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Travels with My Aunt (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Author: Graham Greene
Publisher: Penguin Classics
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Our Price: $10.20
You Save: $ 4.80 ( 32% )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Author: Graham Greene
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Average Customer Rating:
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Travels with My Aunt (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780143039006
ISBN: 0143039008
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 288
Publication Date: 2004-09-28
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Product Release Date: 2004-09-28
Studio: Penguin Classics
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780143039006
ISBN: 0143039008
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 288
Publication Date: 2004-09-28
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Product Release Date: 2004-09-28
Studio: Penguin Classics
Editorial Review of Travels with My Aunt (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
Customer Reviews of Travels with My Aunt (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Weird - the movie is actually better than the book
Review: The movie creates a reason for the relationship, and adds some elements of drama. The book is pretty lame.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Surely a masterpiece
Review: Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene
Henry Pulling is a recently retired bank manager. He was offered an arrangement after many years of devoted service when his bank was taken over by another. He is looking forward to spending more time with the dahlias that are his pride and joy, and also rubbing shoulders with his former customers in Southwood, an unremarkable London suburb that seems to be populated entirely by retired officers from the armed forces. He mentions Omo quite a lot and is vaguely embarrassed by the fact that he shares initials with a well known brand of sauce. And then he meets his long lost aunt, Agatha Bertram.
Henry's mother has just died. His father died forty years before. He never really knew the father and his relationship with his mother was perennially tense. After the funeral, Agatha takes him on one side and calmly informs him that his father was something of a rogue and that his "mother" was really his step-mother, his true biological mother being one of his father's bits on the side. Henry Pulling finds himself attracted to his aunt, not because she is something of an eccentric, unpredictable old bird, but also because she retains, somewhere, the secret of his own origins. When she suggests they travel together, he eagerly accompanies, despite the fact that he has never been one for straying far from the nest.
Graham Greene has Henry and Aunt Agatha travel as far afield as Brighton, Istanbul and South America. Together, via stories from Aunt Agatha's past, they relive the first half of the twentieth century, from late Victorian roots to 1960s drug culture, from fascism to dictators, from war to peace. Throughout, Henry Pulling comes across as a genial, predictable gent in his late fifties, whilst Aunt Agatha seems to be a confirmed member of Hell's Grannies. Europe - the world even - seems to be littered with her conquests, with hardly a country passing by without some faded memory of hers coming back to life.
As it unfolds, Travels With My Aunt reveals itself as a true masterpiece of twentieth century fiction. The characters really do live through the century's history, but the events are never pressed onto the surface of their lives. On the contrary, they are entwined within the fabric of Aunt Agatha's being, a character whose complexity unfolds as the story progresses.
Throughout Henry Pulling is a truly comic character. He seems out of his depth, naïve, a product of an over-protected suburban existence, over-burdened with the assumptions of his upbringing. But he comes into his own and eventually it is no surprise when he describes his new life, which is almost as far removed from a suburban bank manager's office as it is possible to get. And, of course, the story's denouement, when it arrives, is also no surprise. And is not less because of that.
There are many laughs along the way, not least as a result of Henry's being constantly taken aback by his aunt's bluntness and lust for life. Particularly memorable, however, were scenes where Henry put his personal foot in it. On Paraguay's national day, he carries a red scarf on his aunt's advice so he can show allegiance to the ruling party and the dictator. He just happens to be outside the military and political headquarters when he sneezes and uses the scarf as a hankie. A nearby soldier records the snotting into the national emblem as deeply insulting and irreverent, duly beats him up and slaps him in jail. Situation comedy at its best.
Travels With My Aunt is quite simply a must read and must re-read book. Graham Greene's immense skill provides a simplicity of style and construction to communicate a complex plot alongside powerful characterisation, and all this accomplished with true but elegant economy. It is a beautifully crafted book, expertly written, full of surprises and humour, all set against a deadly serious plot: surely a masterpiece.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Dragged Away From His Dahlias
Review: "Travels with My Aunt" was penned by its greatly praised British author Graham Greene rather late in his long life, and his long, prolific, greatly-honored literary career. In fact, Greene wrote it past the point at which he divided his work into 'novels--' serious, like "The Power and the Glory," and 'entertainments,' lighter, like "Our Man in Havana." He probably would, however, have called it an 'entertainment.' Mind you, this novel never has been a critical favorite; nor has the movie, starring Maggie Smith, who was Oscar-nominated for the role of Aunt Augusta, made from it. (Most of his books were filmed).
The novel is told in first person by its narrator Henry Pulling, a never-married, presumably virgin, stuffy, retired bank manager, looking forward to a lifetime of cultivating his suburban dahlias. At his mother's funeral, he meets his Aunt Augusta, absent from his life since his christening. She shakes him up, drags him on exotic travels, and gives him some better reasons to live. (It's noticeable that there's a certain family resemblance to Patrick Dennis's "Auntie Mame," penned roughly a decade earlier. But these two books involve protaganists at different ends of life: a boy, and a retiree, and, let's face it, anything written by Graham Greene, no matter how late in his career, has his touch, and his thoughts.)
