Get Your Hands On The Last Word And Other Stories Planned By Graham Greene Available As Textbook

Greene is a relatively new discovery for me and I have come to enjoy his writing very much,

This is a collection of short stories that range from a dystopian future to a psychological murder mystery, I will review just a few of the thirteen stories,

Briefly:

The Last Word is about a man who has lost his memory from an explosion due to some kind of war.
He has been living the last twenty years alone and on bread, His neighbors are as suspicious of him as they are of each other, It is apparent that a totalitarian regime has been ruling the country,

One day, for some reason, he is escorted from his tiny apartment by a guard who takes him to the general.
As the story progresses we find out who this lonely man is and why the dictator wants to see him,

This particular story shows the power of the Spiritual world and how no physical world can defeat it, There are many surprises and the ending brings a final surprise that enforces St, Paul's assertion, "Death, where is they sting Grave where is they victory"

The Lottery is about an Englishman who only visits out of the way places such as a tiny village in Mexico.
While there he wins the state lottery which is quite a bit of money even by English standards, He doesn't want the money and is embarrassed that he should take money from such an impoverished province, so he donates it back to the state to use for good works.
One can imagine the outcome or how the state defines, "good works",

Another story is about a murder narrated by the Chief of Police, His conclusions about the perpetrator brings an unexpected conclusion,

Finally, the last story is about an arrogant French journalist for a socialist magazine that goes to a Latin American country to interview the general who runs the country.
She thinks she is going to intimidate the general by accusing him of not being "socialist enough", She finds the tables quickly turned on her,

All the stories are fascinating to read made all the more so by Graham's fluid writing, They are worth reading and I recommend them to all fans of Greene's writing or people who would like to become fans of one of the last centuries foremost authors.
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 thes, and up to the lates.
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 crosspurposes, 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 Dahlesque sort of play of fancy, spurred by the narrator's desire and decision to give the long hardworking landmark a bit of a vacance a la campagne, a farce of taxidrivers, 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 spystory, 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 paradrop 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.
“Literary Patchwork Quilt”

This anthology offers a dozen short stories with a variety of settings: in both time and place.
We are transported into the future in THE GENERAL who has an odd encounter with the Pope, Keeping toth century history he presents tales set in the UK during WW, more contemporary London, and Paris in the Cold War erawhere a clever fellow “stole” the Eiffel Tower.
His only lighthearted piece spoofs Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, Two more exotic settings include a remote Mexican province and a tropical, Hispanic country,

Greenes protagonists range from: the Pope and a General, a young wife who refuses to accept that her husband is a Nazi spy a game warden, a shy traveler, an old architect, a wouldbe author, a French lady journalist and a detective trying to

solve a murder mystery in a long Twilightzone style tale.
His first person story relates a Chunnel disaster set in the thendistants, Taleasks the moral question: is murder acceptable if its for the Right reasons So, which of the two main characters will ultimately have the Last Word
in the first tale If you enjoy the short story genre this collection by a master storyteller is for you!

February,.