Word: greeneland
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...principal settings are those favorite corners of Greeneland, grimy London and a sunnier Third World capital, both pregnant with menace. The story lurches, sometimes comically, toward a classic Greene ending, which combines plausible irony with amazing grace. And the Captain is a typical Greene figure: a man of several names and many shadowy occupations and absences. His enemies are, of course, corrupt officialdom and bourgeois smugness. His story is told by Victor, the boy he says he won at backgammon, or maybe chess -- the tale shifts with the passing years. Along with the wraithlike woman who is the Captain...
Those who have spent time familiarizing themselves with the topography of Greeneland will have some idea of what must happen next. France is liberated and so is Chavel, who emerges from prison with papers that identify him as one Jean-Louis Charlot. Having lost everything but his life, the survivor feels driven inexorably toward the home he has relinquished. There he meets his unsuspecting inheritors: an old woman who knows nothing of the fate of her son and a sister who can think of little else. Therese gives the ragged visitor food and discusses the horrible man who bought...
...decades, the landscape of subtropical disillusion has been so identified with one writer that it is commonly referred to as Greeneland. But Graham Greene's burnt-out cases are rapidly being replaced by Latin American protagonists and European figures who have a fresher story to tell. Detrez is still an unfinished writer, and he lacks the craft and polish of his great predecessor. But he has a sense of the appropriate image and the right valedictory tone...
...employ of the British embassy. Helping them fall in love, and more than a little in love with them both, is Billy Kwan (Linda Hunt), a dwarfish man who works as a photographer and functions as an all-knowing tipster. Nothing is simple here on the outskirts of Graham Greeneland, where conscientious Westerners sink waist-deep in the Big Muddy of moral and political ambiguity...
...tone is ominous, the guilt pervasive. Prayers are uttered under gray, indifferent skies. No one is quite certain where the atmosphere ends and the characters begin. The place is Greeneland, scene of some 40 books and movies. By now readers should be weary of its squalor and despair. Instead, each year brings more visitors. The reason is Graham Greene's ability to remain, at 78, one of the world's most unpredictable artists. From comedies like May We Borrow Your Husband? to the sheer lunacy of Travels with My Aunt, he has consistently astonished those who thought...