stepping "joyfully back into adolescence", to "mislay the events of twenty years", that cause him to behave in a childish manner - he will not give up the cake at the fete. The action propels him into a journey of espionage that would change his life. Instead of trying to struggle to forget his past we see him struggle to find his past and to discover who he is. In the process he finds love once again.
The backdrop of the bombing of London and all the underground cubby holes he seeks to shelter himself from the life altering bombs of his mind are all great metaphors that tie this very good novel together. Rowe is not a hero but a highly flawed human who coincidentally disrupts a spy plot at the moment of his catharsis. His purity of compassion and pity for suffering beings is his downfall because he crosses the line into unethical conduct to sooth himself - a selfish indulgence that results in him playing God, and then almost makes the same error again.
How many times do we excuse ourselves for our actions in the name of noble spirit? It is the precursor to Catch 22 ("We had to destroy the village to save it", or "I had to kill my wife to put her out of her misery").
There is much to learn from this "entertaintment".
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Title: Our Man in Havana: An Entertainment by Graham Greene ISBN: 0140184937 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1991 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Third Man by Graham Greene ISBN: 0140286829 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Stamboul Train: An Entertainment by Graham Greene ISBN: 0140185321 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 1992 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Loser Takes All by Graham Greene ISBN: 0140185429 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1989 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Brighton Rock by Graham Greene ISBN: 0140184929 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1995 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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