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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
Sketchy compared to Greene's best, but it's really just a fleshed out movie treatment.
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Interesting piece of draft, but still a draft...
Feel free to disagree, but I found many elements of The Count of Monte Cristo, Les Mis, and Slaughterhouse Five in this novella. It's a quick read but genuinely explores issues of mortality and identity. Written in four parts, The Tenth Man would translate beautifully to the stage if it hasn't already.
Classic twist-double-twist, set in postwar France. This volume also includes a couple of sketches for never-produced screenplays that give a little more insight into the mind of Graham Greene.
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
43rd book of 2020.
'It's not so easy to hate a face you know,' she said, 'as a face you just imagine.'
Another short, but powerful and enjoyable Greene novel. One of the ten prisoners are going to killed in a WWII prisoner-of-war camp and they are left to decide who the tenth man will be. What happens from here determines the rest of the novel, stretching past the camp, and into the future that lies beyond for the survivors. Above all, this is a story of guilt and courage.
If one had possessed a God's eye view of France, one would have detected a constant movement of tiny grains moving like dust across a floor shaped like a map.
'It's not so easy to hate a face you know,' she said, 'as a face you just imagine.'
Another short, but powerful and enjoyable Greene novel. One of the ten prisoners are going to killed in a WWII prisoner-of-war camp and they are left to decide who the tenth man will be. What happens from here determines the rest of the novel, stretching past the camp, and into the future that lies beyond for the survivors. Above all, this is a story of guilt and courage.
If one had possessed a God's eye view of France, one would have detected a constant movement of tiny grains moving like dust across a floor shaped like a map.
An enjoyable read, this novella, intended as something of a treatment for a film never made, reads like a moral fable of the kind in the old Rod Serling TV show Twilight Zone. That's mostly a good thing in so far as there's tension throughout and the story -- set in France at the end of WWII -- exposes the generally unpleasant aspects of the human condition. But it also has the hastily-sketched aspect of TV or film rather than a deep novel, so for me, at least, the story didn't sink its teeth more than skin deep, enjoyable as it was.
The story behind this one is almost as interesting as the book itself. Greene worked in Hollywood for a few years in the 1940s, and during this time wrote a number of ‘treatments’’ and screenplays. Evidently, he wrote so many that he lost track of them. In 1983, he received a letter from someone who had purchased one such ‘treatment’ and intended to publish it as a novel. Greene was surprised, because he recalled the product – The Tenth Man – as merely a two- or three-page treatment for possible cinematic production. In fact, the purchaser had stumbled upon a 30,000-word completed book that the author had no recollection of writing.
Set in a prison in Occupied France during World War II, the plot advances as the German occupiers decree ‘decimation’ as a form of collective reprisal for an attack. Thirty prisoners decide to draw lots to decide which three will be executed. [Spoiler here] one of the men chosen is a wealthy lawyer. In desperation, he offers all his wealth to anyone who will take his place. One man agrees, to secure a fortune for his sister and mother. The following three sections of the novel concern the lawyer’s subsequent release from prison the lawyer to face the consequences of his actions.
The book isn’t the ‘lost classic’ that it has been purported to be by some, but as with most of Greene’s work, it is a cracking read. Recommended.
Set in a prison in Occupied France during World War II, the plot advances as the German occupiers decree ‘decimation’ as a form of collective reprisal for an attack. Thirty prisoners decide to draw lots to decide which three will be executed. [Spoiler here] one of the men chosen is a wealthy lawyer. In desperation, he offers all his wealth to anyone who will take his place. One man agrees, to secure a fortune for his sister and mother. The following three sections of the novel concern the lawyer’s subsequent release from prison the lawyer to face the consequences of his actions.
The book isn’t the ‘lost classic’ that it has been purported to be by some, but as with most of Greene’s work, it is a cracking read. Recommended.