Earlier in the year, while traveling in Chiapas, Mexico, I read Graham Greene’s The Power and The Glory—a deeply moving book, but also one of the most depressing I’d ever read. I said to myself, “Well—that’s enough Graham Greene.” Then I watched one of my favorite movies of all time, The Third Man, starring Orson Wells; the story was from a Graham Greene book and I decided to give the author another go. I noticed that he had written two kinds of books: those he called novels, and some he called “entertainments.” I understand that later he dropped these labels, but for my purposes, they are useful and separate the comedy from the tragedy.

Lest you think I am a totally shallow reader, Greene’s “entertainments” have plenty of serious backstory. In this case, the Spanish Civil War, a man grieving his wife, tension built by the situation back home—starving people, etc. At the center is D. a man on a mission to buy coal for his government, without which, the government might fall to the rebels. Sound like fun? Well, it is. Packed full of adventure and humor, much like what you find in WW2 British and American propaganda films (think Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent or Casablanca), or even later, films like Raiders of the Lost Ark (although without the sci-fi elements).

Basic plot: a man in a foreign land, fighting for a just cause against an evil enemy. Not that I know enough about the Spanish Civil War to say that D’s on the right side. With all these years between the book and its modern day readers, the backstory has little importance to the narrative—D. believes that his cause is a just one, and so will the reader. Picture Lauren Bacall as his love interest, Charles Boyer as D, and there you have it.

Two things stand out: The prose—like Hemingway on steroids. Greene is up there with the best of them. His insights into human nature are astounding. The writing is spare: Greene has removed every word that might slow down the story or bore. The dialogue is some of the best in literature. I’m not exaggerating. Then there’s the humor—take the sub-plot featuring a school whose founder has come up with a cockamamie mix of world languages, designed to bring understanding between nations and world peace. Now throw that kind of humor into a book written in 1939, and you have genius.

I’m about to read every book this author ever wrote. I’m in for a treat, I’m sure. And maybe at some point, I’ll steel myself and get to his “novels.”

This is one of Graham Greene’s self-styled “entertainments”, a label I’ve always found slightly irritating because it seems to contain more than a little false modesty. In truth The Confidential Agent is, like pretty much everything else Greene wrote, very, very good. As an espionage thriller it is top notch, as tightly written as Eric Ambler’s best stuff and with the seedy, claustrophobic mood of John le Carre’s better Smiley novels. I thought there were also strong nods to Kafka, not just in the naming of the secret agents as “D”, “L” and “K” but also in the borderline surreal, waking nightmarish atmosphere and the way in which faceless bureaucracies exercise their power through a succession of seemingly benign or hapless individuals. So whilst undoubtedly entertaining there is as you would expect from Graham Greene a great deal else going on besides.

D, ageing, professor of literature, ex-political prisoner, acts as a confidential agent on behalf of his brutal and corrupted government on a trip to London in this melancholy world-weary spy thriller. Greene has created a beautiful, polite, gentle antihero who is forced into violence as a response to the violence and deceit of others. Well-written, politically cynical, and moving.

Even the not-so-greatest Greene novel deserves a good rating.
This is another suspense novel (described as "an entertainment", of all things) and in places you can tell it was written for the screen. Few writers are as good as Greene at knowing the inside of the mind of a secret agent, and the crosses and double-crosses can drive you crazy as you navigate the story, but hang in with him, it's worth every page. One other thing about Greene is how his characters lose/question/interpret morality when faced with serious moral choices......he carefully weaves the classic moral dilemmas of the 20th century into the personalities of his characters.

Θαυμάσια γραμμένο με πολύ ωραίες φράσεις και νοήματα. Ο συγγραφέας μας δείχνει ένα άλλο κομμάτι του πολέμου, άγνωστο στους περισσότερους, μέσα από μια δυνατή ιστορία. Όσο για τον πρωταγωνιστή του βιβλίου, πραγματικά δένεσαι με τον χαρακτήρα του και τις σκέψεις του.

