Ways Of Escape

by Graham Greene

With superb skill and feeling, Graham Greene retraces the experiences and encounters of his extraordinary life. His restlessness is legendary; as if seeking out danger, Greene travelled to Haiti during the nightmare rule of Papa Doc, Vietnam in the last days of the French, Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion. With ironic delight he recalls his time in the British Secret Service in Africa, and his brief involvement in Hollywood. He writes, as only he can, about people and places, about faith, doubt, fear and, not least, the trials and craft of writing.

• ISBN10: 0099282593
• ISBN13: 9780099282594
• Publish Date: 2 September 1999 (first published 1 January 1980)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 31 March 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Vintage Publishing
• Imprint: Vintage Classics
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[brokentune]

3.5*

I miss reading Greene. I miss discovering his stories for the first time. He's still one of my favourite authors - not because I loved all of his books without fail and without criticism, but because his writing has a quality to it that is just beautiful while still being totally on point.

So, when I picked up Ways of Escape, I hoped to reconnect with that wonder of entering Greeneland, a term Greene used himself (as I found out in this book).

To some extent this was successful. Ways of Escape is one of Greene's autobiographical books (there are several volumes) in which he explores, in parts, his biography, and in parts his own works.

While the biographical background was interesting (his travel experiences were fascinating, his deliberations about Catholicism not so much), his analysis of his own works largely left me wishing I hadn't read them. This isn't because they were disappointing - they weren't! But when the magician discloses the workings of his tricks, some of the magic gets lost.