The edition I have begins with a letter to a publisher which we would be better without. Because the story is told by one of the characters, Greene points out that Brown is not Greene. Well, I wouldn't have thought of that! Then he notes that Brown, like Greene, is a Catholic. He justifies this on statistical grounds, which is just about as stupid as you can get. 'It is often forgotten that, even in the case of a novel laid in England, the story when it tcontains more than ten characters would lack verisimilitude if at least one of them twere not a Catholic. The ignoring of this fact of social statistics sometimes gives the tEnglish novel a provincial air.'We are here in the ludicrous domain where we would have represent each of the components of society in proportion. By the author's own ten percent rule, The Comedians should have at least one gay or lesbian character. It doesn't. Given the number of gays, not to say paedophiles, in catholic holy orders this should be a surprise, but it isn't. The narrator is a catholic because Greene is forever hitting us over the head with Catholicism, which he likes to spread like margarine over every inch of the bread. No doubt if he'd been born a catholic, or born French, we would have been spared this. It's the gratuitous references which annoy me most.'The air was full of coming rain, and the low sound reminded me of voices chanting tthe responses at school.' (p203b)Give us a break, Graham. Or again, 'I suppose it was my Jesuit education which reminded me of that moment when, from a high mountain above the desert, the devil displayed all the kingdoms of the world,' (p197) It may well have been, but a Jesuit education is not required to know this story. I even know it myself.On page 18 he takes a brief sideswipe at a novel, any novel, by CP Snow: 'the heavy, foreseeable progress of its characters down the uninteresting corridors of power made me drowsy.' With him there.As for other matters, we have the detached observer business at work here, the observer also being worldly wise in a tired and hopeless sort of way. The question of Brown's lack of involvement comes up. Of course, it is not Brown's fault that he is rootless, but it is Greene's fault that he has gone for a rootless character. '. . . somewhere years ago I had forgotten how to be involved in anything. Somehow somewhere I had lost completely the capacity to be concerned.' (p182) Technically, his residence is Monaco, 'a city of transients’, but he feels no tie to it, which is hardly surprising. 'I felt a greater tie here, in the shabby land of terror, chosen for me by chance.' (p223) This last is a reference to the postcard from his mother which led him to travel to Haiti.His attitude to his lover, Martha, is not only tired but tiring since he seems impelled to undermine their relationship with groundless suspicions. He also seems impelled to have her at the drop of a hat, which gave me the impression that for him sex was like responding to an urgent need to relieve himself, affection having nothing to do with it. As adulterers go (my phrase, not his) she is honest while he is not.'Many months later when the affair was over, I realised and appreciated her directness. She played no part. She answered exactly what I asked. She never claimed to like a thing that she disliked or to love something to which she was indifferent. If I had failed to understand her it was because I failed to ask her the right questions, that was all. It was true that she was no comedian. She kept the virtue of innocence, and I knew now why I loved her.' (p138)Comedians aren't serious. This is because they play parts, as Brown's mother had suggested he was doing just before she croaked. So Brown is a comedian because he isn't serious. Jones is a major comedian because he pretends to be what he would like to have been. According to the publisher's blurb, Smith is also a comedian. I don't think so. He is ridiculously serious throughout, and certainly isn't playing a part. The fact that he doesn't have a faith is cited (by the publisher) as evidence that Smith is a comedian, thus turning reality on its head. But the publisher may not be right in suggesting that Greene intended Smith to be a comedian. If he did, he was in a different category – the unintentional comedian.In fact, Greene comes at it from at least one other angle, which does not require faith.'Neither of us would ever die for love. We would grieve and separate and find another. We belonged to the world of comedy and not of tragedy.' (p161) He is referring to Martha and himself, when they lie down outside with a view to sex but choose a shallow grave location to do it. Apparently, you have to choose one extreme or the other. Horace Walpole strongly inclines me to the comic pole. People of a tragic cast of mind take themselves far too seriously.Greene has traveled a lot and knew many countries. The Quiet American and the Comedians are good books partly because they evoke Vietnam and Haiti so well. Either that or they appear to. I have no way of knowing which it is. We would have to ask observant people who were there at the time. I know no such people, neither do I know if this has ever been attempted.I get the impression that Green's first person narrators leave a lot to be desired. Like Greene.
