Strong entertainment that works better on reflection than it does as a compelling mystery or thriller. Makes excellent use of the device of a long train trip to bring together disparate characters who have little or nothing in common beyond their capacity to get mixed up with one another and with forces that make ironic havoc of their lives: a chorus girl, a Jewish merchant, a lesbian journalist and her companion, a thief who becomes a murder, a revolutionary doctor who misses his rendezvous with destiny. Not nearly as good as Greene’s best work: The Heart of the Matter, The Quiet American, The End of an Affair, and The Power and the Glory, but pretty good nonetheless.

Primo libro di Greene ad ottenere un grande successo e lo merita sicuramente, perché grande è l’abilità dello scrittore nel creare particolari atmosfere e soprattutto nello scavare nel mistero dell’animo e della psicologia di ciascun personaggio. Troviamo su quel treno, che immaginiamo correre in piena velocità una umanità, che non dico dolente, perché non mi sembra il termine giusto, ma direi chiusa nei confronti dell’altro, diffidente e mal tollerante lo stare a contatto con perfetti sconosciuti. Aggiungiamo poi il fatto che molti di loro hanno dei segreti da celare, frustrazioni silenziose o speranze improbabili. Quindi lo sforzo della convivenza si manifesta con dialoghi spesso brevi o interrotti, con riflessioni interiori lunghe e solitarie così come il treno che ora corre, ora rallenta, ora si ferma e poi riparte. Le pause narrative rendono il lettore ansiose di capire questi segreti, queste afflizioni. Ma quello che si vive sul treno è un tempo sospeso. Ed ecco che il destino viene avanti inesorabilmente, con la violenza che solo nel mondo reale può esistere, travolgendo alcuni anche in modo imprevedibile e sfiorando benevolmente altri. La conclusione, a mio parere amara, ci conferma quanta la realtà possa essere cruda ed ingiusta.

Steaming across Europe toward Istanbul at 60 miles per hour, the Orient Express holds a motley cast of characters, each intent on realizing his own desires. As they act and interact, we see their little and big dramas acted out. If we want to get a picture of the physical luxuries of the famous train, we’ll have to wait two years for Agatha Christie.

I'd never read a book by Graham Greene before, so I figured I'd start with one of his so-called entertainments. This is one of his earlier efforts. I can't say that it shows, since I can't compare it to his later, more mature novels. All I can say is that this one is underwhelming.

The biggest problem is that the characters are all types, and how much the reader enjoys the story will depend on how much the reader thinks they are stereotypes. The more so, the less the reader will like the book. The main characters are a Jewish businessman, a communist revolutionary returning home from exile, a showgirl, a lesbian newspaper journalist, and her friend/companion. There are some others they pick up along the way, including a criminal who boards the train to escape the police. None of them is very interesting, and they have attributes more than they have personalities. The lesbian journalist is especially egregious, although she might be an interesting character if she wasn't so clumsily drawn. The same is true of the Jewish businessman, who everyone reminds us is a Jew, especially him. The characters interact in various ways, but none of it is particularly interesting.

The "strangers on a journey" story can be quite compelling. Just watch Stagecoach for proof. But here the narrative is disjointed and uninvolving. It's also dull and tedious. There's nothing special about the train setting. It's just there. It's only a coincidence that all of them are on this particular voyage. That's how it is in real life, of course, but when an author throws characters together like this, you expect more out of it. Instead, they fitfully make their way from Ostend in Belgium to Istanbul. There's no grand finale or climax. It just happens that the lesbian journalist's companion's uncle, whom she is going to Istanbul to see, is the chief competitor of the Jewish businessman, whom he is seeing to arrange a merger. That's the resolution of the novel. It doesn't end so much as peter out. More than a few readers will feel the same about their interest as they make their way to the end of the book.


Friday, 25 September 2015

Graham Greene ci narra le vite di alcune persone che viaggiano in uno dei treni più famosi della letteratura mondiale, ovvero l'Orient Express, celebre soprattutto per il giallo che vi ha ambientato Agatha Christie, Assassinio sull'Orient Express. La cosa curiosa è che questo romanzo è stato scritto proprio un anno prima di quello appena citato della Christie, nel 1932.

Attraverso il gruppo di viaggiatori che salgono sul treno, Greene dipinge un campione dell’umanità rappresentativa dell’epoca, e i cui destini si intrecciano e definiscono il mood. Si percepisce il timore all’approssimarsi delle frontiere che il treno attraversa, perché sono sorvegliate e i controlli possono essere fonte di preoccupazione. Si respira un’aria densa di tensione, così come salta fuori l’odio verso gli ebrei, gli impeti rivoluzionari dettati dalle differenze tra le classi sociali, un certo atteggiamento distante dalla realtà da parte dei religiosi, un disincantato cinismo nei rapporti tra uomini e donne, dove sembrano prevalere più gli interessi che i sentimenti, anche se nascosti da un candore più perbenista che autentico.
Bisogna anche dire che lo stile di scrittura di Greene si sposa benissimo alla descrizione cinematografia, egli infatti passa a narrarci le vite dei vari protagonisti con stacchi spesso rapidi e con vari flashback.

Lettura piacevole e concordo con l'intento dell'autore: ha scritto un'opera da entertainments, ma dove gli strascichi della guerra passata e quella che stava per iniziare si sentono tutti.

I think the folks accusing this book of being anti-Semitic are not reading it through. Sure, Greene uses some phrases and physical descriptions that don't quite mesh with our modern day sensibilities, but the main Jewish character is the primary hero of the book. The one man who is decent to the end, even if he isn't entirely pure.

