The Name of Action

by Graham Greene

Greene's second novel, suppressed after initial publication, now quite rare.

Genres: Fiction

344 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1930

About the author

Henry Graham Greene was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century.
Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a reputation early in his lifetime as a major writer, both of serious Catholic novels, and of thrillers (or "entertainments" as he termed them). He was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times. Through 67 years of writing, which included over 25 novels, he explored the conflicting moral and political issues of the modern world. The Power and the Glory won the 1941 Hawthornden Prize and The Heart of the Matter won the 1948 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Best of the James Tait Black. Greene was awarded the 1968 Shakespeare Prize and the 1981 Jerusalem Prize. Several of his stories have been filmed, some more than once, and he collaborated with filmmaker Carol Reed on The Fallen Idol (1948) and The Third Man (1949).
He converted to Catholicism in 1926 after meeting his future wife, Vivienne Dayrell-Browning. Later in life he took to calling himself a "Catholic agnostic". He died in 1991, aged 86, of leukemia, and was buried in Corseaux cemetery in Switzerland. William Golding called Greene "the ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man's consciousness and anxiety".

Reviews

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Graham Greene repudiated this early novel, refusing to allow it to be reprinted, and it is easy to see why. For one thing, the writing is wildly uneven, and in some places downright bad. For another, the plot was all too quickly overtaken by international events. In this book written between 1929 and 1930, Greene portrayed a dictator taking over Trier in Germany and setting up a separate state. (This plot stemmed from his own time in Trier during a period when it had a separatist government backed by the French in 1924.) The portrayal of a fictional German dictator wouldn't have had much appeal to readers once Hitler came to power in real life. The portrayal of Jewish revolutionary poet Joseph Kapper is also painfully stereotyped a lot of the time, even if the character comes alive as an individual in some passages.

Also, as in his first novel, 'The Man Within', there is a romance plot which is rather overwrought and unconvincing. The young anti-hero, Oliver Chant, who travels to Trier to support a revolution, falls in love with the dictator's wife, Anne-Marie Demassener (always referred to by her full name), and she promptly falls into his arms. Far too much space is spent on Chant's fevered and repetitive imaginings about their relationship.

And yet... and yet. This is Greene, and despite the shaky plot and all the badly-written passages, there are also some other sections which are written at full power. Every time he describes Chant meeting up with the other would-be revolutionaries, as they huddle in the back of a shop and argue about their plans, the story suddenly becomes far more realistic and compelling, with a flavour of his later spy thrillers. A description of gun running would make a great short story in its own right.

There is also a very well-done grey and downbeat murder sequence, and a passage where Chant hides in a shadowy back street which shows the way forward to the famous description in 'The Third Man' where Harry Lime is first seen. The descriptions of Germany often remind me of 'M' and other Weimar-era films.

I can think of several other stand-out passages, including a couple of paragraphs which really have nothing to do with the main novel where Chant wanders into a shop selling chocolate hares towards closing time, wanting to buy sweets for some children hanging around outside - this is so vividly observed that I could almost see it. Perhaps the whole novel is one for completists only, but I'm glad to have read it.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

In his early writing years, Graham Greene wrote two novels that never saw the light of day - both rejected by Heinemann (London). Then, "The Man Within" (his first novel) was published to wide acclaim. His next two novels were both failures. This is the first of those. I now understand why. It was suppressed by Greene after he became famous and he never allowed it to be reprinted. So, the first edition by Heinemann, published in 1930, is quite rare. My copy, while in fine condition, lacks the even rarer dust jacket.
Not dissimilar to his first novel, this one takes place in a foreign country, Trier (Germany) and there is another mysterious unavailable woman involved (the dictator's wife), a good deal of intrigue, and much doodling on moral dilemmas, none of which are resolved to any satisfaction. If you want to accept the plot line, you will have to really suspend belief.
Since I'm reading all of Greene in one year in choronological order, I now move on to his third book, which he also repudiated and suppressed. SIGH
Here is Greene's OWN review of this book from his autobiography (50 years later in 1980): "...the author at twenty-six was as unreal to himself, in spite of psychoanalysis at sixteen, as Oliver Chant, the hero of The Name of Action, is to the reader. Chant is only a daydream in the mind of a young romantic author, for it takes years of brooding and of guilt, of self-criticism and of self-justification, to clear from the eyes the haze of hopes and dreams and false ambitions. I was trying to write my first politcal novel, knowing nothing of politics....."

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of two early novels that Greene later disowned and has never been reprinted since initial publication (I had to track it down in a local academic library), The Name of Action is neither a great novel nor a particularly bad one. It certainly isn’t up to Greene’s later standards, but that’s such a high mark that this comparison is hardly meant as a slight. It is a competent novel, more on par with the types of thrillers one might find in the paperback aisle in the last twenty years, and contains many elements of Greene’s later work: espionage, a doomed love story, characters grappling with emotional and psychological turmoil. In this case, the political plot -- a revolution to overthrow a dictator -- mirrors that inner turmoil faced by the protagonist, who falls in love with the wife of the dictator he is supposed to be helping to overthrow. In that sense, the revolution is a type of metaphor for the impossibility of love. The protagonist begins to have empathy for the dictator (for his marital woes, if not his brutal political policies). Indeed, the two characters are almost seen as doubles by the end of the novel, or perhaps as representing two sides of the wounded male psyche unable to unify to attain a loving relationship with a woman.

Like most of Greene’s fiction, the novel is quickly-paced and enjoyable. But unlike the best of his fiction, it doesn’t quite succeed in finding that sweet spot where psychological insight meets page-turning yarn. But even Greene’s less-than-successful work (I refuse to call this novel a failure -- it isn’t that bad) are worth tracking down if you are a fellow voyager into Greeneland. For everyone else, this can be skipped in favor of Greene’s masterpieces.

[Jorn Barger · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one aims very high-- an impulsive romance sparking a political revolution-- but misfires even worse than 'The Man Within'. This guy falls in love with a photo, blasts himself straight into her bed, accidentally derails her suicide (I think?), and overthrows a generic dictator by publishing his secret shame. Like The Man Within it seems more suited to a small stage with just a few actors-- a fairy tale not a fiction.