علاقه ام به فیلمهای پلیسی انگلیسی ، استانبول وقطار ، انگیزه ام برای خواندنش بود . داستانی نوشته دهه سی میلادی درباره قطاری که ازاروپا حرکت می کند و درهرایستگاه تا مقصد نهایی استانبول گروهی سواروپیاده می شوند . مسافران قطارهریک داستانی دارند که گاه باهم دریک مسیر وآشنایی قرارمی گیرند . یک رقصنده ، تاجری یهودی ، زنی روزنامه نگار، انقلابی کمونیست و...وپایانی که برای زمانه خودش هم غافلگیرکننده است . انسانهایی با ضعف ها و قّوت ها . قضاوتهایی که همیشه درست نیست و اعتمادبه نفس های کاذب .
" آنها قول می دهند . هرگزنباید قول هاشان رابه یادشان بیاوری ...نزدیک تخت رفت و سعی کرد بادستانش موهای مرد رامرتب کند وبه این غریبه شباهت معشوق خودرابدهد .."

" اگرباکسی زندگی میکرد که کمی به رویش لبخند می زد ، الان اینطوری اینجا نبود. چیزهاراآنقدرجدی نمی گرفت . یادمی گرفت که بگذارد مسایل خودبه خود حل شوند ، این تنها راه است ."
انشای ترجمه کتاب می توانست بهتر باشد. داستانی خوب و مهیّج برای علاقه مندان این ژانر.
البته برای من اولین وآخرینش خواهد بود.تماشای فیلمهای انگلیسی پلیسی راترجیح میدهم .

This was Greene's fourth novel - and by now he was really coming into his own as a writer. The book is set aboard the Orient Express travelling between Ostende and Vienna in the early 1930s, and was Greene's first novel to be set in the real world of his present day. I enjoyed the way he keeps switching viewpoint between several different characters.

Greene originally categorised this as an "entertainment" and it was filmed, though I haven't seen the movie, which seems to be very hard to get hold of. However, although the novel is very entertaining, it does have serious themes, as most of the characters are at turning points in their lives and wrestling with their consciences.

I was especially drawn by the portrayal of the central couple, young Jewish businessman Carleton Myatt, and the penniless and hungry chorus girl he befriends, Coral Musker. As the pair begin a tentative relationship, this delicately-drawn sexual bargain between two lonely people is far more realistic and touching than the intense romances in the previous two early Greene novels I've read, 'The Man Within' and the suppressed novel 'The Name of Action'. In this book,the couple wonder whether they are making a mistake and their feelings keep going round in circles. Greene is always brilliant at presenting characters who hesitate and can't make up their minds.

Unfortunately, Myatt is in part a Jewish stereotype, and there is quite a bit of derogatory language from the narrator, although there are also many passages where Greene presents him as an individual and fully shows the pain caused to him by the anti-Semitism of some of the other passengers. There's a similar problem with the portrayal of a lesbian, hard-drinking journalist on the train, Mabel Warren, where some of the time she seems like a prejudiced caricature and yet at other times the character is more fully and sympathetically realised. It's almost as though the individuals keep escaping from their caricatures, and it creates a strange, uneven tone.

Another powerfully-drawn character is Dr Czinner, a revolutionary doctor who has been living safely in exile, but must now decide whether to join his comrades again although this seems bound to bring about his doom. He makes a sharp contrast with the burglar Josef Gruenlich, who is only interested in looking out for himself.

I found the book a compelling read and intensely visual, as so often with Greene - it really seems to be crying out to be filmed. It's just a pity that one or two of the plot twists towards the end seemed a bit too neat and didn't really ring true for the characters.

Must read for college English Lit students. Graham Greene's book was a surprise (though recommended by former Poet Laureate Dana Goia.) I came expecting an action novel, a psychological thriller, & thought this slim novel would be easily forgotten. After a slow beginning (due in part to blindness caused by preconceptions), it dawned on me that this was a novel after the old school traditions. Greene deals with "big questions," such as: what does it mean to be good, what makes a human being human, transactional relationships vs. empathetic relationships, Religion, Business, Influence, Money, the State, what it means to be alive, goodness vs badness.
While Orwell dealt with a few of the same themes overtly, Greene deals with multiple themes in the guise of a novel, after the tradition of Dostoyevsky, but Greene (true to good English literature) is highly selective in his prose. With this understanding, the reader should pay attention to Greene's liberal use of symbolism and archetypes in just about everything: from the setting, characters' names, businesses people were involved in, locations and settings. For readers looking for a 'good mystery, ' this is not it. If you are interested in a book wherein the author critically chooses his words, sometimes becoming poetical, then read this. As a result of his discernment, scenes wherein there is little action or no action are often quite lengthy, while action scenes are made shorter and the reader is allowed to provide needed action.
I rarely give 5 stars to a book but this one rates it. "I have been young and now am old..." and am at least glad that this one-time English lit major finally picked up Graham Greene.
I read (as I commonly do) the introduction after I finished the book. I suggest you read it afterward, too. He deals with the anti-Semitic charges that were leveled at the book--but that would only be applicable if we were 1) reading it as a truism 2) if the Jews represented were supposed to be real characters and not symbols (that is, there is much against the representatives of the Christian religion in the book). Reading it as being anti-faith is possibly wrong: I think Greene is NOT writing as an indictment against "true religion."
Go read it...

