On a recent trip to Good Will (after my John D. MacDonald finds, I was hoping for more treasures), I found a late-60s paperback edition of Grahame Greene's 1949 novella, THE THIRD MAN.
Though I'd never read his work, Greene, of course, is a writer I'd heard of: he's been called one of the most successful writers of the 20th century. He was shortlisted more than once for the Nobel Prize in Literature and I believe he was even knighted. Mainly, he wrote works of "literary fiction" (a term and genre I hate), but he also wrote, on the side, mystery and thriller novels (which he referred to as "entertainments"; he called his "serious" works "novels" and believed his mystery/thrillers to have little to no literary value). Perhaps ironically, these are what he's mostly known for in the mainstream world, as many of them were made into films and many--including the film adaptation of THE THIRD MAN, which he also write the screenplay for--are considered to be some of the finest noir films of the 1940s and 50s.
And let me say, for a man who considered himself to be a literary writer, he sure knew how to write for the masses. THE THIRD MAN is fast-paced and quite enjoyable.
The plot concerns English pulp writer Rollo Martins who, under the pen-name Buck Dexter, writes western novels, eakeing out a meager living doing so. Martins doesn't consider himself a novelist, or even a writer, simply an "entertainer". This, I suppose, is a bit of Greene's English self-deprecation since he wrote similar material, including THE THIRD MAN itself. Martins, called to post-war Vienna (the year is never specifically called out, but based on the book's 1949 publication and hints in the work itself, I'd guess the time is February, 1948) by his childhood friend, Harry Lime, only to arrive and find Lime has died--in a supposed accident--only a couple of days earlier. Worse, the narrator, a policeman whose conversations with Martins form the basis of the narrative, tells Martins that Lime was a criminal racketeer about to be arrested. Martins can't stand to hear the name of his friend sullied and vows to clear his name.
As I said, the work is fast-paced and enjoyable, but there's also--despite the setting--a timeless quality to it. The story is relatively basic, but the characters and their motivations are classic and nearly universal. The work reminded me very much of one of James Patterson's BookShots: a piece of fiction aimed at the widest possible audience that, admittedly, doesn't have much literary value but is entertaining.
Supposedly, Greene was already in talks to write the screenplay that would become THE THIRD MAN before he wrote the book, and this book was a sort of "try out" to work out plot-points and so forth, but if that's the case, I'm not sure it matters. I know some people would feel that detracts from the book's merits, but I disagree. The film is one thing, the book another and I, for one, enjoyed THE THIRD MAN quite a bit. Enough, in fact, that I'll have to look up more of Graham Greene's "entertainments".
And let me say, for a man who considered himself to be a literary writer, he sure knew how to write for the masses. THE THIRD MAN is fast-paced and quite enjoyable.
The plot concerns English pulp writer Rollo Martins who, under the pen-name Buck Dexter, writes western novels, eakeing out a meager living doing so. Martins doesn't consider himself a novelist, or even a writer, simply an "entertainer". This, I suppose, is a bit of Greene's English self-deprecation since he wrote similar material, including THE THIRD MAN itself. Martins, called to post-war Vienna (the year is never specifically called out, but based on the book's 1949 publication and hints in the work itself, I'd guess the time is February, 1948) by his childhood friend, Harry Lime, only to arrive and find Lime has died--in a supposed accident--only a couple of days earlier. Worse, the narrator, a policeman whose conversations with Martins form the basis of the narrative, tells Martins that Lime was a criminal racketeer about to be arrested. Martins can't stand to hear the name of his friend sullied and vows to clear his name.
As I said, the work is fast-paced and enjoyable, but there's also--despite the setting--a timeless quality to it. The story is relatively basic, but the characters and their motivations are classic and nearly universal. The work reminded me very much of one of James Patterson's BookShots: a piece of fiction aimed at the widest possible audience that, admittedly, doesn't have much literary value but is entertaining.
Supposedly, Greene was already in talks to write the screenplay that would become THE THIRD MAN before he wrote the book, and this book was a sort of "try out" to work out plot-points and so forth, but if that's the case, I'm not sure it matters. I know some people would feel that detracts from the book's merits, but I disagree. The film is one thing, the book another and I, for one, enjoyed THE THIRD MAN quite a bit. Enough, in fact, that I'll have to look up more of Graham Greene's "entertainments".
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