Ways of Escape

The view of an outsider at a revolution is an odd and slanting one, rather lie a pretentious camera angle; he may sometimes even be unaware that anything is happening around him at all.

A most curious color of memoir, Ways of Escape plumbs and exposes Greene and his project. For myself I recall buying The Quiet American in New Orleans. It was a statement. Alongside viewing Man For All Seasons at party, this was a time when I finally decided how I wanted to live. I was not going to suffer fools, if that's what being normal promoted. Greene regards similar impulses here. His antidote was often travel and prostitutes. His coverage of events in Malaysia, Indochina and Haiti is simply astonishing, especially if one is wary of "the dangerous show more third martini." Plenty of spoilers concerning his work. show less

Ways of escape is a sequel to Graham Greene's earlier autobiography A sort of life. In fact, in the preface to Ways of escape, Greene apologizes to readers for overlap between the two works, a fact I would welcome rather than regret, since I read A sort of life more than 20 years ago.

I do not recall the style and tone of A sort of life, but what struck me reading Ways of escape is how incredibly impersonal an autobiography it is.

There is "very little of life" in this volume, and upon finishing the book, the readers may still wonder as much as before reading it, who Graham Greene is. There are none of the usual musings, descriptions of dwellings, friends and literary influences, which may transport the reader to the (imaginary) world of show more the past in which to observe the author and his or her development through history.

Instead, Ways of escape merely described Greene's travels and how they inspired the conception of his novels. Ways of escape was written as an amalgam of a series of introductions to the Collected Edition of Greene's books and "essays written occasionally on his life and troubled places in the world". In his own words, Greene compares his travels to his writing as "ways of escape," apparently, an escape from life. As this escape from life in the form of extensive travel and writing in itself also constitutes a form of living, one feels the author's regret that what would perhaps have been the most ideal title for this second volume, i.e. A sort of life, is no longer available.

As a result, the reader of Ways of escape will feel a sense of detachment. Ways of escape is not really what it purports to be, and readers who are looking for a biography or work of travel had better look elsewhere. Ways of escape would mostly interest readers wanting to read more about the background of Graham Greene's novels and the political conflicts which form the backdrop to many locations forming the setting of his fiction. There is too much hobnobbing with illustrious and often notorious heads of state. show less

This memoir, which covers Greene's life from the start of his writing career up to about 1980, stitches together Greene's remembrance of what in his life influenced his writing, including his wartime experiences and his friendships; his response to being characterized as a Catholic writer; and his opinions on writing plays, novels and short stories.

Auto-biographical detail to Greene's writing life and the influences upon it. Background information to some of his novels and thoughts on writing and authors that he admired and the books that he enjoyed. A great look at the middle twentieth century.

Not my favorite author and not Graham's best work. Has occasional interesting parts.

always short of money--for drinking???, a great traveller, this book seems to be most about his spy books which he wrote for money and to escape from writing his more serious novels which he did not enjoy writing.

Biografía, Ficción especulativa