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The Tenth Man
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Manufacturer: Washington Square Press
Author: Graham Greene
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price: $10.40
You Save: $ 2.60 ( 20% )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Washington Square Press
Author: Graham Greene
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Average Customer Rating:
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The Tenth Man Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780671019099
ISBN: 0671019090
Label: Washington Square Press
Manufacturer: Washington Square Press
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 160
Publication Date: 1998-02-01
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Studio: Washington Square Press
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780671019099
ISBN: 0671019090
Label: Washington Square Press
Manufacturer: Washington Square Press
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 160
Publication Date: 1998-02-01
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Studio: Washington Square Press
Editorial Review of The Tenth Man
In a prison in Occupied France one in every ten men is to be shot. The prisoners draw lots among themselves - and for rich lawyer Louis Chavel it seems that his whole life has been leading up to an agonizing and crucial failure of nerve.
Customer Reviews of The Tenth Man
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: From the Cutting Room Floor
Review: This is a minor work, an idea for a film expanded to novella length, and it lacks the depth of Greene's major books. But it is the work of a master all the same, and raises fascinating questions about the role of those elements other than narrative that make the difference between a story and a novel.
Greene pitched the underlying idea for THE TENTH MAN to a film producer in 1937. His fuller treatment of it was not written until after the War, but the manuscript dropped out of sight and was not published until it was rediscovered in the mid-1980s. The author explains these circumstances in a preface, and also includes two very short film treatments written in the same postwar years. The first of these, "Jim Braddon and the War Criminal," concerns an American businessman who happens to bear a close resemblance to a former Nazi official; losing his memory after a plane crash, he comes to believe that he IS the wanted German. The story is quite melodramatic and not filled out in any detail, but it contains the essence of the central moral question of Greene's greatest works: is a man to be judged by what he has done, however horrible, or by his spiritual state at the time of his death? The second story, "Nobody to Blame," is essentially a sketch for OUR MAN IN HAVANA, though trasferred to an imaginary Baltic state in the late 1930s. Although much longer than the first treatment, it details only the farcial mechanisms of the story, without any reality of setting or depth of character, and absolutely omitting the moral dimension; reading it makes one look again at OUR MAN IN HAVANA with enhanced appreciation.
Greene describes his first idea for THE TENTH MAN thus: "A political situation like that in Spain. A decimation order. Ten men in prison draw lots with matches. A rich man draws the longest match. Offers all his money to anyone who will take his place. One, for the sake of his family, agrees. Later, when he is released, the former rich man visits anonymously the family who possess his money, he himself now with nothing but his life...". Even here, the moral core is clear: redemption for a previous act of cowardice through later generosity or suffering. What it needs to become a true novel is the creation of fully-rounded characters, the establishment of a social and political setting, and above all a sense of time, so that the rich man's transformation will be credible and the moral issues resonate. And indeed in the middle of the novella, when the man returns anonymously to his former house, Greene does provide most of these things, especially in capturing the peculiar political situation in France just after liberation, when strangers of any sort were suspected as collaborators. He also adds one magnificent plot twist, which I cannot reveal here. But the opening of the book seems almost schematic, somehow failing to give depth or immediacy to the hostages in the German prison. And although Greene tackles the moral issues quite explicitly at the end of the book, they seem laid out rather than lived through. The problem, I think, is his compression of time, to bring the action to a climax in a matter of weeks, days, or hours; this might work well in a movie, but in a novel it seems a weakness.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Truly Exciting Reading
Review: Graham Greene is one of my favorite writers. In such novels as THE HEART OF THE MATTER, OUR MAN IN HAVANA, THE HUMAN FACTOR, THE HONORARY COUNSUL and THE POWER AND THE GLORY, he presents ordinary men whose lives unexpectedly acquire a profound moral dimension or political significance. While questionable motivation--that is, naïveté, loneliness, or self-hatred--often impels his characters to act, Greene's plots also force the unforgettable Henry Scobie, Jim Wormold, Maurice Castle, Dr. Plarr, and the whiskey priest to make a choice. Then, they are on paths without return and with, at best, ironic reward.
In THE TENTH MAN, Greene gives us Jean-Louis Chavel, a lawyer in a Gestapo prison who, according to my dust jacket, "offers his fortune and house to anyone who will take his place before a firing squad." Then Greene follows "this survivor on his postwar return to the home he has surrendered."
As is usual with Greene's novels, there are several memorable and fully achieved characters--in this case, Chavel, Carosse, and Therese Mangeot--who bump against the limits of their principles or the shallowness of their illusions. As usual, the story is told in a spare style and has layers of conflict and believable emotion, which Greene explores to reveal amazing connections and parallels between dissimilar characters.
