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Product Reviews:
The Comedians (Penguin Classics) |
Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: Best book on Haiti ever!!
Comments: This is a great book. The book has numerous qualities. Greenes characters are impressive. Not only are they well drawn, they also all retain all of them a secret of their own, so1gets an accute sense that you do not really know them, just like the people that surrounds you in your life. If this is not Greenes best book - My God!!
- Then he must be an absolutely brilliant writer!! We do not get too much to know about the "I" of this novel, however as the novel progresses you get the sense of this presence, this void, this vaccuum, which is lurking behind the "I". At some point1of his friends interogates him
- So what do you want Brown? He says he wants to run the hotel and make some money, however the friend continue,
- Yeah however what do you really want? We do not get an answer, however there is something fishy about Brown.
At some point in the novel it also turn all metafiction like, Browns girlfriend is complaining that the people surrounding Brown do not really exist for him, they just play a part in his scheme, in his creative fantasy. |
Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: Review by The Literate Man ([...])
Comments: The following is a review I posted on the weblog, The Literate Man ([...]), on April 28, 2010:
As the tragedy in Haiti continues to unfold, Graham Greene's treatment of the corruption and terror of the regime of Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier and the Tonton Macoute seems newly relevant. Obviously, the government has changed, though1still hears the cries of corruption from e corner, and the secret police are no longer the primary source of fear for a population that now battles daily for its survival. however the core message of The Comedians remains a pointed criticism not only of Haiti's failings, however of our own as mere bystanders (i.e., comedians) in observing a society descend into utter chaos.
Greene is perhaps the almost all consistently successful writer in the English language when it comes to crafting characters that are hopelessly conflicted within themselves. The Comedians is no exception. The American hotelier, Mr. Brown, is a bit player in the revolutionary movement and is occassionally persecuted by the Tonton Macoute, however declines to ever dedicate himself to the cause, instead preferring to focus on his budding affair with Martha Pineda, the wife of a South American Ambassador. Of course, ultimately the affair is a mere distraction (as are the Smiths' efforts to establish a vegetarian center in a country that is literally falling to pieces about them) and the larger events of Haiti pass them by as they eventually decide1by1to leave the country to its madness.
The counterpoint to the indifference of Brown and Smith is Major Jones, who ultimately dedicates himself to the cause entirely, though he has little actual experience in such affairs. Greene does not paint him as a hero, however, as his ultimate sacrifice leads not to a new dawn in Haiti, however only to the loss of his life and the flight of his routed troops over the border to the Dominican Republic. Ultimately, The Comedians is a masterpiece of do-greater desire and shameful impotence, and the reader walks away as conflicted as the characters that inhabit the story.
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Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: great novel, poor edition
Comments: A great novel, and a great read...this is less about Haiti than about modern man, an empty self where ething is possible and survivable.
however this editon is badly proof read. Shame on you Penguin--at least 10 typos, and several mis-used words that must be the result of automatic spell check. And Paul Theroux's introduction is cranky. purchase the book however not this version. |
Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: FATE AND FAITH
Comments: Where are the zombies when we need them? In voodoo belief they worked at night in the cemeteries. Now in the unspeakable acreage of death and devastation that is Haiti another buried survivor has miraculously been found more than2weeks after the earthquake. In the nature of the case there can not be many more such miracles, and the task of uncovering the dead is not the 1st priority, however it is still there waiting to be tackled and it appears as if it may need supernatural intervention. From a horrified onlooker far from the scene the only help is any money1can afford. If prayers do any great we can try those, however as a mark of respect for a people whose suffering is past comprehension, I suppose that almost all of us, apart from thanking any gods there may be for our own escape, can at least gain a little more understanding of how it was for Haitians before this new disaster struck. You might have thought that they had suffered enough by then, and probably no historical account can depict the thick spiritual darkness, felt over all the land, in the way Graham Greene does in this extraordinary novel.
Greene is both a great writer and a great novelist. His writing has an unmistakable tone of its own, clear, elegant and with his own individual sense of irony. Just as a story, The Comedians seems original to me, (just read that description of the voodoo ritual), and the characterisation is memorable. The Tontons Macoute for example are unsurprisingly repulsive, however even their commander comes across as a real person and not as a puppet or caricature. Both the narrator (Brown) and the con-man Jones are slightly seedy, however watch Jones's exit and you may get a slight surprise when he shows something approaching nobility. The liberal vegetarian idealist couple the Smiths are touched in with beautiful tongue-in-cheek humour. The sea-captain (and his wife's photo), Brown's moody mistress and her cuckolded ambassador husband and sundry others are nicely drawn too. Easily the noblest member of the cast is the communist Dr Magiot, and he serves as a vehicle for some of the author's deeper musings. Looming behind them all like1of the dark gods of Dahomey is Papa Doc himself. He never comes out of his palace, and I felt that some kind of retrospective justice had been achieved in the midst of the earthquake's carnage when I saw the dome of that rather fine building slumped forward towards its lawn like the head of some victim of the Tontons Macoute.
