Three men meet on a ship bound for Haiti, a world in the grip of the corrupt “Papa Doc” and the Tontons Macoute, his sinister secret police. Brown the hotelier, Smith the innocent American, and Jones the confidence man—these are the “comedians” of Greene’s title. Hiding behind their actors’ masks, they hesitate on the edge of life. They are men afraid of love, afraid of pain, afraid of fear itself…For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Atthebeach (verified owner) –
I like Graham Greene, but don’t love him. His characters seem more interesting than his plots, and so they don’t always develop as fully as I hope. And parts of his books seem slow. But I am always glad I read a book by Greene in the end. I know I learned something and I always feel the stories are so real that he must have witnessed them. I bought The Comedians because I am very curious about Haiti and how it went from the country it once was (in my lifetime), to the one it is today. This story revolves around Haiti during the regime of Papa Doc through the experiences of expats in a country they had once enjoyed and now found horribly changed. And the plot takes the main character through a dangerously, yet thrilling, attempt to play a hand in Haiti’s future. As usual, none of Greene’s characters are pure or fully heroic; they all have their flaws and limitations. But as I came to know them I found I liked them anyway and, though I know how Haiti turned out, rooted for them to do some good. By the last third of the book, I could not put it down, and the last few chapters were far more surprising and exciting, even hopeful, than I could have imagined. But the sheer helplessness I felt at the end of this book, written decades ago, foretold the Haiti we see today…..as if he knew.