Book Review - The Third Man

In my mission to begin reading up in preparation for my qualifying ph.d. exams, I'm trying to read some books that are in my time period (which would be twentieth century british and irish literature) and the stunning result is that today I have a book review to offer of Graham Greene's The Third Man (1949).

The novel is relatively short--only 118 pages in a book. I'm not sure what kind of genre it could be said to belong to. It's set in post-WWII Vienna, with the city divided into four zones occupied by the Russian, American, British and French forces. The narrator of the story, Col. Calloway, is a British official who seems to be on loan from Scotland Yard and the other main character is Rollo Martins, a writer of bad Western novels. The story surrounds the death of Harry Lime, Martins' friend, and as it unfolds it becomes apparent that Lime didn't die as a result of a blow from a passing car but that he in fact was murdered. To be honest, the plot seems a little convuluted and not really all that believable, however, this could be a commentary on the chaos of the time and the uncertainty of the changing world order.

But, back to the story and what I found to be interesting. I found what feel like references to three other well known works--Jekyll and Hyde, Heart of Darkness, and Faustus. Greene portrays Martins as an everyday Jekyll and Hyde, with Rollo (the absurd Christian name) acting one way--chasing girls and drinking too much--and Martins (the Dutch surname that goes back four generations) acting a different way--more responsible and thoughtful. There is also a character in the novel whose name is Kurtz. It makes me wonder if Greene was intentionally trying to get his readers to think about Heart of Darkness when reading his novel, even though the Kurtz in The Third Man is not nearly as "savage" or diabolical as Conrad's. Then there's also, at the end of the novel a reference to Faustus and the existence of evil.

And let me tell you how excited I was when I noted that there is a definite surveillance aspect to this novel. With Calloway having Martins' movements watched as he moves through the British zone of the city as well as his official surveillance of Lime while he was alive, and the recounting of a little boy he spies on the doings of the authorities, there's a definite undertone of continually being watched as life goes on in a virtual police state. Perhaps I can put this novel on my exam list for that reason as well as the fact that there is also a postcolonial aspect to the story. The story is told from Calloway's perspective, but there are clear references to the British and how they should be viewed in the world and how they view the rest of the world. Clearly, the war has had an impact on the dominance of the British, and the repeated references to Russia's refusal to honor British requests seems to speak to the decline of British global power.

Overall, I really was expecting the novel to be better. Perhaps I'm a jaded 21st century woman who reads too many mysteries and in comparison, this one just doesn't hold up. This is the first novel by Graham Greene that I've read but before I can place it as being an aberration or just the usual, I'll have to read more of his work. Hence the reason I have checked out Our Man in Havana from the library.