Scenario
MR. GREENE'S new book is labelled " An Entertainment," which presumably means that it is not to be taken seriously. It is a straightforward thriller of slight literary pretension, winch gives the impression of having been put together with rather more than one eye on the films. Despite the contemporary accents of its style and setting, it is curiously old-fashioned is some respects, not least so in the rather self-conscious way in which its author has set out to maintain an air of mystery about it. Its hero—the Confidential Agent—is unnamed he is known only by an initial. He comes from an unnamed country—though modelled presumably on Spain, since it Is the seat of a protracted civil war. He has to fight agalnit an anonymous agent sent by his political opponents on -rt identical mission—to buy coal for the factions they resr-c-
Lively support. There is at least one more character known only by an initial. In what respect are these bleak intellectual symbols preferable to the improbable patronyms and the Ruri- tania of tradition? Even a high-flown name would have been an asset to Mr. Greene's shadowy and unconvincing D., a mere instrument of action who completely eludes the imagina- tion. His stay in England, though brief, could scarcely have been more packed with incident. Between his entry and his departure (smuggled out of the country, after being thwarted in his errand, in the company of a persistent and amorous blonde) he is assaulted by a chauffeur, burgled by a butler, fallen in love with by a housemaid, and shot at by someone who, though unidentified, was presumably also employed in some other branch of domestic service. The difference between such a figure presented in a film and in a hook is this : in a film you can believe in him, without a preliminary knowledge of his background, his feelings, his ambitions, because you can see him revealing himself in each incident in the moment of action ; in a book, where direct knowledge of the protagonist's physical appearance is denied, it is neces- sary to establish the background, the reality of the character, before one can be interested in the consequent action. Mr. Greene, with his eyes fatally fixed on Hollywood, has slapped his hero down against a merely formal background and handed out action neat.
The trouble seems to be that Mr. Greene, like many others of his generation (Hemingway most obviously), has become obsessed with violence. He began his writing career at a moment when the novel as a form was stagnant with analysis and introspection, and his own early novels, such as The Man Within and Rumour at Nightfall, were distinguished from the common run of fiction because a judicious use of action gave them a momentum which most of their contemporaries lacked. In his later books, from Stamboul Train onwards, crude action has been increasingly emphasised, and the moral and aesthetic perspective increasingly limited. In this last book the emphasis on violence has become an obsession, and Mr. Greene's vision of the world is revealed as limited to those parts of human nature that are mirrored in the police courts. Mr. Greene's world is one in which there is no nobility, no beauty (except that of female appearance), no integrity unless allied to incompetence, in which trust is absent and suspicion ubiquitous, confidence and generosity unknown, and greed and fear universal. It is a conception of the world as false as its antithesis, in which everything is represented as truth and light, and it becomes, when pressed as earnestly as it is here, more than a little ridiculous. Mr. Greene is a brilliant writer, with almost all the gifts necessary to a good novelist. If they are not to be wasted he needs to add a sense of proportion. It is primarily the lack of it which makes this book seem some- times paltry, sometimes tedious, and sometimes absurd.
DEREK VERSCHOYLE.
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