Boring overall. And this is coming from a big Graham Greene fan.

Hmmm. Moments of brilliance like sun in a deep forest. Bit a bit of a shapeless mass. Wonder if he was getting paid by the word and covering some bills.

Another really good book by Graham Greene. Typical of Mr. Greene's writing the main character is an imperfect hero, trying to get away from his life. Only this time, the book is non-fiction and our hero is Mr. Greene.

The trek from Sierra Leone through Guinea and Liberia, it would be incredibly difficult to walk today, thinking of doing it in the 1930s just boggles the mind.

Speaking of the time, Mr. Greene did write this book during the colonial period of West Africa. And he shows no love for the influence of the colonial powers on these countries. On the other hand, he does speak with admiration and affection about the various local peoples he met along the way.

He brings you into how he was feeling at various times, fatigue, emotional strain, sickness. Overcoming the mental and emotional desire to quit by simply putting one foot in front of the other. The excitement and fear of the unknown; the settling into a routine; then the moment when you get tired of the trip and you just want to go home. Anyone who has been on a difficult trip can relate his moods to some degree, even if their own trip isn't an exhausting trek through the West African bush.

I really liked the book and understood the time in which Graham Greene was writing it. The limitations he might be facing and the cultural values back then. My only problem was the Introduction of this book. It makes me think different about the writer.

I've read a few of Graham Greene's works and have enjoyed them. I like his style of writing. This is the first book of non-fiction I've read. Journey withouth Maps was a memoir of Greene's first trip away from England and was written in 1936. His journey is through the wilderness of Liberia on the coast of Africa. He is accompanied by his cousin, Barbara Greene, although he never mentions her by name or gender, rather refers to her only as 'my cousin'. I would have found it interesting if we'd learned more about her as he often in his travels left her alone with her porters. I found it interesting learning a bit about a portion of Africa that I really knew nothing about and also from a time frame when basically not much was known about it in the Western world. But ultimately, even though I enjoyed the story overall, it didn't necessarily wow me. If you aren't familiar with Greene's writings, it's worthwhile to take a gander at this earlier work and still an interesting story.

What an interesting book I've ever read. This is so amazing as it widen up my insight and potential. How I wish I'm in contact with this Author!

As it happens, before I read this book I had already read (and greatly enjoyed) a book that had been inspired by this one that led a man to travel through Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia in dangerous times [1].  I am greatly fond of travel books, and this book is certainly an interesting one, and one that reveals a great deal about the mixed character of Graham Greene as a writer and as a person.  As one might easily imagine, it is easy to have mixed feelings about this book.  Greene was an observant but also a highly cynical observer, and so this book shares a certain amount of trenchant observations about Liberian life and some commentary that may strike contemporary readers as rather awkward and cringy.  Greene was, without a doubt, a man of his own time and while this book is a great travel book, not all of its ideas have necessarily aged well.  There are some truths it was possible to tell in his time that cannot be told in our own time without paying an awful price in terms of one's acceptability, and Greene may not have wanted to pay that price.

This sizable book of about 300 pages or so is divided into three parts, each of which is divided into several chapters.  It should be remembered that this is a nonfiction work, and moreover a work that is written with a fair bit of subterfuge, as the author was not strictly permitted to travel where he did and had to bluff his way around some of the problems that resulted from this, which were minimized by his dealing graciously with others and his dealing with illiterate civil servants, for the most part in remote parts of countries largely neglected by their ruling elites.  The author begins his exploration by talking about his way to Africa (I, 1), the cargo ship he traveled in (I, 2), and his brief trip through Sierra Leone (I, 3).  After that the author talks about his time in Western Liberia (II, 1), his meetings with people along the way (II, 2), including a trip into Buzie country (II, 3), and a slightly illegal trip into Guinea (II, 4).  After this the author closes with his madcap efforts to get back to the coast and home, with some time spent at a mission statement (III, 1), his skeptical look at civilized LIberians (III, 2), his time in Grand Bassa (III, 3), his exultation upon reaching the port (III, 4), and the postscript in Monrovia dealing with the election that was held at the time (III, 5).

In Journey Without Maps, Greene tells the story of his own trip, on the cheap, through a part of the world that is still mysterious and dangerous.  The author's cynicism about the benefits of development and the inability of African realms, whether native or colonial, to provide for the well-being of ordinary people is something that has been born out in contemporary times, and the author's clear-eyed view of the corruption of the realms and in the ways that dark and evil superstition and layers of corruption have been endemic is certainly something that is relevant for contemporary readers, even if the author's noble savage myths are certainly not on point and his paternalistic view may strike many contemporary readers as irksome at best.  There are few good ways to write about forgotten and neglected corners of Africa, as to write the truth is bound to offend someone with cultural or political power somewhere, and given that no one wants to accept blame for how things came to be as bad as they are.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...

Decent travelogue but really hard to get past how it's dated.

Може би интересна и увлекателна книга, но тематиката в момента не ме вълнува.

Lost in the heart of Africa, Greene's gripping narrative immerses you in the raw beauty and perilous journey of discovery.

One of Greene's better travel books, about his trek through Sierra Leone and Liberia in the 1930s. As always, he has a great eye for detail (his description of the rats! always rats! and when there aren't rats, cockroaches and giant spiders!) and character of everyone he meets. He is also pretty resistant to the "heart of darkness" Western mythology of Africa. He finally arrives in Monrovia just in time for the presidential election, making the final chapter a fascinating bit of reporting.

開場白跟當初買書預期讀到的完全不一樣。想說是本小說，沒想到是本旅行日誌。
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但翻譯有點讓人錯愕，常常看到一半就被文字打斷，要重複卻認才能知道那句話究竟想要表達什麼。不確定是不是原文就是如此。看了半本左右逐漸心疲。

有些東西就只能發生在那個時代。

即使如此還是有找到一些喜歡的氛圍。