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 A train journey with a difference April 2, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Stamboul Train was the novel that made Graham Greene's name. Published in 1932, it catalogues a train journey that, a few years later, would have been impossible, a journey across Europe that was about to be changed for ever. The novel is set in a time when the Orient Express travelled from Western Europe to Constantinople across several borders, each of which that presented its own different challenge. Seventy-five years ago the continent was neither bifurcated by ideology coupled with allegiance of necessity, nor united by a desire for greater capitalist integration. It was also not a stable place, with the short-lived tensions of the Treaty of Versailles less than fifteen years old. To reflect this, Graham Greene presents Stamboul Train as a journey, almost a travelogue, with the setting of each part offering an informed relevance to the action. So we progress from Ostend to Cologne to Vienna to Subotica to Constantinople.
The book is highly cinematographic in character and is cast as a tangle of almost separate stories acted out by characters that mingle along the way. People join and leave the train. There's a love affair in a sleeper. A Jew is on his way to do deals in currants. A wanted criminal boards and leaves. A young thing is on her way to a job as a dancer. There's a political refugee fomenting revolution in his homeland. There's a lesbian journalist seeking to interview a famous popular writer. Stanboul Train is clearly not the eight fifteen from Pinner. Or maybe it is...
The action is both on and off the train as the characters' stories weave together to create a novel. And it is possible to read the book as an almost linear story, where everyone, as in a soap opera, is pre-occupied with their present to the exclusion of all other time. But Graham Greene goes further than this and gives us vignettes of political, historical and social comment. Miss Warren's interview with Savory, the writer, is an example.
Savory the writer is playing a part of being a writer. He has made his name selling books written from a Cockney point of view, at the time a euphemism for a down-to-earth, working class, perhaps therefore honest perspective. But Savory is unsavoury. His Cockney credentials are false, since he was born in beautiful Balham, far south-west of Bow Bells, and he claims an aspiration to achieve a re-creation of Chaucer's spirit to counter the gloom and introspection of modern fiction. But Savory reveals himself to be "a man overworked, harassed by a personality which was not his own, by curiosities and lusts, a man on the edge of a nervous breakdown." And Miss Warren, his interviewer, hates dealing with the impersonation that is stardom, the necessity to deal with another person as a commercial creation, a lie in the form of an advertisement. She earns a living from writing about such people, but yet she despises consumerism for its own sake, derides its pulpy products. She yearns to tell Savory that his books are rubbish, destined for the dustbin as fickle taste moves on, reorders consumer sentiment to ridicule its current eager choice.
And here, perhaps, we have Graham Greene revealing his own self-destructive, self-abusive darker side. He feels as unsavoury as Savory, producing these entertainments just to sell books, to make money, to indulge in his weaknesses. But what Greene's deprecatory self-analysis apparently did not like to admit was that he was always doing more, much more than this.
Lots of Character, little plot March 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Graham Greene's Stamboul Train is a picture of dark 1930's intrigue, set on a train journey through Eastern Europe. Greene's exploration of the cultural prejudices of the time and intrapersonal ambivalence make for an interesting read, even if the storyline itself leaves a little to be desired. Of course, the writing is as would be expected, mostly pristine although occasionally is hard to follow.
On the whole, this is a book with lots of character, making it worth a read. Although lacking in plot, it allows one to take something away of Greene's perspective on human life, much unlike many other novels which might boast an impressive storyline.
 A tense plot among sharply drawn characters June 27, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
In this novel, Graham Greene tells the story of seven main characters who all embark on a train journey from Ostend to Istanboul. Coral Musker, a good natured variety dancer with a bad heart, Dr Richard John, Myatt Carleston, a Jewish tradesman dealing in currants, Mr Opie, a clergyman, Janet Pardoe and Mabel Warren, a couple of lesbian women, Dr Richard Czinner, a famous socialist agitator who disappeared from Belgrade five years before and is now returning to his country to stand trial and finally Joseph Grünlich, a notorious Viennese thief and murderer.
As the story unfolds, more and more is revealed to the reader about the characters' past, some having had a rather shady existence. Mr Greene skilfully shows how different personalities react and behave in a sort of mental struggle once they are thrown together and forced to spend three days in the confined space of a railway carriage. A short, tense and disturbing novel which shows that one rarely escapes one's fate. The reader, Michael Maloney, performs a commendable act, using an wide variety of accents. An excellent audiobook.
Early novel contains the "bones" of Greene's later themes. May 19, 2005
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
A sad cynicism lies at the root of Greene's dark humor in this very early (1932) novel, Greene's fourth book and the first entertainment to be written and published for a wide audience. A Jewish businessman, a lesbian journalist, her rebellious young companion, a dancer in need of a job, a Socialist physician wanted in Serbia for treason, and an Austrian thief meet and interact aboard the Orient Express on a trip from London to Istanbul (Stamboul). Each person in this motley group hopes that some remarkable change will occur to him or her as a result of the trip, but though all eventually get their wish, fate has something devious up its sleeve for each one. These twists and turns, sometimes humorous and sometimes immensely sad, constitute the heart of the novel. Unlike Greene's later novels, with their fully developed characters and religious themes, this novel's characters are often stereotypes, and the action is often designed simply to bring the characters down, showing that no matter what dreams or goals they may have, that ultimately they have no control over their destinies. Greene's later, much more intensely realized themes--sin and atonement, innocence and guilt, love of life and fear of death, piety and corruption, sex and religion--are missing here. As the action unfolds and the characters are manipulated, the reader easily recognizes the "bones" of the themes which will later evolve in Greene's mature philosophical novels. As a series of tours de force, and as a glimpse into the creative process of a writer who, at this point, was just beginning to come into his own, this is an intriguing novel, loaded with insights, a fascinating and enjoyable read. Mary Whipple
Early Greene novel hints at the greatness to come. January 4, 2003
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
A sad cynicism lies at the root of Greene's dark humor in this very early (1932) novel, Greene's fourth novel and the first entertainment to be written and published for a wide audience. A Jewish businessman, a lesbian journalist, her rebellious young companion, a dancer in need of a job, a Socialist physician wanted in Serbia for treason, and an Austrian thief meet and interact aboard the Orient Express on a trip from London to Istanbul (Stamboul). Each person in this motley group hopes that some remarkable change will occur to him or her as a result of the trip, but though all eventually get their wish, fate has something devious up its sleeve for each one. These twists and turns, sometimes humorous and sometimes immensely sad, constitute the heart of the novel. Unlike Greene's later novels, with their fully developed characters and religious themes, this novel's characters are often stereotypes, and the action is often designed simply to bring the characters down, showing that no matter what dreams or goals they may have, that ultimately they have no control over their destinies. Greene's later, much more intensely realized themes--sin and atonement, innocence and guilt, love of life and fear of death, piety and corruption, sex and religion--are missing here, and as the action unfolds and the characters are manipulated, the reader easily recognizes the "bones" of the themes which will later come into full flower in Greene's mature philosophical novels. As a series of tours de force, and as a glimpse into the creative process of a writer who, at this point, was just beginning to come into his own, this is an intriguing novel, loaded with insights, a fascinating and enjoyable read. Mary Whipple
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