Avem aici inca un roman de spionaj al lui Graham Greene ce a fost ecranizat cu Lauren Bacall in rolul principal. Cartea reflecta experienta autorului care a lucrat o perioada pentru Foreign Services.
"The confidential agent" a aparut in 1939 si e povestea agentului secret D. Actiunea debuteaza in momentul in care D. se intalneste pe puntea unui vas cu un alt agent, rivalul sau, trimis sa-i fure misiunea sau sa-l lichideze. Va trebui sa ajunga cumva primul la tinta si in drum o va cunoaste si pe Rose Cullen.
Protagonistul este un om chinuit de razboi, de amintiri, de existenta sa, este batut, impuscat, oropsit in toate felurile. Este obosit de viata si de a trece pe langa moarte mereu. Dar este de neabatut de la misiunea sa in ciuda nenorocirilor care i se intampla. Tot incaseaza si cititorul se intreaba cat o sa o mai duca asa. Este un adevarat Sisif al agentilor secreti. Toata cartea ba il compatimesti, ba il detesti. E un personaj care mereu isi cauta identitatea si locul.
Insa autorul crede in el, investeste in el, incearca sa-l inconjoare cu o povestioara, slaba, ce-i drept, ii da pe mana si o femeie, ii asterne la picioare si o drama, un motiv de razbunare... Si tot degeaba. Greene in acest roman e ca femeia care are intalnire cu un domn. Se aranjeaza, isi pune rochita neagra, ciorapii de matase, pantofii stiletto, rujul rosu, parul numai bucle si apoi se impiedica la iesire si isi rupe ciorapii, vantul ii ravaseste parul, tramvaiul ii stropeste rochia, rujul i se manjeste si ajunge la intalnire zambind toata si spunandu-i tipului: da, eu sunt ceea ce vrei. Si el o ia la fuga cat il tin picioarele. Numai Greene are incredere neclintita in acest erou al sau, ca poate sa faca si el ceva, orice. Eu sunt de parere ca nici macar cu un sac intreg de coloranti artificiali, de aditivi, de indulciri si glazurari nu s-ar face un personaj ca lumea din D.
Actiunea, in ciuda faptului ca este un roman de spionaj si ar trebui sa fie indrazneata si interesanta, este plictisitoare si cititul merge destul de greu.
G. Greene are carti mult mai bune, pe aceasta nu as recomanda-o in niciun fel.

A decent thriller from Graham Greene. The plot moves and there's enough characterization to care about what happens next (the only necessary element for a compelling thriller, after all.) However the book suffers from an uncharacteristic sloppiness from Greene, with several cliche plot points dragging the book down. There are moments of quiet observation of ethics and war, but since Greene keeps the plot so mired in anonymity (we never learn the protagonist's full name), it's hard to embrace the narrator's sincerity. Nonetheless, sloppiness from a master is still better than great work from an amateur.

I don't remember now whether The Power And The Glory was the first Greene novel I read - it might have been The Third Man or Our Man in Havana. I mention this because The Confidential Agent was written in parallel with The Power And The Glory, working on one each morning, and switching to the other in the afternoon. An unusual writing regime. One might have expected that the novels would turn out to be very similar, but had I not known the publication dates and read Greene's Introduction where he explains the process, I should have imagined them to be from quite different periods of his career.

That might be because the purposes driving each are also very different. The Power And The Glory was a deliberate exercise in exploring religion and morality, and Greene did not expect it to sell very well. He undertook The Confidential Agent as a more commercial enterprise - it was what he called an "entertainment", more of a light thriller.

It's certainly light in the sense of being quick and easy to read, yet the story is anything but. The book was written in 1939, and Greene has said that he had both the Spanish Civil War and the Munich Agreement in mind.

The result is a dark story of politics and betrayal, set against a cold, gray background. The Agent of the title, D., from a country embroiled in a bloody and drawn out civil war, becomes a hunted man as his simple but desperate mission to England is thwarted by a complex series of mischances and deliberate sabotages.

In the process, Greene shines a harsh light on the seamier side of pre-war Britain, and along the way touches on the eternal themes of love, honour, greed, and betrayal. He also has some interesting things to say about ideology and politics. Fascism is not directly mentioned, although some of D.'s pursuers are very much from the pre-war Fascist mould, but D., once a bourgeois academic, is an agent for a Communist government. Asked why he fights for a cause which is so destructive he says that he knows his own leaders are at least as corrupt and morally bankrupt as their opponents, but sides with them because the ordinary people of his country do. Like Orwell, Greene can see the evil in both popular ideologies of the time. D., forced into choosing one over the other, will not demean himself with the rationalisation that one side is morally superior, claiming only that it is no worse.

The edition I picked up has an introduction by Ian Rankin, in which he compares D. to Richard Hannay in The 39 Steps. There are certainly similarities - espionage, men on the run hunted for crimes they didn't commit - but I find the points of difference more interesting. Hannay is a very British hero, hunted by the British authorities only because they have been misdirected - in the end Hannay is embraced by British Intelligence and together they hunt down the foreign agents.

D. on the other hand is a foreigner, whose cause most of his British pursuers would reject even if they knew him to be innocent of the crimes he is accused of. The futility of D.'s position has a kind of Kafkaesque quality, and there are some dreamlike, absurdist moments that might have come straight from The Trial.

D. can expect no help from officialdom, and must find his allies in unexpected places - the young hotel maid who falls in love with him, the gang of youths who flirt with Anarchism because they're bored. His enemies are everywhere - agents of the other side, agents of his own side who may have been suborned, the police, and many of the ordinary English men and women D. encounters.

Unlike Hannay, D. can expect no respite even should he succeed - he will be hunted while he remains in England, and quite possibly he will be executed should he return home. In the end, acceptance of this infuses him with a kind of reckless power that enables him to take the initiative - for a little while at least.