The plot's episodic, and not as tight as some of the writer's great spy stories. But the book's well written. Furthermore, you can see the Greene touch in some of the book's flavorful characters. In addition to Aunt Augusta, there's the Turkish cop, Colonel Hakim, one of several powerful third world law 'enforcers' created by Greene. There's 'Tooley,' the airhead hippie girl met on the Orient Express (played by Cindy Williams, of "Laverne and Shirley," in the movie.) And 'Wordsworth,' as Augusta calls him, an emigrant from Sierra Leone, a part of the world with which Greene was very familiar, as he'd spent World War II there as a spy. Wordsworth (played by Lou Gossett in the film) is fiercely in love with Augusta, a woman at least twice his age, and devotes his life to her.
One of the more challenging results of the first-person narration is that the reader, like Henry, doesn't know what Aunt Augusta is up to, until we're told. There's a longish period, in terms of this short book, when Augusta is out of touch, and Henry thinks of really solidifying his suburban retirement -- as if it could be much more solid, he's already pretty well set in concrete -- by marrying a sad local spinster. In another interesting use of the first person, Greene does not always tell us what Henry's thinking: when the narrator at last realizes some of the central facts of his Aunt's life -- some of us might ask what took him so long -- he doesn't share his thought processes with us.
"Travels" is short, and funny. And the subject matter is touching: a man no longer young, discovering family he didn't know he had, rescued from a dread life cultivating his dahlias by that family. What could be bad?
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: An enlightening way to spend an afternoon!
Review: I picked this up despite my negative memories of Graham Greene from high school & college reading, and I can honestly say that I enjoyed this book. Although it's not the type of book that you can't put down, it always leaves you glad you picked it up.
The story of boring Henry and his "eccentric" Aunt Augusta is entertaining and might get you thinking about what a successful life is and how to best spend that journey. All the same, it's a light-hearted novel and not at all suffocating or depressing in the way it teaches the "lesson." I checked it out of the library for the first read, but plan to purchase a copy for my next long bus/train/car ride!
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A TRUE CLASSIC IN EVERY SENSE!
Review: This intelligent and entertaining masterwork remains with me for all of my days. I often reflect on this, or that passage from the book, it happens unexpectedly, without warning, or even motivation, yet there it will be, all encomposing and lurid. This writing becomes a part of you, ingested , it is there for all time; it will suddenly emerge filling the senses, a type of remembrence that you relate to past events experienced on a personal level. I often realize with dispare that the experience I'm remembering was related to me through a great work of literature, and then I smile fondly realizing that few works of writing have been affected in such a pleasurable manner. I only dispare for the poor souls that have never experienced this mesmerizing sequence of adventures, yet for the fortunate few who take this journey for the first time in all it's splendor and amazement, I only wish it were myself again releshing with abandon and joy this fantastic voyage for the first time!
Review Summary: Weird - the movie is actually better than the book
Review: The movie creates a reason for the relationship, and adds some elements of drama. The book is pretty lame.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Surely a masterpiece
Review: Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene
Henry Pulling is a recently retired bank manager. He was offered an arrangement after many years of devoted service when his bank was taken over by another. He is looking forward to spending more time with the dahlias that are his pride and joy, and also rubbing shoulders with his former customers in Southwood, an unremarkable London suburb that seems to be populated entirely by retired officers from the armed forces. He mentions Omo quite a lot and is vaguely embarrassed by the fact that he shares initials with a well known brand of sauce. And then he meets his long lost aunt, Agatha Bertram.
Henry's mother has just died. His father died forty years before. He never really knew the father and his relationship with his mother was perennially tense. After the funeral, Agatha takes him on one side and calmly informs him that his father was something of a rogue and that his "mother" was really his step-mother, his true biological mother being one of his father's bits on the side. Henry Pulling finds himself attracted to his aunt, not because she is something of an eccentric, unpredictable old bird, but also because she retains, somewhere, the secret of his own origins. When she suggests they travel together, he eagerly accompanies, despite the fact that he has never been one for straying far from the nest.
Graham Greene has Henry and Aunt Agatha travel as far afield as Brighton, Istanbul and South America. Together, via stories from Aunt Agatha's past, they relive the first half of the twentieth century, from late Victorian roots to 1960s drug culture, from fascism to dictators, from war to peace. Throughout, Henry Pulling comes across as a genial, predictable gent in his late fifties, whilst Aunt Agatha seems to be a confirmed member of Hell's Grannies. Europe - the world even - seems to be littered with her conquests, with hardly a country passing by without some faded memory of hers coming back to life.
As it unfolds, Travels With My Aunt reveals itself as a true masterpiece of twentieth century fiction. The characters really do live through the century's history, but the events are never pressed onto the surface of their lives. On the contrary, they are entwined within the fabric of Aunt Agatha's being, a character whose complexity unfolds as the story progresses.
