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Graham Greene - The third man

Boekverslag June 1, 1997, gemaakt door Walter ter Maten, Son en Breugel.

Author:	Graham Greene.
Title:	The third man, 1950.
Publisher:	Heinemann Ltd./Octopus Books Ltd. London, UK.
Pages:	61.
Genre:	Crime.
Setting:	Post-war Vienna.

Other work:

Stamboul Train, 1932.
It's a battlefield, 1934.
England made me, 1935.
Brighton Rock, 1938.
The power and the glory, 1940.
The ministry of fear, 1943.
The heart of the matter, 1948.
The Third Man, 1950 (scenario for a movie).
The quiet American, 1955.
Loser takes all, 1955.
Our man in Havana, 1958.
The end of the affair, 1959.
A burnt-out case, 1960.
The comedians, 1966.
Doctor Fischer of Geneva, 1979.

Summary:

This is a rather slow starting novel that describes an intrigue in the first years after WO II in Vienna, the capital of Austria. Like Berlin, Vienna is governed by the four Allies: America, Great Britain, France and the USSR. There is shortage in everything. Hence smuggling can make you a fortune, especially when you have a good organisation that backs you and when you have good contacts. In these post-war years penicillin is needed very much by the hospitals.
The Brit Harry Lime appears to be involved in such a smuggling affair. To gain even more money he also dilutes the penicillin with water, or with dust.
Rollo Martin is an old school companion of Harry. He writes cheap paper-covered Westerns under the name of Buck Dexter. Rollo is invited to Vienna by Harry. In Vienna, Rollo is a few times wrongly identified with another writer that is also named Dexter. Because people like to pay bills for him it saves Rollo a lot of money. However, the meetings with these people are rather disturbing, because you don't know whether they occur also in the Harry scene or not. Rollo needs the money badly because he doesn't have enough and because his host Harry was killed by an accident just before he arrived. A car got Harry when he was traversing the street.
Colonel Calloway of the British security police is interested in Harry Lime and in this sudden friend Rollo. By contacting Harry's friends and neighbours and Colonel Calloway, Rollo gets the impression that there is something wrong about Harry's death. This is a very subtle process, which develops very slowly. Each time a tiny detail is added to the impression. When a neighbour of Harry is killed too, Rollo is quite sure: The dead man was not Harry. This is confirmed after a new inspection of Harry's body.
Rollo identifies the friends of Harry, who were involved in the accident affair. All this is discussed with Colonel Calloway and Rollo is informed about Harry's black side of life. Now also the car accident is reconstructed. Rollo wonders if a third man was involved, a dead one that was already in the car before the accident happened.
Through Harry's friends, Rollo is able to meet Harry at the famous spot in Vienna: At the Great Wheel in Vienna's Lunapark 'the Prater'. Harry does not feel bad about victims: Without the bad penicillin the victims would have died too. And the total of Vienna deaths is very small compared with the death in the whole world: You don't have to be serious about one grain of sand. But it enables you to make an interesting fortune.
Colonel Calloway wants to capture Harry. Hence Rollo initiates a second meeting that develops as a final run trough the sewers of Vienna, when Colonel Calloway's men are hunting on Harry. In the end Harry is shot and killed.

Remarks:

As said before the story develops very slowly and is only appreciable at the end.
However, it gives some nice details of Vienna: Some main streets, 'the Prater', the sewer and of the military protocols between the four Allies in post-war Vienna. There is not much traffic in that period, but there are trams. You don't expect a car, so you are easily killed by one who is passing by.
Also the poor way of living is discussed as is the case of the smuggling.

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