Travels with My Aunt (Twentieth Century Classics) [Mass Market Paperback]

Henry Pulling is a recently retired bank manager. He was offered an arrangement after many years of devoted service when his bank was taken over by another. He is looking forward to spending more time with the dahlias that are his pride and joy, and also rubbing shoulders with his former customers in Southwood, an unremarkable London suburb that seems to be populated entirely by retired officers from the armed forces. He mentions Omo quite a lot and is vaguely embarrassed by the fact that he shares initials with a well known brand of sauce. And then he meets his long lost aunt, Augusta Bertram.

Henry's mother has just died. His father died forty years before. He never really knew the father and his relationship with his mother was perennially tense. After the funeral, Agatha takes him on one side and calmly informs him that his father was something of a rogue and that his "mother" was really his step-mother, his true biological mother being one of his father's bits on the side. Henry Pulling finds himself attracted to his aunt, not because she is something of an eccentric, unpredictable old bird, but also because she retains, somewhere, the secret of his own origins. When she suggests they travel together, he eagerly accompanies, despite the fact that he has never been one for straying far from the nest.

Graham Greene has Henry and Aunt Augusta travel as far afield as Brighton, Istanbul and South America. Together, via stories from Aunt Agatha's past, they relive the first half of the twentieth century, from late Victorian roots to 1960s drug culture, from fascism to dictators, from war to peace. Throughout, Henry Pulling comes across as a genial, predictable gent in his late fifties, whilst Aunt Agatha seems to be a confirmed member of Hell's Grannies. Europe - the world even - seems to be littered with her conquests, with hardly a country passing by without some faded memory of hers coming back to life.

As it unfolds, Travels With My Aunt reveals itself as a true masterpiece of twentieth century fiction. The characters really do live through the century's history, but the events are never pressed onto the surface of their lives. On the contrary, they are entwined within the fabric of Aunt Augusta's being, a character whose complexity unfolds as the story progresses.

Throughout Henry Pulling is a truly comic character. He seems out of his depth, naïve, a product of an over-protected suburban existence, over-burdened with the assumptions of his upbringing. But he comes into his own and eventually it is no surprise when he describes his new life, which is almost as far removed from a suburban bank manager's office as it is possible to get. And, of course, the story's denouement, when it arrives, is also no surprise. And is not less because of that.

There are many laughs along the way, not least as a result of Henry's being constantly taken aback by his aunt's bluntness and lust for life. Particularly memorable, however, were scenes where Henry put his personal foot in it. On Paraguay's national day, he carries a red scarf on his aunt's advice so he can show allegiance to the ruling party and the dictator. He just happens to be outside the military and political headquarters when he sneezes and uses the scarf as a hankie. A nearby soldier records the snotting into the national emblem as deeply insulting and irreverent, duly beats him up and slaps him in jail. Situation comedy at its best.

Travels With My Aunt is quite simply a must read and must re-read book. Graham Greene's immense skill provides a simplicity of style and construction to communicate a complex plot alongside powerful characterisation, and all this accomplished with true but elegant economy. It is a beautifully crafted book, expertly written, full of surprises and humour, all set against a deadly serious plot: surely a masterpiece.

Wow. It's sat on the bookshelf for an age, along with half a dozen other Greene novels, without ever rising to the top of the pile. And then, I pick up the wonderful Our Man in Havana for a long journey and I'm hooked. I wasn't sure what to expect of Travels With My Aunt - it's a familiar title, but I'm not aware of a film or TV adaptation (either of which would be a real treat) and expected if anything a semi-autobiographical tale. Not sure of the background, but I know a top book when I read one, and I'd recommend this to anyone. Everyone. It's a great read. Travel writing in the sixties still had a mysterious romance about it (as anyone who's read Ian Fleming's Bond books will testify) but this is more than travel writing, a great plot, wonderful characters and superb storytelling all wrapped up in 264 enchanting pages. Highly recommended.

Humour is always present in Greene's novels, it's just that usually the comedy is buried beneath a bleak pile of despair, guilt and angst. With Greene there is laughter but it's very much laughter in the dark: the gallows humour of the man who trips on his way to the scaffold. In Travels with My Aunt however the humour steps out of the shadows and takes centre stage with the result that this is, perhaps, the most likeable and purely enjoyable all the novels Greene wrote.

Henry Pulling, a retired bank manager who lives - if that's the word - an eye-wateringly dull life, meets his Aunt Augusta for the first time in fifty years at his mother's funeral. Henry is initially wary of his charismatic aunt but gradually he falls into step beside her and the pair travel to Brighton, Paris, Istanbul and, finally, South America. From his dry little life of dahlias and retired army majors Henry finds himself propelled into a world of CIA agents, hippies, dubious businessmen, elderly Casanovas, suspect priests and quaint old dears who read uncannily accurate forecasts about future events from tealeaves. After a dull suburban existence Henry finds himself finally engaging with the very stuff of life rather than merely watching from the sidelines as it passes him by. Henry is a brilliant comic character - wide-eyed and naive, continually surprised by his aunt's questionable friends and rather racy behaviour, but it is his aunt who steals the show: fabulously entertaining in a no-nonsense hands-on fashion, ready to engage with whatever life cares to push in her path Aunt Augusta is a fesity force of nature. As a lesson on the need to make the most of one's opportunities the book can hardly be bettered. The world is out there - go and find it....

In truth there is little in the way of plot, but that doesn't matter. Travels is a character-lead novel and the interest derives from the way Henry and his aunt extricate themselves from ever more curious and unlikely situations. Greene was excellent at making his characters interesting. Little telling details are sprinkled here and there with the result that, with seemingly effortless ease, his characters live and breath. Henry, for example, has a stilted correspondence with a lady whom he used to infrequently see for tea. Gradually it becomes apparent that marriage was - and perhaps still is - a possibility. But does he want to take that step? Does he dare, or would he merely be doing so out of pity or desperation? Having travelled with his aunt could he ever go back to a conventional existence? It's all beautifully portrayed.

Travels with My Aunt is beautifully written and great fun. If you've ever found youself slumped in an armchair and not knowing what to do with your spare time get yourself a copy. It will give you some ideas and it may just change your life. It's never too late....