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3.26 AVERAGE
3.26 AVERAGE
Andrews is on the run from the smuggler companions he has betrayed. He seeks refuge in the cottage of a young woman who convinces him to testify against them in court. A victim of its time (1929), the story is too overwrought and melodramatic for my taste, with too much time spent inside Andrews's head.
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Although Greene uses a third-person narrator, he might as well used first-person, as the protagonist, Francis Andrews, is self-aware of his cowardice and uses every opportunity to remind the reader and whoever he is conversing with (usually women with whom he is infatuated) of that fact. The result is a very claustrophobic novel as I resented being stuck in this character's head. While using the thriller genre to tell a very psychological-spiritual story of redemption and grace is a fascinating exercise, I think the character has to be less self-aware for it to work.
adventurous
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Incredibly written, very moving book (and as Greene himself said, hopelessly romantic). Ending ruined it a little bit for me! Predictable in the “wow I really hope that wasn’t foreshadowing for this horrid possibility” way.
adventurous
challenging
dark
medium-paced
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
While there are moments that read like proto-McCarthy, beautiful sections of terse prose, Greene frequently veers into purple language in this, his first published novel. More than a few times I had to re-read a paragraph to follow the narrative hidden in obtuse language, as the story's protagonist is constantly mired in an anguished inner-dialog. It's got a lot of stuff going for it, otherwise, including some brave and frank work with sex scenes, atheism, and feminism. Problem was, from the interior of the protagonist, I didn't find the guy likable at all. The relationship between the man and the book's most interesting female character (of only three) goes from distrust to love at a narratively convenient lightspeed. Still, have I mentioned the transcendent moments? Some of the more clever passages:
- This wasn't the way for a woman to behave. She should be frightened, but she very damnably wasn't.
- The candles were no longer alight, but dropped in weary attitudes of self depreciation.
- A year later, while the child was at school and the father at sea, the mother died with the serene faithfulness of a completely broken will.
- He was on the point of making some stumbling gesture of contrition, when the coward in him leaped up and closed his mouth.
- Along the coasts were scrubby little men, with squinting eyes, hard wrists and a sharp mispronounced knowledge of the English coinage who knew his face well and Carlyon’s better.
So while I'm hard pressed to recommend the whole book, since it's now public domain and readily available online (I like Standard eBooks), do spend a few minutes reading Chapter IX, which is the heart of the book.
Opening passage:
He came over the top of the down as the last light failed and could almost have cried with relief at sight of the wood below. He longed to fling himself down on the short stubbly grass and stare at it, the dark comforting shadow which he had hardly hoped to see. Thus only could he cure the stitch in his side, which grew and grew with the jolt, jolt of his stumble down hill. The absence of the cold wind from the sea that had buffeted him for the last half hour seemed like a puff of warm air on his face, as he dropped below the level of the sky. As though the wood were a door swinging on a great hinge, a shadow moved up towards him and the grass under his feet changed from gold to green, to purple and last to a dull grey. Then night came.
Closing passage:
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Suicide, Violence
Minor: Death of parent
First published in 1929, The Man Within was Graham Greene’s first novel.
It’s a relatively simple tale of a young smuggler who dobs in his colleagues and then faces the consequences of his betrayal.
Split into three parts, it follows Francis Andrews who goes on the run after he denounces his fellow smugglers — who are running sprits from France — after a fight breaks out and a man is shot dead.
He seeks refuge in a Sussex cottage owned by a young woman called Elizabeth (with whom he falls in love), but later returns to Lewes, by the coast, where he stands witness in the trial against his fellow smugglers.
When they are acquitted of murder, he returns to Elizabeth’s cottage to warn her that her own life is now in danger, because he had named her as an alibi.
The ending, which has an unforeseen twist, ties up a lot of loose ends but leaves enough room for the reader to make up their own mind about what comes next.
The plot is basic, and relies too much on coincidence to work, and the execution is patchy. Greene, who wrote the book when he was 22, describes it as “embarrassingly romantic” and the style derivative, claiming the only quality it possesses is its youth. And there’s some truth in that.
But it’s good at building tension, the prose is eloquent (in places) and there are some beautiful mood-evoking descriptions of place.
But on the whole, The Man Within is a fairly mediocre story although it brims with that same energy, fierceness and psychological insight that underpin the large body of work that follows. Reading it provides a glimpse into Greene’s early interests in topics that recur in his later work: the differences between men and women, religion and spirituality, good and evil.
If you haven’t read him before, this probably isn’t the place to start.
For a more detailed review, please visit my blog.
It’s a relatively simple tale of a young smuggler who dobs in his colleagues and then faces the consequences of his betrayal.
Split into three parts, it follows Francis Andrews who goes on the run after he denounces his fellow smugglers — who are running sprits from France — after a fight breaks out and a man is shot dead.
He seeks refuge in a Sussex cottage owned by a young woman called Elizabeth (with whom he falls in love), but later returns to Lewes, by the coast, where he stands witness in the trial against his fellow smugglers.
When they are acquitted of murder, he returns to Elizabeth’s cottage to warn her that her own life is now in danger, because he had named her as an alibi.
The ending, which has an unforeseen twist, ties up a lot of loose ends but leaves enough room for the reader to make up their own mind about what comes next.
The plot is basic, and relies too much on coincidence to work, and the execution is patchy. Greene, who wrote the book when he was 22, describes it as “embarrassingly romantic” and the style derivative, claiming the only quality it possesses is its youth. And there’s some truth in that.
But it’s good at building tension, the prose is eloquent (in places) and there are some beautiful mood-evoking descriptions of place.
But on the whole, The Man Within is a fairly mediocre story although it brims with that same energy, fierceness and psychological insight that underpin the large body of work that follows. Reading it provides a glimpse into Greene’s early interests in topics that recur in his later work: the differences between men and women, religion and spirituality, good and evil.
If you haven’t read him before, this probably isn’t the place to start.
For a more detailed review, please visit my blog.
This twitching encounter establishes the compunction and the fear which color Greene's career. The meance is in the details; though I suspect Greene's characters would find a surfeit of the sinister within their own natures.