Complete Short Stories (Penguin Classics)
by Graham Greene
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Book Summary Information
Author: Graham GreeneIntroduction: Pico Iyer
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-01-25
ISBN: 0143039105
Number of pages: 624
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Book Reviews of Complete Short Stories (Penguin Classics)
Book Review: A kaleidoscope of human faiths
Summary: 5 Stars
This edition features all the short stories written by the author. Here is a small selection of those I've enjoyed most.
In "Under The Garden" William Wilditch, after spending a long time abroad, is now visiting the family house, Winton Hall, which he hasn't seen since his childhood and where his brother George lives. After the first night, Wilditch finds it difficult to distinguish between memories and fantasy, fact and dream. He remembers a dream he had as a child when he entered a dark cave on the island in the middle of the pond in the garden. In that cave he met two rogues: Javitt, a sententious old man who had lived there for many years with a mute woman, Mary.
In "A Visit To Morin" a narrator, Dunlop, remembers admiring a French author called Pierre Morin who was controversial in the 1950s because he was accused of Jansenism while others called him an Augustinian. Dunlop spots Morin at a Midnight Mass in a village near Colmar. After introducing himself to the author, he is invited to his house where they have an astonishing conversation during which Morin reveals to Dunlop that long after he ceased to believe in God, he still remains a carrier of belief through his books.
A patient suffering from leprosy in "Dream Of A Strange Land" in Switzerland is driven to a desperate action because he can't get his doctor's help. Indeed the doctor's house has been transformed into a casino to accommodate the Herr General, now too weak to travel to Monte Carlo. Not only does the patient think he went to the wrong house but he thinks he is in the wrong country as well, Germany probably...
In "A Discovery In The Woods" a group of strange children with short and uneven limbs who move like crabs decide that they should enter a new territory in search of blackberries. Thus they leave the confines of their village, Bottom, and they discover an enormous house resembling a giant stranded fish which seems to have been thrown up among the rocks to die.
An "old sterile thing" is the way the American woman in "Beauty" is described. She is desperately calling after her Pekinese dog Beauty in the night. But Beauty left her mistress for a well deserved nocturnal ramble in the dirt of the city.
Madame Volet in "Chagrin In Three Parts" lost her husband to Emmy with whom he fell in love. Her friend Madame Dejoie tries to console her by suggesting that satisfaction can be achieved if only one can discover in oneself "the capacity for love" for another woman!
Henry Cooper in "The Overnight Bag" travels on a BEA flight from Nice to London carrying in his BOAC overnight bag what he claims to be his wife's "dead baby".
In "Mortmain" Philip Carter's new marriage to Julia is jeopardised by a series of notes hidden in their apartment by his former wife Josephine.
Mary Watson in "Cheap In August" is taking a holiday in Jamaica where she meets an unhappy and lonely American, Henry Hickslaughter. Because Mary really went on holiday to look for an adventure she can't help feeling that her attachment to the old man is cheap in the same way as everything is cheap in Jamaica in August.
A young woman author appraised by her publisher for her "power of observation" turns out to have no power of observation whatsoever in "The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen".
In "Awful When You Think Of It" a man on a train has an imaginary dialogue with a fellow passenger's baby and he tries to picture what kind of adult that baby will become.
"Doctor Crombie" portrays a school doctor living at the beginning of the 20th century who is convinced that there is a correlation between sexual intercourse and cancer: "Almost one hundred percent of those who die of cancer have practised sex" he claims!
In "Two Gentle People" Marie-Claire Duval and Henry Graves meet in the Parc Monceau in Paris, then have dinner together only to realise that the hour came too late in both their lives...
A wonderful collection of short stories by one of the greatest British authors of the 20th century.
Summary of Complete Short Stories (Penguin Classics)
Affairs, obsessions, ardors, fantasy, myth, legend and dream, fear, pity, and violence?this magnificent collection of stories illuminates all corners of the human experience. Previously published in two volumes?Collected Short Stories and The Last Word and Other Stories?these forty-nine stories reveal Graham Greene in a range of contrasting moods, sometimes cynical and witty, sometimes searching and philosophical. Each one confirms V. S. Pritchett?s statement that Greene is ?a master of storytelling.?
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