Fictional train journeys are always better than fictional air travel - the lengthy journey giving the writer ample narrative time & scope to introduce plot twists & interesting characters. Greene called his less serious work 'entertainment', still, the three nights journey from Ostend to Istanbul on the Orient Express inevitably brings the writer's usual ethical & political contretemps in the form of issues & mindsets saturated in the 1930s worldview: each stop on the itinerary bringing more trouble from the complications of the related place.
Orient Express evokes an image of luxury* especially if you've books like Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express in mind but Greene's journalistic sensibility brings a a factual class based approach where upward movement from a wooden chair car to a first class private compartment comes with a price in more ways than one...
And what does a poor girl from the '30s bring to the table umm couch? Why, her virginity of course! I cringed when that happened & at the lame romantic dialogues that followed ( Greene reminds me of WTV in that sense) — but I needn't have because there's also the world-weary absurd-comic cynical Greene who knows that relationships work only when they are mutually beneficial, that convenience is the name of the game, that in the end it doesn't matter if you miss the bus express so long as you can get on the gravy train!
The book fits its epigraph from George Santayana, "Everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence", to a t.

* Btw, if you are traveling to India, I can't recommend the Palace on Wheels experience enough!

A very minor Greene. Rife with the stereotypes of the time (published in 1932), particularly as respects the Jewish protagonist, Myatt, and a butch lesbian, Mabel Watson. As regards the Jew, I think Greene thinks he’s being sympathetic but he can’t get away from very heavy-handed tropes that will make any Jewish reader’s skin crawl (probably most others as well). And yet at the same time I wouldn’t do away with such books (I know there is a trend towards retroactively correcting the bigotry of history) - both Green’s wry sketching of his Jewish protagonist’s foibles and his chilling depiction of the casual and vicious bigotry that Myatt confronts throughout his journey are a part of the cultural record I’d rather be aware of (there’s one scary scene set in a Serbian forest, in which Myatt notes that the “old” attitudes of Jew hatred have not died out in the backwaters of Europe, ringing a tragic note of foreshadowing (again 1932)).

Greene’s writing never doesn’t have energy and he never doesn’t bring his characters to life. It’s just that it’s all a bit slight except for the caricatures and as noted, those are more edifying as artifact than they are fun to read.

Stamboul Train (1932) is one of Graham Greene's early entertainments, written as a money-making venture and with the intention of being made into a film (which it was).

Whilst not up there with Greene's best, it is still well written and gives a real sense of being aboard the Orient Express as it crosses Europe from Ostend to Istanbul.

One of the main characters, Carleton Myatt, is a Jewish currant trader, travelling to Istanbul to sort out an issue with the agent of his firm. Greene makes great play of his being Jewish, perhaps reflecting the attitudes of the time it was written. It's unnecessarily and explicitly anti-semetic and has dated very badly.

Despite being a short book, it takes a while to get going but is, ultimately, an exciting tale with many underhand moments. All the characters are somewhat precarious and bringing their struggles to life is where this book succeeds best, along with the sense of being on the train. Of course, bringing marginal characters vividly to life became one of the recurring and defining themes of Graham Greene's novels throughout his long and illustrious writing career.

3/5



Published in 1932 as an 'entertainment', Graham Greene's gripping spy thriller unfolds aboard the majestic Orient Express as it crosses Europe from Ostend to Istanbul.

Weaving a web of subterfuge, murder and politics along the way, the novel focuses upon the disturbing relationship between Myatt, the pragmatic Jew, and naive chorus girl Coral Musker as they engage in a desperate, angst-ridden pas-de-deux before a chilling turn of events spells an end to the unlikely interlude. Exploring the many shades of despair and hope, innocence and duplicity, Stamboul Train offers a poignant testimony to Greene's extraordinary powers of insight into the human condition.

NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH AGATHA'S CHRISTIE'S "THE MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS" EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT IT IS A WONDERFUL NOVEL, SCINTILLATINGLY WRITTEN, WITH AMAZING CHARACTERS AND BEAUTIFUL STRUCTURE.

