Greene wrote this novel in a matter of weeks, while taking benzedrene, and the ins and outs of the plot are dizzying. Nevertheless, it is not a book that leaves one surprised or puzzled; despite the suspense of the spy versus spy, hunter versus hunted, there are not the shocks of 'The Quiet American," the last Greene novel I read. The background is a civil war in an anonymous European country, and "D" has come to England to buy coal for his side. A major problem for him is that "D" is trusted neither by his side nor his enemies. The story moves at a rapid pace, within a few days, and has a number of memorable characters. Most memorable is "D' himself, specifically how he turns from "hunted" to "hunter" after a despicable crime.

The Confidential Agent (1939) by Graham Greene is surprisingly good. I say surprisingly given that Graham Greene wanted it published under a pseudonym so I was expecting the worst.

It would make a good companion read to The Ministry of Fear (1943) which is another wonderful Graham Greene book written during the WW2 era. Click here to read my review of 'The Ministry of Fear'

Back to The Confidential Agent, a man, D, an ex-Medieval French lecturer, is unsuited to his role as the eponymous confidential agent. He is in London to try to buy coal whilst rivals try to foil his mission. His unnamed European country in in the midst of a civil war and he is on the Republican side. The unnamed war is clearly the Spanish Civil War however things are left oblique.

Where The Confidential Agent scores highly is in its sense of place. D grapples with class and culture in late 1930 England which is beguilingly evoked: grotty hotels, Mass Observation, dense chilly fog, the railways, roadhouse pubs, snobbery, suspicion of foreigners, smoggy London, Esperanto lessons, casual violence, pubs, the London underground, taxis, holiday camps, depression era northern pit towns, and much more.

Apparently Greene wrote The Confidential Agent in six weeks, fuelled by Benzedrine, which probably explains the book's powerful hallucinogenic, paranoid and nightmarish qualities. It's a pitch black noir which powerfully distills the mood of late 1930s Britain. I remained completely engrossed. The Confidential Agent is tense and exciting, but also weighty and provocative. Not a sentence is wasted. The Confidential Agent is one of Graham Greene’s “entertainments”, and despite its twisty and somewhat implausible plot, it's more profound than many other writers’ more ambitious works.

Another five star read from Graham Greene - and highly recommended.

Dated sub noir account of an unnamed agent seeking a coal deal with English coal magnate. The agent, D, is presumably Spanish and the backdrop is the Spanish civil war whilst this is entirely set in England complete with pea soupers and benign bobbies.
It's ok but never really ignites.

Greene was not a fan of this work, one of his “entertainments,” having only written it for some income. Yet a middle-rate espionage thriller by Greene is still more interesting than most of the current trade paperbacks gracing airport bookstores. Told with his usual focus on human weakness and questionable triumphs, shady morality, and fraudulent men trying to sustain a bit of truth in a world of lies and war.

This is the kind of book that is very enjoyable, action-packed, but also very frustrating as the main character, D (whose country we never actually are told, though it is alluded to often, in vague terms) is constantly being thwarted in his mission. Paranoia is part of spy craft and he says quite early in the book that the only person you can trust is yourself, and that definitely holds true throughout the course of the novel as he is constantly being betrayed, rescued, attacked, assisted, turned on, hunted, and so on. It lacks a certain Greene wit that is often the hallmark of his books, but maybe we're supposed to enjoy the protagonist's constant struggle. I did and I didn't.

I almost gave up on this espionage tale early on. Some literary affectations — a protagonist identified only as “D.” who serves as a confidential agent for some unidentified European country embroiled in civil war — put me off. But the opening chapter thrust us right into a mysterious situation, and I found myself drawn into D.’s mission and his sense of war-weariness and paranoia.

The mission is a relatively simple one, but very dangerous for D. Not knowing who he can trust, and victim to some of the compartmentalized “need-to-know” information protocols designed to protect missions like his, D. navigates his way through numerous dangers, feeling loss and dread and weariness all the way through.

An outstanding read.