As the book jacket says: Watch Chavel..."discover the humanity and courage that [earlier] failed him." Highly recommended!
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Better off dead?
Review: Although short in length, Greene delivers a profound novel in "The Tenth Man." The premise is a lawyer who cowardly buys his life as a German POW during World War II. The man who is executed in his place, Janvier, is bequeathed all the possessions of the lawyer (Chavel). Then, the trials and tribulations of Chavel takes center stage as he returns to a postwar world as a penniless beggar who cannot reveal his real identity.
Perhaps the most profound concept is that of the disgraced Chavel and his attempts to win back his place in the world. He goes back to the country manor he gave up and now disguises himself as a beggar, but one who was with Chavel and Janvier in the German prisoner. Janvier's sister, as the new owner of his house and soon a fantasy object of his love, accepts his new identity. Yet, all the time Chavel is living life on borrowed time, as he is fearful he will be found out. Indeed, his new life is one of a tortured existence. It is more than once that he regrets that he did not die as he should have in the dank German prison.
Throughout the novel, Chavel's attempts at retribution are shown. Although one can sympathize with Chavel's predicament, Greene nevertheless presents him in a less than desirable light. It's difficult to know what one might do in a similar situation. Yet, somehow saving your own life at all costs seems cowardly. Overall, this is a quick read but one which will leave many questions to ponder.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A Great Novella
Review: This is a short novella that was written originally as a film script for MGM. It is not a novel. It is an excellent short story or novella. As a novella it is a masterpiece.
This is the first book that I read from Greene, and I was very impressed with his style, the structure, the prose, and the overall thrust of the book and his writing in general.
In this present novella, he presents a two part story of a man who makes a bargain in jail to save his life. It is set during World War II. The story takes place near Paris and then in rural France. The man trades his home and his money for his life. The first part takes place in jail, and the second part is after he is released from jail. From the jail and the bargain to trade money for his life, the story advances in time to the post-war period and we see how the now penniless man copes with his new situation and how he deals with the people that he knew before the war, and the people that now live in his old house.
There is a certain level of depression and desperation transmitted by Greene through his writings so that we have empathy and sympathy with the man who has lost all of his material wealth. Through the loss, he manages to maintain his moral integrity. There is a high level of drama and a surprise ending.
This is an excellent novella and a good introduction to Green.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A wonderful book with a fast-paced story
Review: The beginning of the story is quite dull, but after a while you can't stop reading. The story is also written in an easy language, so you can easily read it as a non-native speaker.
The end is not very satisfying and the characters are flat, but that doesn't really matter because of the action in the book, I was never bored.
Review Summary: From the Cutting Room Floor
Review: This is a minor work, an idea for a film expanded to novella length, and it lacks the depth of Greene's major books. But it is the work of a master all the same, and raises fascinating questions about the role of those elements other than narrative that make the difference between a story and a novel.
Greene pitched the underlying idea for THE TENTH MAN to a film producer in 1937. His fuller treatment of it was not written until after the War, but the manuscript dropped out of sight and was not published until it was rediscovered in the mid-1980s. The author explains these circumstances in a preface, and also includes two very short film treatments written in the same postwar years. The first of these, "Jim Braddon and the War Criminal," concerns an American businessman who happens to bear a close resemblance to a former Nazi official; losing his memory after a plane crash, he comes to believe that he IS the wanted German. The story is quite melodramatic and not filled out in any detail, but it contains the essence of the central moral question of Greene's greatest works: is a man to be judged by what he has done, however horrible, or by his spiritual state at the time of his death? The second story, "Nobody to Blame," is essentially a sketch for OUR MAN IN HAVANA, though trasferred to an imaginary Baltic state in the late 1930s. Although much longer than the first treatment, it details only the farcial mechanisms of the story, without any reality of setting or depth of character, and absolutely omitting the moral dimension; reading it makes one look again at OUR MAN IN HAVANA with enhanced appreciation.
