Reviews

The Comedians by Graham Greene

Only show reviews with written explanations

monikapuff's review

4.0

I'm giving four stars to The Comedians, because it is very much awesome. Open ending, but not really a happy one in my opinion, it leaves some empty feeling in the end, questioning whether anything we do is really worth in the end if we lose all friends and family. Idk, might be my current existential crisis speaking, but still.
Liked the characters, I really liked Martha, not so sure why. Loved the writing, the whole story, along with the characters.

robhughes's review

Go to review page

4.0

A Green thriller that explores the corruption of a paradise and the people who find themselves lost in the rubble. The quality of Green's prose mean that you can taste the burning rum and feel the humidity prickle as the narrator tries to navigate his way in and then back out of Haiti in the 1950s.

paul_cornelius's review

Go to review page

5.0

To my surprise, I am always taken with this novel. Every time I read it. I say to my surprise, because the setting, Papa Doc Duvalier's Haiti is so repellent. But Graham Greene has a way with hot, humid tropical climates. He somehow brings the fever of those places directly to the reader, whether it be Havana on the eve of Castro's takeover, Vietnam during the first decade of the War in Indochina in the 1950s, Paraguay, or the tropical sweat of Jalisco, Mexico. These novels and places have more character and seduction to them than do British/European locales. It is as if the heat boils away the mask his protagonists try to hide under and leaves them naked and open for our understanding, if not our sympathy. That is the case with The Comedians, too. A novel about escaping Duvalier's hellish tropical murder house for sanity but perhaps not redemption.

svdp's review

Go to review page

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

3.0

tolu_odejide's review

Go to review page

dark emotional funny reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Having read the End of the Affair, this book felt familiar. Greene’a treatment of women, proclivity for extra-marital affairs, musings on the value of religion are all par for the course.

The uniqueness of this story is in the setting of Haiti. A joyless place in this novel but one that is loved so so deeply on each page of this book. Nothing can change the fact that it is a white man writing about a Black Country - one in which he is a stranger. The small settings can feel static and sparse.