Πολιτικό - κατασκοπικό μυθιστόρημα με αρκετές ανατροπές, ενώ ταυτόχρονα υπάρχει στον πρωταγωνιστή ο εσωτερικός προβληματισμος για τον έρωτα, τον πόλεμο και τον θάνατο.
"Ένα απ'όσα σου κάνει ο κίνδυνος ύστερ' από κάμποσο καιρό είναι να σου σκοτώνει τα αισθήματα. Δεν πιστεύω πως θα νιώσω ποτέ μου πια τίποτ' άλλο εκτός από φόβο. Κανένας Από μας δεν μπορεί πια να μισήσει άλλο ή ν' αγαπήσει.... Πρέπει να αισθάνεσαι κάτι για να σταματήσεις έναν πόλεμο. Καμιά φορά σκέφτομαι πώς κρεμόμαστε σ' αυτόν γιατί υπάρχει ακόμα φόβος."
"Τούτη τη φορά δεν ήτανε μεγάλη αποτυχία. Όλα βρισκόταν εκεί εκτός από τον πόθο. Δεν μπορούσε να αισθανθεί πόθο. Ήταν σαν να' χει γίνει ευνούχος για χάρη του λαού του. Κάθε εραστής ήταν με τον τρόπο του, ένας φιλόσοφος. Η φύση φρόντιζε γι’ αυτό. Ένας εραστής έπρεπε να πιστεύει στον κόσμο, στην αξία της γέννησης. Η αντισύλληψη δεν άλλαζε την αξία της. Η πράξη του πόθου παρέμενε πράξη πίστης, κι αυτός είχε χάσει την πίστη του."

Such an odd story; and one cannot quite suspend one's disbelief. However, there is a brilliant theme of the difference between theory and reality. In particular, how often people have a romanticized notion of what war is like, and what it is really like. There are profoundly sad events, and some very funny episodes. One thing that did not ring true was the happily ever after love story.

روزگار جنگ‌ و مصائب بدون پایان اون
آقای د مردی که قدم به قدم تغییر میکنه
اون دقیقا نمونه مردیه که خیانت اطرافیان رو زیاد دیده و حالا نسبت به همه بی اعتماده
به جز رز
البته اونجایی ناراحت کننده تر میشه که تقریبا آقای د همیشه درست فکر میکرد
چه ناراحت کننده بود زندگی و مقایسه کشور خودش با انگلستان در اون دوره

“How much treachery is always nourished in little overworked centres of somebody else’s idealism”

Another early Greene - is pretty good for most it , felt a bit like a John Buchan thriller . Its a bit let down by the final quarter

Graham Greene writes about the unsaleability of a book called "The Power and the Glory". So he writes this book in the mornings, then writes the "serious" novel in the afternoons; whilst helping dig trenches on London's commons with the war looming. He takes benzedrine to keep him going. "The Confidential Agent" feels drug-fuelled. There's a fever to the adventure, a well-drawn set of characters leaping out of the shadows at each other, with the paranoid agent D. in the middle of the muddle. A book to power through, to devour. Greene achieves his aim of writing a page-turner, that has the same feeling of a Boy's Own romp as Dickens and with the same undertones of a serious work. Dickens-like cutting character assassinations. Dickens-like social observation as the war refugee D. eyes the paper thin lives of the comfortably, smugly insulated English in a country that hadn't seen war on its shores for 250 years. A Dickensian feel to London; fog and smog. Interfering civilians telling policemen how to conduct themselves. Gangs of street urchins making deals to get their hands on a gun.

To Greene, entertainment means pace. If he slows to describe a person or scene, he does so in the way your eye catches on a detail as the country speeds by from a train window. Instead of the oppressive detail of "The Heart of the Matter", he gives you short jabs at the heart, and a constant comparison of the triviality of normal society with a country destroyed by civil war. Sometimes London comes off worse, and D. hopes that his own country comes back in better shape than the petty lies and slights that these peoples' lives run on. So not only is the story hardboiled, but the lives of the pleasantly disconnected are covered with grime; ash falling from Greene's pen. A delight to power through.

I don't think this one holds up.