The Third Man

Completed Graham Greene's The Third Man. Story of racketeering and murder in post war Vienna. The real story is about heroes and disillusionment. Very interesting how Greene's main character (a writer) is made to see things through the distorted lens of his hero worship -- and later, while speaking to fans of his own, the misunderstandings that occur because they worship him. A very funny moment in this otherwise dark story. Greene is masterful at painting with darks and shadows.

Journal note, Dec. 21, 1993

Greene is one of the great writers of our century. His works deserve to be read, ought to be required reading for any literate person. His autobiography (A Sort Of Life, I believe it called) reveals a brooding man with intense inner conflicts. A frequent event in his life is a game of solitary Russian Roulette with a loaded pistol. It is not a pretty portrait, but out of this tortured dungeon of self comes a world class writer whose works have tremendous power and dignity.

His characters themselves are usually complicated, world weary travellers on life's road, hard pressed by their circumstances, thus brought into situations that explore the deeper depths of the soul. What do we find at the heart of a man when we strip everything else away? When we pick at the scabs, what do we see? What is here worth preserving? His perceptive probing and vivid prose at times create amazing and memorable epiphanies.

Recommended readings: The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter, A Burnt-Out Case, The Tenth Man, The Quiet American, The End of the Affair, Orient Express, The Comedians and of course The Third Man. (I have read all these and more.) You will not regret reading this writer, wherever you begin.