Set in Port au Prince, Haiti, this novel shows the lives of foreign immigrants during the oppressive regime of Papa Doc and his Tontons Macoute secret police (translated as the Boogeyman). Using a tale of suspense and danger, Greene builds interesting portraits of his characters, each reacting to life in a terror-ruled country differently. Mr. and Mrs. Smith are the naive Americans who see the country as something to be pitied. They are ignorant to realities of the average life in Haiti: corruption, distrust and self-preservation. One scene that stuck with me was when Mr. Smith visits a governmental "project" and discovers that it is a sham. His ignorance is partially broken, but in defiance he gives American money to the town beggar thinking he is doing an act of charity. As the car drives away, the narrator sees other men making their way over to take their "share" from the beggar. It's a scene that shows the faults of many charitable organizations in developing countries. Without understanding the culture, their help often does more harm than good. Mr. Jones is the other side of the spectrum (for most of the book at least). He plays the faults of the system to get ahead, embracing use of bribery and bluffing. And Mr. Brown is somewhere in the middle, with more knowledge and appreciation of life in Haiti the the Smiths, but greater revulsion to the government that Jones. In the end, the foreigners lack something the Haitian characters don't: a cause. They are the "comedians", detached from both sides of conflict, merely commenting on the events through their biased lens. It was interesting to read this book around the time of my own trip to Haiti. Greene's Haiti is very different than the one I visited. Instead of fighting against a dictator, Haitians are fighting the oppression of poverty and with that hunger, disease and death. I stayed in a rural town where life is simpler, safer and more welcoming to foreigners, removed from the urban chaos of Port au Price. However destitute their lives may be, the Haitians still have pride in their status as the first free nation from the rule of the Europeans, and I think that pride will prove vital as they work to rebuild their country.
What do You think about The Comedians (2005)?
Not a terribly funny book, despite the title. Not that I expected it to be, given other stuff I've read by him. I was mostly intrigued by the fact that it takes place in Haiti during Papa Doc Duvalier's regime: a supremely messed-up time and place. And Greene does Haiti well; it seems like they were made for each other, though I've got the feeling Greene can evoke any place pretty well. This is marginally lighter fare than either The Power and the Glory or The Heart of the Matter, and considerably more readable. I do feel compelled to quote one of the funnier moments as representative of the novel, even though it's really not representative of the novel...Major (maybe) Jones is a scam artist (maybe) who needs to be smuggled out of Haiti, so naturally he dresses as a woman -- but in a costume rather than a legitimate outfit. He looks sort of like a gypsy, I think. When he arrives at the embassy in question, of course everyone is surprised. "Mr. Jones!" they all say. He corrects them thus: "MAJOR Jones . . . in the women's army, of course." Maybe you had to be there. Also this:"He turned his back and left the officer's hand floating in mid-air like a catfish in an aquarium."SO GOOD.Edit: for some reason, when I look back at all the Graham Greene I('ve) read, this is my favorite. So, changing it from three to four stars.
—Drew
Graham Greene is my new favorite author. Paul Theroux dissed this book in his introduction, but it was just Paul Theroux showing that he doesn't know much. This is sort of a book about Haiti and totalitarianism and brutality and corruption and the Evil Empire (America) but it is more a book about loss, rootlessness, the emptiness of the middle of the night, fatherlessness, faith and lack thereof... Greene is deep, clean, concise. Theroux says that it seems dated 40 years on, but that's only if you focus on car models and the like. It's not dated -- it's haunting.
—Elaine
For Greene, this was epically long- nearly 300 pages? The heck? Unwonted length aside, though, it's standard Greene: foreign country, political machinations, darkness, weirdly sex-obsessed leading man and his illicit, tortured relationship with a married woman, naive Americans, cynical Englishmen and so forth. It's also, sadly, slightly substandard Greene as far as structure. It's very flabby- there are, in effect, three storylines, which only interact insofar as the characters involved happen to know each other. There's no need at all for the naive American storyline (will Mr & Mrs Smith be able to set up a vegetarian center in Haiti?), which takes up a good fifth of the book; there's very little need for the narrator's back-story (how *did* he come to own a hotel in Haiti?), and the weight given to them early on detracts from the main event, Mr Jones' development from jail-bird to 'hero.' On the upside, it's nice to see the naive American's naivety as a source of strength and not just weakness, and the Englishman's cynicism may well be defeated by Dr. Magiot, who flits through the book only to have the final say. Without the Smith-vegetarian and Brown-family & lurv plot lines, this would have been excellent. As is, it's too flabby to recommend over Greene's masterpieces.
—Justin Evans
