"The Last Word and Other Stories (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) [Paperback]

For we, myself included, who number among those addicted to the writing of Greene, this volume of collected stories truly falls into the 'must-have' category. Spanning almost his entire career, this represents a broad variety of stylistic and narrative approaches employed.

As an introduction to Greene, though, this may be relatively less ideal. Perhaps better might be one of his novels, or for something lighter, one of his entertainments. Though the breadth and depth of variation apparent in Greene's work is well-represented here, a better feel for the true character of his writing might be found more readily in others of his works: simply put, I really don't think the medium of a short story allows the unfamiliar reader to sufficiently develop the rich relationship with the material that I find myself desiring.

Regardless of that, this an outstanding collection of stories, the title story ("The Last Word") being one that I find particularly poignant. This volume is a very fine assemblage of material, and possesses a sense of overarching thematic unity which renders it both comparatively cohesive (in terms of short-story collections) and a joy to read. Highly recommended.

This bundle of short stories is an excellent introduction to the works of the sometimes controversial British novelist.

`The Last Word' sketches a world without religion with a jailed Pope as the last of the Christians. But, `is it possible that what this man believed may be true?'
`The News in English' and the ironic `A Branch of the Service' are intelligence service stories.
`The Moment of Truth' is a most human story about `the near approach to death', which is `like a crime one is ashamed to confess'.
`The Lieutenant died last' is a jingoist war story with an Act of Contrition at the end.
`The lottery Ticket' is a mockery of the tragic South-American political theatre, where the police officers support those politicians who pay them.
`The Murder for the Wrong Reason' is a detective story (`a bad man is not always killed for a good reason.)
`The New House' is a discussion between an architect and a proud proprietor (`Do you think I'll be the instrument for spoiling this land?')
`An Appointment with the General' is a mockery of an unsuccessful interview with a caudillo. (`the Communists are for a while traveling on the same train. So are the socialists. But it is he who is driving the train'.)

These stories of uneven quality are a very worth-while read.

This book brings together twelve of Greene's short -- some very short -- stories which had not been anthologized, for one reason or another, in his earlier volumes of stories. These tales span the range of his career, going all the way back into the 1920s, and up to the late 1980s. As a longtime fan, and very unsystematic reader, of Greene, I was elated to find this little book while digging through library stacks, and read it in the space of an evening. The stories are like a selection of little dishes, of greatly varying taste, texture, tone, so even a reader not particularly enamored of Greene's themes and style will likely find something to enjoy.

Greene has always been a master at revealing characters passage by passage, and setting them at cross-purposes, not artificially, but within the sorts of real contexts and conflicts into which life tragically places people. He also has an eye for the comic, but usually darkly so. Both of these aspects of his work come out in this selection of stories.

"The Man Who Stole the Eiffel Tower" is an almost Roald Dahl-esque sort of play of fancy, spurred by the narrator's desire and decision to give the long hard-working landmark a bit of a vacance a la campagne, a farce of taxi-drivers, drunk tourists blitzing the "sites," and tower staff, none of whom are "fool enough to admit that [their] place of employment has ceased to exist until the week has come around and the money has been earned."

"A Branch of the Service" combines the genre of the spy-story, at which Greene excels, with an excursion into gastronomy and epicurianism whose demands the narrator would so badly like to escape. I'll not give away the story; suffice it to say that the work this spy does must be conducted over dinners too rich for his taste and stomach.

"The Lieutenant Died Last" tells a tale of a heroic guerrilla battle carried out by a deadly but damaged soldier turned poacher. During WW II, Germans para-drop into an isolated but strategic English village, round up the inhabitants, and prepare to start carrying out operations. Purves, a Boer War veteran, drunk, living in a shanty, slips by the soldiers, loads his Mauser, and then begins to ambush the Germans, doing most of them in, including the wounded Lieutenant. There's no battlefield redemption for the former soldier, though -- he's good at killing, and the fight simply lets him get even with the Boers, relive the past ("It was like youth again; all sorts of sly memories came back"), make sport ("Old Purves at this point of the game could have retired safely, with all the honors, but he was enjoying himself").

The very first story "The Last Word" is essentially a parable, reminiscent both of Dostoevsky's "Grand Inquisitor" chapter of The Brothers Karamazov, and of another great Greene story, "The Hint of an Explanation." In it, the last pope, living in obscurity and forgetfulness after the abolition of Christianity decades earlier, the end of conflict, and the unification of the world under the General -- along with his old book, and a crucifix he manages to conceal -- is summoned before the world leader. A pivotal moment of triumph: "'You are the last living Christian,' the General said. 'You are a historical figure. For that reason I wanted to honor you at the end.'" The reader is left to puzzle over the meaning and implications of the last supper, the final moments, and "a strange and frightening doubt [that] crossed [the General's] mind."

Those are, of the twelve, my favorite four stories contained in this volume -- and perhaps the best recommendation I can give of the set is that, even if those four were torn out page by page, the book would still be worth the time of reading.