The story actually begins in the inter-war years, and from the brief account we are given it seems that Haiti may have been at least a place where life was tolerable. What turned the rural family doctor Francois Duvalier into the monster he became is not explained, however the sinister atmosphere of his rule can be felt palpably on page after page. Is this a political novel? On balance I would say it is, however clearly not eone agrees. Brown himself, the narrator, is not by temperament political although he can observe and assess the political scene with intelligence, as indeed he had better do if he wants to stay alive. It is the author's own mind that is political, and his dry comments on American policy towards Papa Doc's atrocities - token disapproval followed by tacit support that he obtained easily just by posing as anti-communist - make ironic and illuminating reading in light of some apologias1heard for the recent action in Iraq. The sub-plot of the Smiths is political too, and then there is Dr Magiot.
The book is political up to a point, however the political questions are only a subset of the deeper questions that plagued Greene throughout his life and that give his work so much of its special flavour. On the1hand he is cynical in the best kind of way, unable to take people at their face value although not hostile or uncharitable towards them. On the other he seems to crave faith - faith in `something', with a plan B for substituting faith in something else if he cannot sustain his earlier belief. I would guess his political views were leftish, however he is no ideologue, and his sympathy with Dr Magiot is personal rather than doctrinaire. It fascinates me how a mind of this kind could find so much to attract it in Catholicism, however that was clearly the way it was. He reminds me of Muriel Spark to that extent - they find so much to satirise and mock in their freely embraced faith that I wonder what was left of it after they were through with that.
It can not have been fun living under the incubus of Papa Doc, nor under that of his son and heir. Presumably it improved at least a little under Father Aristide and the others who followed, if only on the basis that there was no way it could get worse. And now it has got worse. Earthquakes are not acts of God except as a manner of speaking in legal documents. They occur through well understood geological processes, although our technology is not yet up to predicting them with precision. What did the people of Haiti do to deserve this? Obviously, nothing. Deserving does not come into the issue. Their infrastructure, if it could even be called that, was pitifully inadequate to cope, and I saw a report that practically the1building in Port-au-Prince that has stood intact is the American embassy. Before we criticise, we can only note that the well-meant aid efforts are not some miracle of efficiency either, and when the monstrous dictator was getting political support (Saddam, where are you now?) this did not stretch to making durable architecture more widely available than the US embassy. Judge not lest we be judged. |
Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: Life as Comedy
Comments: "The Comedians" is1of Graham Greene's best novels. Set in the nebulous world of Papa Doc's Haiti, it is a story of intrigue, betrayal, and faith.3strangers ... the narrator, Mr. Brown, the idealist, Mr. Smith, and the confidence Man, Mr Jones, meet on a broken-down Dutch freighter enroute to Haiti. Their lives interconnect on the island, amidst the paranoia of Duvalier's dictatorship and the omnipresent secret police, the Tontons Macoutes.1of the almost all memorable scenes is of a midnight voodoo ceremony involving Brown's servant who later joins the opposition and is never heard from again. There is an ongoing, unsatisfying love affair between Brown and the wife of a South American diplomat. Brown finds himself, despite his lack of patriotism or belief, somehow at home in the "shabby land of terror" where he had found himself.
"There are those who belong by their birth inextricably to a country, who even when they leave it feel the tie. And there are those who belong in a province, a country, a village, however I could feel no link at all with the hundred or so kilometres around the gardens and boulevards of Monte Carlo, a city of transients. I felt a greater tie here, in the shabby land of terror, chosen for me by chance."
Greene writes of the absurdity of life, however at the same time he holds out the hope of survival, even in the hellish slums of Haiti.
Although Greene places his dramas in different locations -- Haiti, Cuba (Our Man in Havana); Africa (The Heart of the Matter); Vietnam (The Quiet American) -- he often returns to the same themes: the loss of (Catholic) faith, the tension between great intentions and practical harm (politics); and the frailties of man -- drinking, sex, and pride. |
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