The political events swarming around the time period of the book are rather breathtaking at times. Revolution has a tendency to do that, I suppose, but it feels real. I recently read Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, and the same palpable urgency is here in Greene's book, written shortly before. Greene's red sympathies are evident, and he manages to get in a few statements that would have Marx standing and cheering.

Overall, an interesting book. I pictured it in my mind as a 30s era black and white thriller directed by Hitchcock.

“A whistle blew, and the train trembled into movement. The station lamps sailed by them into darkness.”

Graham Greenes’s Orient Express was also titled Stamboul Train and Stamboul Express, though within the book the train is referred to as the Istanbul Train. Other locked room/train mysteries that use this train, traveling into the “exotic,” include: Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie, Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes, Ian Fleming’s From Russia to Love. Marlene Dietrich in the Shanghai Express I recall, too.

I was reminded of these titles in the terrific little introduction to this Penguin Centennial Edition (1904-2004) by Christopher Hitchens, where he also reminds us that, though this is one novel Greene identified as an “entertainment” (as opposed to his novels categorized as such, literary fiction), that it is still a fine book, and contains thematic threads common to much of Greene’s work: class issues, religious work such as betrayal and redemption.

The chief characters include Coral Musker, a chorus girl who develops a brief relationship with Carleton Myatt, a rich (Jewish) businessman (as Petra correctly notes, though this might not be seen as an anti-semitic portrayal, why is he identified as Jewish and no one else is identified as anything but English?); the spiteful journalist Mabel Warren and her companion, Janet Pardoe; Josef Grunlich, a cunning, murderous burglar, and Dr. Czinner (not particularly a sinner), the communist returning to sacrifice himself in a public way--with publicity for the cause--in Belgrade.

“You put the small thief in prison, but the big thief lives in a palace--” Dr. Czinner’s socialist political philosophy

As opposed to other thrillers and detective novels, Greene is not about whodunnit. We watch the two murders take place (neither of them on the train, actually), so it is no mystery. The main character is Myatt, who connects with the lower class dancer Coral, but it’s also a story about Czinner’s (almost Christian sacrifice). And in case you want Greene’s view of human nature, there is also betrayal and greed, in the end.

This isn’t the great novel Greene would later write; it’s an early book he probably wrote for film (though it is a terrible film version Greene loathed), but I would still rate it 3.5 stars. I read it much slower than I did most mysteries/detective novels/thrillers, as the writing is so much better than most of those works I have read.

Each of us has a life that we flee from or barrel towards -- sometimes both at the same moment. Along the way, we encounter those to whom we reveal our true selves, assuming they have gained our trust, and those for whom we wear masks and remain forever a mystery. Often, we hang suspended between events and personas to the point where we find it difficult to know ourselves. Only in our shared encounters with each other can we begin to sort out our pathways and identities.

Greene’s Orient Express (original title: Stamboul Train) takes the eponymous train as a tableau on which to play out the personal journeys of several characters whose lives are briefly connected, sometimes with life-altering results. Like the best of Greene’s fiction, it reveals a world to which readers can intimately relate, while simultaneously being an entertaining romp. The characters are distant in class, occupation, and morality (both from each other and from the reader), yet possess appealing qualities and express universal truths that resonant emotionally and intellectually long after the reader has finished the novel.

My journey through "Greeneland" continues to illuminate corners of my own thinking, elevating my awareness of human interrelations and my own sense of self. Orient Express is one more station in a trip that I hope doesn't end any time soon.

Farklı tarzda insanlar bir trende buluşuyor. Birisi Antisemit, birisi devrimci, bir hırsız ve diğerleri. Hepsini buluşturan ortak nokta ise uzun bir yolculuk gerektiren İstanbul treni. Dönemin siyasi ve günlük inanışlarına ciddi bir eleştirel yaklaşım söz konusu. Patlayan olaylar, gerilim dolu dakikalar ve çok daha fazlası, nedense İstanbul-Sofya-Bükreş trenine binmeyi planlarken planlar hepten bozuldu gibi:)

Dalla prefazione di Antonio Manzini
“C’è un treno che viaggia e attraversa mezza Europa, su questo treno un’umanità spaventata, insicura, dubbiosa, tragica e dolente. Il paesaggio fuori è invernale, innevato, poca luce quando ce n’è, rigido, freddo, deprimente. I destini dei personaggi si intrecciano fra gli stridori delle rotaie, le fermate nelle stazioni, sembrano tutti correre verso l’iceberg che li attende di lì a qualche anno“.

Non si poteva dir meglio. Qualcosa incombe su quel treno, dall'inizio alla fine e -si percepisce- al di là della fine.
Oltre ai personaggi, che rappresentano i malesseri umani -dall'amore, alla menzogna, alla povertà, al razzismo- quel che colpisce maggiormente è lo sfondo: da Ostenda a Costantinopoli, passando per Colonia, Norimberga, Vienna, Belgrado, è l'Europa la vera protagonista.
Intravista dai finestrini del mitico Orient Express, tra i paesaggi gelidi, spesso innevati, è un'Europa invernale e tenebrosa. Sembra l'Europa di oggi.

I usually love Graham Greene novels I just really didn’t get this one. Disparate characters on the orient express to Istanbul was so promising, and the interplay of characters was interesting, but the development of the plot and spy thriller part really didn’t hold together well. I finished and wondered if I had missed some pages somehow.

3.5/5

I love Greene. He has a way of capturing your attention right from the beginning and 'orient' is no exception. I felt it was marred by the somewhat weak ending and the incessant anti-semitism was horrible. I think this was first published in '33 and if it was reflective of the attitudes of the time it throws light on how Hitler was able to succeed.