Orient express

an entertainment

197 pages

English language

Published Jan. 8, 2004 by Penguin Books.

OCLC Number:
56401798

View on OpenLibrary

(10 reviews)

Published in 1932 as an 'entertainment', Graham Greene's gripping spy thriller unfolds aboard the majestic Orient Express as it crosses Europe from Ostend to Constantinople.

Weaving a web of subterfuge, murder and politics along the way, the novel focuses upon the disturbing relationship between Myatt, the pragmatic Jew, and naive chorus girl Coral Musker as they engage in a desperate, angst-ridden pas-de-deux before a chilling turn of events spells an end to the unlikely interlude. Exploring the many shades of despair and hope, innocence and duplicity, Stamboul Train offers a poignant testimony to Greene's extraordinary powers of insight into the human condition.

44 editions

reviewed Orient express by Graham Greene (Penguin classics)

None

A masterpiece. If you compare it to usual thrillers of the time (Buchan's 39 steps come to mind) it is so much deeper in character drawing, and so much more realistic and raw compared to golden age detectives, that categorising it as one of Greene's 'entertainments' does grave injustice to the book (although he did so himself). Very strong atmosphere of the period, enhanced by the characters of especially the fugitive murderer, the revolutionary doctor and the jewish merchant. Didn't have the version with Hitchens' introduction which should be well worth reading.

None

Long-distance train journeys are different from most other forms of travel, in that one often meets people whose lives one touches briefly, and never sees again. In this book [a: Graham Greene|2533|Graham Greene|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1254688603p2/2533.jpg] captures well the ephemeral nature of such acquaintances.

We meet a varied cast of characters, travelling to different places for different reasons. Some join the train at the Start of the journey at Ostend, and leave it at various places along the route. Others join it, quite unexpectedly. A journalist who discovers a famous revolutionary is aboard the train in disguise, a criminal on the run from the police, who catches it because it left before the train he was expecting to travel on it. Some leave it unexpectedly, and other who intended to leave it continue their journey.

I found the ending rather disappointing, however. One character, a Jewish businessman (Greene mages a great deal of …

avatar for Moorlock

rated it

avatar for Danie

rated it

avatar for CuriousLibrarian

rated it

avatar for hadaly

rated it

avatar for Cheynio

rated it

avatar for TrygveKalland

rated it

avatar for SlowRain

rated it

avatar for Stratski

rated it

Subjects

  • Orient Express (Express train) -- Fiction
  • Railroad travel -- Fiction
  • Europe -- Fiction