The most Hannay-like character in The Confidential Agent is arguably not D. at all, but Captain Currie, the bumptious middle class fool set on D. by an enemy agent. For Buchan, Hannay presuambly represented the best of the British officer class, and Currie is Greene's unflattering caricature of a lesser member of it, contemptuous of foreigners and social inferiors, anxiously obsequious toward his betters, unequipped for serious thought and reliant upon a narrow but extensive set of rules to guide his actions. At first appearance Currie is merely amusing, then contemptible, but by the end of the story he is perhaps more a figure to be pitied. Apart from D. himself, he is probably the most fully drawn character in the book, and I wonder whether that was Greene's intention. Currie personifies a darker view of a complacent and comfortable middle class England, blind and indifferent to the horrors taking place on the continent.

Overall this is a good period thriller, wonderfully atmospheric, but I did find the bleakness of Greene's England unsettling.

Its a tribute to what a great writer Graham Greene was, that this standard thriller with its unconvincing love affair, wishy-washy hero, and somewhat sluggish plot held my interest to the end. This is because Greene had great literary style and effortlessly creates vivid scenes with interesting supporting characters.

Unfortunately, "the hero" is badly drawn, an unbelievable Leftist/Communist who is tired of living but dedicated to the cause of Republican Spain (thinly disguised in the Novel).

We're honestly supposed to believe this hard-core leftist, whose spent 2 years fighting a civil war, has sacrificed his wife, and spent 6 months in a Fascist Prison, isn't a hard-as-nails,"anything for the revolution" type, full of hate for the fascists.

But instead, a chivilarous, sentimental, "good guy", who admires English fair play, and has trouble shooting a traitor and possible murderer. In fact, our hero is so nice, he even understands why his own side would "Liquidate him" as "Unreliable"! And the worst he can say about his fascist counterpart is he's an "Out of date mummy".

Even worse, Greene wants us to believe the pretty young daughter of a rich English Lord would fall in love with a world weary, poor, 45 y/o average looking Spainard. Not just fall in love, but fall in love at first sight, and be willing to.... well just read the ending. Its absurd.

Again, its a good thing Greene creates the atmosphere of 30s England with such skill. And populates it with vivid supporting characters. Because I didn't care whether the "confidential agent" got away or got his coal to the Spainish Republic. And i never believed the love affair.

Sidenote: One doesn't think of Greene as a philosemite, but in the novel he creates a noble supporting character (Forbes) and for no good reason makes him Jewish. Forbes, in fact, like "D" is too good to be true.

Una buena novela para entretenerse. Tiene un único problema: No se pone buena hasta la segunda parte (que es en mi edición en la página 133). Si no fuera tan lenta la primera parte, el libro sería mucho mucho mejor.
Cuenta la historia de D., un agente confidencial de un país comunista en busca de carbón para su gente. Durante su viaje sufre muchos problemas, llegando a no lograr concretar el trato. Entretanto, se enamora de Rose, la hija de quién le vendería el carbón. Además, todo se complica cuando intenta ayudar a Else, una niña de 14 años, quien termina muerta en aparente suicidio.
En especial me gustó la persecución que hace al profesor de entretonio, el Señor K.
En resumen, una novela entretenida pero que demora mucho en partir.

D. is on a special mission to England from a country that's in the throes of civil war to buy desperately-needed coal for his faction and to ensure that his opponent, L., does not succeed at the same task. Throughout the story, L. appears to have the situation well in hand while D. is the underdog, distrusted even by his own people and making such dismal progress that their suspicion is understandable.

There are points at which I can see that this must have been source material for Ian Fleming when he later wrote the James Bond novels, but D. is a far cry from 007 (neither the suave movie version nor the soulless killing machine that Fleming intended). Early on, for example, he finds himself stuck at a roadhouse because the girl he'd been traveling with is too busy partying with other people to continue their journey. Desperate to keep to his timetable, he takes her car--and is pursued as a thief, beaten up by self-righteous louts, and left to make his way on foot with fewer teeth in his mouth.

Before long, D. is not so much a confidential agent as he is a fugitive, likely to be shot by his own superiors or jailed by the English police if they catch him first. In that respect, it more closely resembles The Power and the Glory. It's not as powerful as that other work, but it did have the effect of making me dream that I too was on the run. Not surprising, as (aside from a couple pages of comic relief) it's a nightmarish or even Kafkaesque situation.

The Confidential Agent was published in 1939 and you can feel the anticipation of war in almost every page. The plot involves D. -- an agent from a left-wing government fighting a right-wing insurgency (not named, but clearly Republican Spain) -- arriving in England to negotiate coal shipments needed for the government to survive. D.'s arrival brings violence but also hard choices for the complacent, peaceful Brits. Sides must be taken by both capital and labor. (Greene must have had the gift of prescience; his book The Quiet American also seemed to reach out and predict the basic shape of the Vietnam War.)

Cheekily subtitled 'An Entertainment,' this book is one of those efficient mid-century thrillers that accomplishes far more in 200 pages than Tom Clancy does in 600. Like John Le Carré after him, Greene was both involved in British Intelligence and highly critical of the western governments (he was even close friends with Kim Philby, the Russian spy).

D.'s unsentimental yet steadfast persistence in his ideals and his mission also places him in the company of Camus's existentialist hero, Dr. Rieux. As he says:

"You've got to choose some line of action and live by it. Otherwise nothing matters at all. [...] I've chosen certain people who've had the lean portion for some centuries now."