Greene describes his first idea for THE TENTH MAN thus: "A political situation like that in Spain. A decimation order. Ten men in prison draw lots with matches. A rich man draws the longest match. Offers all his money to anyone who will take his place. One, for the sake of his family, agrees. Later, when he is released, the former rich man visits anonymously the family who possess his money, he himself now with nothing but his life...". Even here, the moral core is clear: redemption for a previous act of cowardice through later generosity or suffering. What it needs to become a true novel is the creation of fully-rounded characters, the establishment of a social and political setting, and above all a sense of time, so that the rich man's transformation will be credible and the moral issues resonate. And indeed in the middle of the novella, when the man returns anonymously to his former house, Greene does provide most of these things, especially in capturing the peculiar political situation in France just after liberation, when strangers of any sort were suspected as collaborators. He also adds one magnificent plot twist, which I cannot reveal here. But the opening of the book seems almost schematic, somehow failing to give depth or immediacy to the hostages in the German prison. And although Greene tackles the moral issues quite explicitly at the end of the book, they seem laid out rather than lived through. The problem, I think, is his compression of time, to bring the action to a climax in a matter of weeks, days, or hours; this might work well in a movie, but in a novel it seems a weakness.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Truly Exciting Reading
Review: Graham Greene is one of my favorite writers. In such novels as THE HEART OF THE MATTER, OUR MAN IN HAVANA, THE HUMAN FACTOR, THE HONORARY COUNSUL and THE POWER AND THE GLORY, he presents ordinary men whose lives unexpectedly acquire a profound moral dimension or political significance. While questionable motivation--that is, naïveté, loneliness, or self-hatred--often impels his characters to act, Greene's plots also force the unforgettable Henry Scobie, Jim Wormold, Maurice Castle, Dr. Plarr, and the whiskey priest to make a choice. Then, they are on paths without return and with, at best, ironic reward.
In THE TENTH MAN, Greene gives us Jean-Louis Chavel, a lawyer in a Gestapo prison who, according to my dust jacket, "offers his fortune and house to anyone who will take his place before a firing squad." Then Greene follows "this survivor on his postwar return to the home he has surrendered."
As is usual with Greene's novels, there are several memorable and fully achieved characters--in this case, Chavel, Carosse, and Therese Mangeot--who bump against the limits of their principles or the shallowness of their illusions. As usual, the story is told in a spare style and has layers of conflict and believable emotion, which Greene explores to reveal amazing connections and parallels between dissimilar characters.
As the book jacket says: Watch Chavel..."discover the humanity and courage that [earlier] failed him." Highly recommended!
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Better off dead?
Review: Although short in length, Greene delivers a profound novel in "The Tenth Man." The premise is a lawyer who cowardly buys his life as a German POW during World War II. The man who is executed in his place, Janvier, is bequeathed all the possessions of the lawyer (Chavel). Then, the trials and tribulations of Chavel takes center stage as he returns to a postwar world as a penniless beggar who cannot reveal his real identity.
Perhaps the most profound concept is that of the disgraced Chavel and his attempts to win back his place in the world. He goes back to the country manor he gave up and now disguises himself as a beggar, but one who was with Chavel and Janvier in the German prisoner. Janvier's sister, as the new owner of his house and soon a fantasy object of his love, accepts his new identity. Yet, all the time Chavel is living life on borrowed time, as he is fearful he will be found out. Indeed, his new life is one of a tortured existence. It is more than once that he regrets that he did not die as he should have in the dank German prison.
Throughout the novel, Chavel's attempts at retribution are shown. Although one can sympathize with Chavel's predicament, Greene nevertheless presents him in a less than desirable light. It's difficult to know what one might do in a similar situation. Yet, somehow saving your own life at all costs seems cowardly. Overall, this is a quick read but one which will leave many questions to ponder.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A Great Novella
Review: This is a short novella that was written originally as a film script for MGM. It is not a novel. It is an excellent short story or novella. As a novella it is a masterpiece.
This is the first book that I read from Greene, and I was very impressed with his style, the structure, the prose, and the overall thrust of the book and his writing in general.
In this present novella, he presents a two part story of a man who makes a bargain in jail to save his life. It is set during World War II. The story takes place near Paris and then in rural France. The man trades his home and his money for his life. The first part takes place in jail, and the second part is after he is released from jail. From the jail and the bargain to trade money for his life, the story advances in time to the post-war period and we see how the now penniless man copes with his new situation and how he deals with the people that he knew before the war, and the people that now live in his old house.
There is a certain level of depression and desperation transmitted by Greene through his writings so that we have empathy and sympathy with the man who has lost all of his material wealth. Through the loss, he manages to maintain his moral integrity. There is a high level of drama and a surprise ending.
This is an excellent novella and a good introduction to Green.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A wonderful book with a fast-paced story
Review: The beginning of the story is quite dull, but after a while you can't stop reading. The story is also written in an easy language, so you can easily read it as a non-native speaker.
The end is not very satisfying and the characters are flat, but that doesn't really matter because of the action in the book, I was never bored.