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warrenl's review against another edition
5.0
Others have commented on The Ministry of Fear's implausible precept of a cell of Nazi sympathizers hiding a microfilm in a cake. Yeah, nah. But putting that argument aside, what really elevates this book into 5-star territory is the sublime quality of the writing. This is Greene maintaining the incredible momentum he hit with The Power and the Glory and starting to cement himself in the very first rank of English writers, where he remains to this day.
cooeeaus's review against another edition
I found I didn't connect with the characters and it was very boring 😔
bokegg's review against another edition
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.0
sarahmatthews's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
medium-paced
The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene
Read in Braille
Vintage Books
Pub. 1943, 224pp
___
This novel opens with a church fete, a cake and a fortune teller and, wow, does it take a turn from there! It’s a story of espionage during WW2, with a little romance thrown in and a great storyline about memory loss and trying to recover but also kind of enjoying the simple life where you’re sheltered from the horrors of the outside world.
Graham Greene evokes the bewildering everyday life of the Blitz and what’s astonishing about this book is that it was written in the middle of it all so he had no idea how the war would be resolved at the time of writing. It makes for a gripping depiction of wartime London:
“The walls suddenly caved in. They were not even aware of noise. Blast is an odd thing because it is just as likely to have the effect of an embarrassing dream as of man’s serious vengeance on man, landing you naked in the street or exposing you in your bed or on your lavatory seat to the neighbours’ gaze.” And he continues: “The awful thing about a Raid is that it goes on: your own private disaster may happen early, but the raid doesn’t stop. They were machine-gunning the flares: two broke with a sound like crashing plates and the third came to earth in Russell Square; the darkness returned coldly and comfortingly.”
This is quite a disorientating read at times and I found myself rereading sections so I didn’t get lost. The writing is superb. I liked the complex character of Arthur Rowe who certainly goes on an adventure, one he fell into unexpectedly and has to make the best of. At one point he loiters in an auction house near an office as he’s in hiding, trying to figure things out and this piece of observation is great:
“The weekly auction was to take place next day, and visitors flowed in with catalogues; an unshaven chin and a wrinkled suit were not out of place here. A man with a ragged moustache and an out-at-elbows jacket, the pockets bulging with sandwiches, looked carefully through a folio volume of landscape gardening: a Bishop –or he might have been a Dean–was examining a set of the Waverley novels… Nobody here was standdardized; in tea-shops and theatres people are cut to the pattern of their environment, but in this auction-room the goods were too various to appeal to any one type. Here was pornography–eighteenth-century French with beautiful little steel engravings celebrating the copulations of elegant over-clothed people on Pompadour couches, here were all the Victorian novelists… There was a smell of neglected books, of the straw from packing cases and of clothes which had been too often rained upon.”
A funny, strange and memorable read which I very much enjoyed.
iamleeg's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
I just picked this up from a charity shop while I was waiting to meet someone, having only read Brighton Rock by Greene before. It was a very easy book to get into and highly compelling, so I read the whole thing in a couple of sittings. We find out what's going on at the same rate as the protagonist, including the massive aside in the second section that pushes the understanding back, rather than forward.
tylharvey's review against another edition
3.0
Why has it taken me so long to discover Graham Greene?
saaraa96's review against another edition
2.0
اولاش و وسطش یه گنگی جالبی داشت.
نویسنده رو نمی‌شناختم و چیزی ازش نخونده بودم، از نویسنده بدم نیومد.
شاید ترجمه فارسی نباید میخوندم و گوش میدادم. کیفیت اودیوبوک فارسیش به نسبت چیزای انگلیسی ای که دارم گوش میدم، خوب نبود و ممکنه که برا همین نمیتونستم لذت ببرم.
نویسنده رو نمی‌شناختم و چیزی ازش نخونده بودم، از نویسنده بدم نیومد.
شاید ترجمه فارسی نباید میخوندم و گوش میدادم. کیفیت اودیوبوک فارسیش به نسبت چیزای انگلیسی ای که دارم گوش میدم، خوب نبود و ممکنه که برا همین نمیتونستم لذت ببرم.
leesmyth's review against another edition
5.0
It's beautifully written and sharply observed. There's something in the set-up and unfolding of the plot that reminds me a little of Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday (innocent, everyday interactions turning, absurdly, into horror and intrigue). I did guess a few of the twists, but it did not lessen my pleasure in the least.
Just two more of the many passages I loved:
p. 88:
A murderer is regarded by the conventional world as something almost monstrous, but a murderer to himself is only an ordinary man – a man who takes either tea or coffee for breakfast, a man who likes a good book and perhaps reads biography rather than fiction, a man who at a regular hour goes to bed, who tries to develop good physical habits but possibly suffers from constipation, who prefers either dogs or cats and has certain views about politics.
p. 201:
'He's going away?'
'Yes.'
'With the photographs, of course.'
'Yes.'
'We've got to stop him,' he said. The 'we' like the French tu spoken for the first time conveyed everything.
'Yes.'
Just two more of the many passages I loved:
p. 88:
A murderer is regarded by the conventional world as something almost monstrous, but a murderer to himself is only an ordinary man – a man who takes either tea or coffee for breakfast, a man who likes a good book and perhaps reads biography rather than fiction, a man who at a regular hour goes to bed, who tries to develop good physical habits but possibly suffers from constipation, who prefers either dogs or cats and has certain views about politics.
p. 201:
'He's going away?'
'Yes.'
'With the photographs, of course.'
'Yes.'
'We've got to stop him,' he said. The 'we' like the French tu spoken for the first time conveyed everything.
'Yes.'
gbliss's review against another edition
2.0
Feels like an experiment based on a trying out a few clever ideas about memory loss, guilt, limits of knowledge and the like. The description of Blitz-era London is excellent and Greene conveys the sense of fear, horror, and random destruction wonderfully. Could have been about 100 pages shorter. Some of the motivation of characters is a little hard to believe. Based on the original NYT review written when this came out, appearing during the War itself must have added to the book's power.