To those who express disappointment at Graham Greene’s Orient Express, likely they missed that this was never intended to be his magnum opus. It is a mix pickles of political intrigue, crime story and cross class romance. Unexpected is at least a hint of lesbian sex and several class issues including a “me too” moment for a young dancer who would not have known she had experienced several.

Green uses one of the world’s famous trains to capture a number of characters, bring them together in ways unlikely absent the confines of a long train ride. The result is an addition to the great train ride novel. The train ride novel seems to be common in Europe and especially Russia, but I have not yet read the like in an American novel. All that to say I ultimately enjoyed this novel, can recommend it, but I have to agree that Orient Express is not great literature, and perhaps not the best of Graham Green. The Introduction related that among Greene’s fans his shelf is known as “Greeneland”.

Early on we meet, all of the main characters, such is the way of this type of novel. We are to give particular notice to a Jewish businessman, Myatt, a plain chorus girl, Coral Musker, a Serbian Communist, Richard Czinner, a criminal, and a Lesbian, alcoholic journalist, Mabel Warren. Of these Myatt, being Jewish is something of a hot topic for those who consider or review the book. The biographers are certain that Greene was antisemitic and that after World War II he made an effort to reconsider this attitude. He was also Catholic and author of several Catholic books. These beliefs are here too, just constrained.

Myatt is a business man, traveling on business, focused on business until he becomes romantically or at least physically involved with the show girl. His initial impulse is to make a show of being charitable towards the woman. How that relationship plays out becomes complex as it follows her limited ability to respond to generosity and their mutual entanglement into converging plot lines.
Is Myatt is portrayed as a negative Jewish stenotype? He is from his first arrival in the novel a victim of his visibly Jewish identity. That is, throughout the plot, to whatever degree Greene is uncharitable against him, Myatt is more sinned against than sinning. Greene does provide a parting, end of the book shot which might be read as strongly antisemitic, but I read to be as a flashing last page broad side on the patrimony. Perhaps a term of no meaning to Greene, but providing a sharp jolt, much like that of a train coming to the end of its line.

The Orient Express heads west towards Istanbul with a motley collection of passengers, some starting from Paris, others collected along the way. Carleton Myatt is a rich businessman going to the Turkish office of his company. Coral Musker is a dancer heading to a job. A mysterious doctor is returning to Yugoslavia under a false name. Janet Pardoe is the paid companion to a middle-aged female journalist who is clearly in love with her. Josef Grünlich is a criminal on the run. All their lives get tangled up during the journey.

I loved the way that Greene investigates what drives a clutch of very different individuals. There’s a shocking amount of anti-Semitism described, but it was only described, not endorsed by the author. The Jewish character and the communist come off best in moral terms, and for me were the most sympathetic characters.

When I re-read either Brighton Rock or The Power and the Glory, I think ‘No one else could have written this.’

Reading this one - Greene’s first big splash, which came at a time when he sorely needed it - I think ‘Anyone could have written this.’

Not GGs best novel although entertaining and makes me want to ride on the Orient Express minus the Fiddle player. Interestingly the murderer escapes.

I like Greene, I liked that the book was entertaining, social commentary and political all at the same time, a hallmark of Greene novels. What I didn't like and what really upset me, is the marking out of someone as Jewish. Rant follows! If you are not Christian, not White or not able-bodied you might well identify with it.

I have no idea if anyone else in the story, in many, many stories, newspaper articles, tv reportage, online news sites, are Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist or White. But Jews, Jews have to be identified. Especially if they are in finance, although in Greene's story, he wasn't. Bankers and other financiers who are not Jewish are not identified by their religion, only Jews. Are there more Jews in banking than any other industry? No. In London there is a joke that on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, you can't catch a taxi. Who would think of mentioning that a taxi driver was Jewish?

It isn't necessarily anti-Semitism in any shape of form, but something of the Nazi doctrine remains (yes, I know it dates back to Roman times but this is the 21stC and we know about genetics now) that Jews, whether they are from Zimbabwe, Eastern Europe or Malaysia are all really one race and no one should forget that and all that the writer wants to imply (usually negative stuff).

That's some baggage there for all of us born Jewish whatever religion or philosophy we actually espouse.

It is no longer considered polite or politically-correct to point out that some woman is actually a transgendered pre-op male. ie. A man. We have to rightfully consider not only their feelings but that (unless you are going to sleep with them) it really doesn't matter anyway. But somehow being Jewish does.

Why is Catholic not important? Why is Anglican not important? Why is atheist not important? Why is Black important? Why does my mixed race son who looks White have to have it pointed out in articles that he is Black, and Jewish, do people think he might pass as a White Christian which is somehow wrong, somehow fooling people if it wasn't pointed out?