Throughout Henry Pulling is a truly comic character. He seems out of his depth, naïve, a product of an over-protected suburban existence, over-burdened with the assumptions of his upbringing. But he comes into his own and eventually it is no surprise when he describes his new life, which is almost as far removed from a suburban bank manager's office as it is possible to get. And, of course, the story's denouement, when it arrives, is also no surprise. And is not less because of that.
There are many laughs along the way, not least as a result of Henry's being constantly taken aback by his aunt's bluntness and lust for life. Particularly memorable, however, were scenes where Henry put his personal foot in it. On Paraguay's national day, he carries a red scarf on his aunt's advice so he can show allegiance to the ruling party and the dictator. He just happens to be outside the military and political headquarters when he sneezes and uses the scarf as a hankie. A nearby soldier records the snotting into the national emblem as deeply insulting and irreverent, duly beats him up and slaps him in jail. Situation comedy at its best.
Travels With My Aunt is quite simply a must read and must re-read book. Graham Greene's immense skill provides a simplicity of style and construction to communicate a complex plot alongside powerful characterisation, and all this accomplished with true but elegant economy. It is a beautifully crafted book, expertly written, full of surprises and humour, all set against a deadly serious plot: surely a masterpiece.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Dragged Away From His Dahlias
Review: "Travels with My Aunt" was penned by its greatly praised British author Graham Greene rather late in his long life, and his long, prolific, greatly-honored literary career. In fact, Greene wrote it past the point at which he divided his work into 'novels--' serious, like "The Power and the Glory," and 'entertainments,' lighter, like "Our Man in Havana." He probably would, however, have called it an 'entertainment.' Mind you, this novel never has been a critical favorite; nor has the movie, starring Maggie Smith, who was Oscar-nominated for the role of Aunt Augusta, made from it. (Most of his books were filmed).
The novel is told in first person by its narrator Henry Pulling, a never-married, presumably virgin, stuffy, retired bank manager, looking forward to a lifetime of cultivating his suburban dahlias. At his mother's funeral, he meets his Aunt Augusta, absent from his life since his christening. She shakes him up, drags him on exotic travels, and gives him some better reasons to live. (It's noticeable that there's a certain family resemblance to Patrick Dennis's "Auntie Mame," penned roughly a decade earlier. But these two books involve protaganists at different ends of life: a boy, and a retiree, and, let's face it, anything written by Graham Greene, no matter how late in his career, has his touch, and his thoughts.)
The plot's episodic, and not as tight as some of the writer's great spy stories. But the book's well written. Furthermore, you can see the Greene touch in some of the book's flavorful characters. In addition to Aunt Augusta, there's the Turkish cop, Colonel Hakim, one of several powerful third world law 'enforcers' created by Greene. There's 'Tooley,' the airhead hippie girl met on the Orient Express (played by Cindy Williams, of "Laverne and Shirley," in the movie.) And 'Wordsworth,' as Augusta calls him, an emigrant from Sierra Leone, a part of the world with which Greene was very familiar, as he'd spent World War II there as a spy. Wordsworth (played by Lou Gossett in the film) is fiercely in love with Augusta, a woman at least twice his age, and devotes his life to her.
One of the more challenging results of the first-person narration is that the reader, like Henry, doesn't know what Aunt Augusta is up to, until we're told. There's a longish period, in terms of this short book, when Augusta is out of touch, and Henry thinks of really solidifying his suburban retirement -- as if it could be much more solid, he's already pretty well set in concrete -- by marrying a sad local spinster. In another interesting use of the first person, Greene does not always tell us what Henry's thinking: when the narrator at last realizes some of the central facts of his Aunt's life -- some of us might ask what took him so long -- he doesn't share his thought processes with us.
"Travels" is short, and funny. And the subject matter is touching: a man no longer young, discovering family he didn't know he had, rescued from a dread life cultivating his dahlias by that family. What could be bad?
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: An enlightening way to spend an afternoon!
Review: I picked this up despite my negative memories of Graham Greene from high school & college reading, and I can honestly say that I enjoyed this book. Although it's not the type of book that you can't put down, it always leaves you glad you picked it up.
The story of boring Henry and his "eccentric" Aunt Augusta is entertaining and might get you thinking about what a successful life is and how to best spend that journey. All the same, it's a light-hearted novel and not at all suffocating or depressing in the way it teaches the "lesson." I checked it out of the library for the first read, but plan to purchase a copy for my next long bus/train/car ride!
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A TRUE CLASSIC IN EVERY SENSE!
Review: This intelligent and entertaining masterwork remains with me for all of my days. I often reflect on this, or that passage from the book, it happens unexpectedly, without warning, or even motivation, yet there it will be, all encomposing and lurid. This writing becomes a part of you, ingested , it is there for all time; it will suddenly emerge filling the senses, a type of remembrence that you relate to past events experienced on a personal level. I often realize with dispare that the experience I'm remembering was related to me through a great work of literature, and then I smile fondly realizing that few works of writing have been affected in such a pleasurable manner. I only dispare for the poor souls that have never experienced this mesmerizing sequence of adventures, yet for the fortunate few who take this journey for the first time in all it's splendor and amazement, I only wish it were myself again releshing with abandon and joy this fantastic voyage for the first time!