reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (10/03/85)
"The Tenth Man" is a short novel written by Graham Greene in the late
1940s. It was written for a studio (MGM, I think) while he was under
contract to them, so the studio owned the rights and Greene forgot all
about it. Recently, the studio sold it to someone other than Greene's
regular publisher. Greene looked it over, remembered it, and contributed
an introduction to the book. To bring the book up to even a slightly
respectable length for a novel, two story synopses Greene had written
are also included.
"The Tenth Man" is typical Greene, perhaps more heavily influenced by
Joseph Conrad than usual. Thirty Frenchmen are confined by the Germans
during the Second World War. As retaliation for a partisan killing, the
Germans tell the prisoners to select one man in ten to be killed. The
prisoners decide to use a lottery. One of the unlucky three is a wealthy
lawyer, who tries to convince someone to take his place in return for all
of his wealth. Eventually, one man agrees so that his mother and sister
will be able to live in comfort. After the liberation, the lawyer finds
himself drawn irresistably back to his old country home, now occupied by
the dead man's relatives. The bulk of the story deals with his encounter
with the dead man's sister and with an unusual interloper.
Greene bites off some big themes here, but doesn't really have much to
say about them. In the end, he settles for a story about courage and
guilt. The story fits into the "good not great" spectrum. The story
suffers from the main characters, the lawyer and the sister, being
underdrawn and dull. Perhaps this results from the fact that it isn't
really a novel, but an extended story treatment for a film. Things
happen, but Greene doesn't make us care about them enough.
One of the story summaries attached to the short novel is very brief, a
tale of mistaken identity, postwar Nazis, and amnesia. A little too much
for one film, and it covers ground covered rather well, already. The other
story treatment eventually resurfaced, in a simplified form, as "Our Man
in Havana". It's moderately amusing reading, but its greatest effect is
to make you want to read the full book or see the film.
Even with two story treatments and an introduction, "The Tenth Man" runs
only 150 pages or so. The quality isn't extraordinarily high, so buying
"The Tenth Man" isn't a very good idea. Greene fans will want to pick it
up from a library. For anyone else, it is a painless way to spend a couple
of hours, but it doesn't really even suggest Greene at his best.
--
Peter Reiher
reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher