Ways of Escape

by Graham Greene

With superb skill and feeling, Graham greene retraces the experiences and encounters of a long and extraordinary life. His restlessness is legendary; he has travelled like an explorer seeking our people and political situations. 'at the dangerous edge of things' - Haiti during the nightmare rule of Papa Doc, Vietnam in the last days - of the French. , Cuba, Prague, Paraguay, Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion. With ironic delight he recalls his time in the British Secret Service in Africa, and his brief involvement in Hollywood. He writes, as only he can about people and places, about faith, doubt, fear and, not least, the trials and craft of writing.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Travel, Memoir, Autobiography, Writing, History

309 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

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

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 5 out of 5]

”I have written occasionally on episodes in my life and on some of the troubled places in the world where I have found myself involved for no good reason, though I can see now that my travels, as much as the act of writing, were ways of escape.”

Anthony Bourdain’s abrupt recent departure from this world had me going back through the lists of books he had written about or mentioned in interviews that had a profound influence on him. Ways of Escape, the autobiography by Graham Greene, was one he held in particularly high regard. It was one of those books that Anthony would read and read again. In the past, I’ve rarely taken the time to reread books because there were always hundreds of books I had not yet experienced. I have always surged forward looking with glimmering eyes for that next great book.

My travel writing friend Edward told me a few years ago, shortly before his death, that I would reach a point in my life where all I will want to read is all the great books I’d enjoyed before. I had told him that made sense, but I didn’t really believe him. I’d always seen myself as the mountain climber of readers who was scaling the spines of new books to reach another higher, tome covered peak. Discovering a forgotten book has been for me as exciting as it would be for others to find a lost goldmine.

Now that I am older and staring down the barrel of a more uncertain future, I do find myself reaching into the past occasionally to pull a gossamer wrapped book from the shelf. I can’t read books with twenty something eyes anymore, but now, with my hopefully older and wiser eyes, I can experience a book at higher levels of altitude and bring a pleasure from the past to feast on once again in the present.

So I read this book with a dual pair of eyes, mine and Bourdain's. At times it felt like I had three pairs of eyes, as sporadically I could also feel Greene in my head gazing outward upon himself.

“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in the human situation. Auden noted: ‘Man must escape as he needs food and deep sleep.’”

Certainly Bourdain worked through some demons in the same way as Greene, not only with bouts of writing, which is a way of exploring thoughts more deeply to be able to explain them to others, but also through a shared passion for travel. Not just travel either, but at times dangerous travel. ”I hadn’t the courage for suicide, but it became a habit with me to visit troubled places, not to seek material for novels but to regain the sense of insecurity which I had enjoyed in the three blitzes in London…”That was only the beginning. He went to Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion. He went to Vietnam numerous times. He went to a leper colony in the Belgian Congo. He went to Malaya during the Emergency. The list goes on and on. He also, through his sometimes too honest writing, irritated dictators who banned him from traveling to their country. He even, because of a brief flirtation with communism in his youth, was banned from the United States until John F. Kennedy became president.

Some could say that Greene was seeking a justifiable suicide. Death might come at the hands of another, but he placed his body in front of the sword. Bourdain traveled 250 some days a year. Did he have to travel that much? Certainly not. A person with his star power could negotiate a better schedule. Did his “way of escape” become a race to escape his demons only to find them waiting for him at every stop? He certainly put his life in danger with some of the places he visited for his show. Some of the stunts were completely unnecessary because really those of us who chose to spend time with him really just wanted him to share his thoughts and experiences with no need for placing himself in peril.

Greene visited Israel shortly after the Six Day War only to find that the six days had been stretched to more as he found himself face down in the sand with mortar rounds cascading around him. He discovered among some burned out tanks a homemade Israeli statue with an inscription in Hebrew. ”We looked Death in the face, and Death lowered his eyes.” *Shiver* After reading that inscription, I can better understand how it must have felt to be a young Israeli soldier looking out across the plain at what must have seemed like the whole Arab nation coming to kill him. With the sea at your back, there is only one option.

Greene spent several pages talking about his friend Evelyn Waugh. He was always surprised to discover that Waugh inspired such vitriol in those who knew him. That wasn’t the Waugh he knew. There was one description of his friend that really resonated with me. ”Perhaps romanticism was a weak point in Evelyn's life and work, and in the end it helped to kill him. He had too great expectations: too great expectations of his fellow creatures, and too great expectations even of his Church. I think the old expression ‘a broken heart’ comes near to the truth.”

I couldn’t help thinking, in the days after Anthony killed himself, that we fellow human beings had failed him. I’m sure he could feel the world slipping backwards. We have leaders who rule by manipulating fears instead of with compassion and wisdom. We have large populations who choose to see our differences rather than what we have in common. We have the great crises of our times involving economics, health care, and the environment, which are ignored or exploited for political gain. Individual stress levels have skyrocketed, from those in the penthouse down to the people under a tin roof rusted. In my opinion, the strain of just living for too many people is becoming perilously too difficult.

Greene spent some time discussing each of his novels, explaining where they came from, what inspired them, and what it is like living with these characters, some of whom he didn’t like very much, for sometimes years. He also struggled with the label of a “Catholic” writer, which he never sought to be. I thought it was interesting that he used Kim Philby, then living in Russia, as one of his manuscript readers. Philby was smart, as we all know, but not too smart to elude discovery as one of the British Secret Service’s most embarrassing traitors. Greene had worked for them, as well, during the war, and even long after his service had “ended,” if he was going to a place of interest, they would still tap him on the shoulder and say,...well, old boy, while you’re there, could you do a little something for us?

Graham had other ways of escape, and Anthony had his own struggles, too, with the search for oblivion through narcotics. ”I could smell the opium as I came up the stairs. It was like the first sight of a beautiful woman with whom one realises that a relationship is possible: somebody whose memory will not be dimmed by a night’s sleep.”

It makes perfect sense that Anthony Bourdain read this book numerous times searching, in my opinion, for understanding rather than answers. Greene managed to keep the demons at bay, but unfortunately, they caught up with Bourdain, despite the brisk travel schedule that whisked him from one continent to another.

There was one last place that Tony hadn’t been.

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[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 4 out of 5]

The classically bipolar nature that was Greene's cast of mind when he wrote this is, alas, a Way of Escape. For it rejects the norm.

If you choose non-resistance of the normal, though, like me, you're choosing outright dismissal by fellow victims. Greene, on the other hand, like most trapped Aspies chose the way of self-mockery (he calls my kind of stoicism toffish).

So this book always seems so tediously interminable to me. It goes nowhere but is consistently self-critical. So my own ways of escape in old age - with four walls that close in constantly - are tenuously ephemeral.
***
All good people criticize their actions now and then though none make a habit of it, as with the conflicted Victor Hugo - sane self-love bloomed eternal for him, and assuaged his anguish.

When I first read Ways of Escape in the summer of 1970 at the cottage of my parents' friends, it had seemed so with-it and sophisticated. Yet sophistication is a very thin veneer. Life can be pretty dreary in reality.

So like Greene, I only wanted to escape.

For both of us, our mania gave us an escape from reality. Bipolar Disorder offers its marks all the escapist zaniness of a rollercoaster ride. But 25 consecutive years of neuroleptics have dulled me. I see life as ordinary now, a satisfying circle.

I know now, as Greene later knew, that the Void glared beneath the fraud we hid.

The fraud for me was wanting to say, or do something crazy - to avoid the pain I hid. And Greene's outre sophistication remained a disingenuous shield for him, as his Faith reminded him interminably. It too was fraudulent.

When he woke up to his lies completely, his prevaricating segues ceased.

He made friends with The (Empty) Man Within!

And like me, he discovered the wonderful Intellectual Love of God. It was, at last, a Liberation!

And we both contritely removed our facades. Peace ensued.

That, you see, was the coup de Grace for our bipolar condition. That love in turn gave the peace of insight. Deep peace, like in Heaven.

(And, oh that magic feeling: nowhere to go! as Abbey Road has it.)

But, you know, writing this book was still at the time he wrote it only one colossal Way of Escape for Greene. A facade that could never pay substantial dividends at the end of the day.

Thank heaven that changed with the late novels like Monsignor Quixote and The Honorary Consul!

Greene there, at last, drops into a deep space - in an awakening "half-opening piece of lace," as Mallarme sings - of honest, soberly repentant insomnia, as the emptiness within comes full circle. What we call emptiness is just the sharpness of Judgement upon us.

It has to be borne and absorbed by us all: it is the Path of Peace.

We can now learn to bear the brunt of the world's view of us stoically, and with peace -

And marry that emptiness with its true spouse, Love.
***
Make no mistake, though - Ways of Escape remains a Rollicking, Wonderfully Entertaining Good Read!

Every time I pick it up I see a quicksilver bipolar brain randomly leaping brain nerve synapses, and having a whale of a hearty Aspie chuckle over just how goshdarned colourful his life has been!

Been there. Done that.

Oh, well.

Say, did Greene EVER take his meds while writing? Just asking.
***
The late works of Graham Greene thus became Grace-filled antidotes for his endless conflictually colourful perturbations. They are the words of a true Believer who confesses all to a good confessor. They helped heal him.

But Ways of Escape is temporally anterior to that and only grandstands its duality.

It avoids - rather than befriends - the Void of the personal fraud our bipolar meds exposes to the world, but not at first to us.

(That exposure can nowadays be somewhat mollified by more sophisticated meds, though even they have to cut us to the quick to work.)

But even so, facing judgement intermitently - as real Christian philosophers, not cynics - we GROW.

Past the facades.

And then, past our Dread.

Thomas Wolfe said we can't go home again.

He was wrong.

We can, you see, open up again into our first world - into the extraordinarily bright, clear blue ordinary sky of openness and intellect.

That opening may be anathema to some dark cynics, but let's face the facts:

In order to truly grow as human beings -

We must mark every Way of Escape No Exit -

Until we finish our long forced march into Zion:

Far beyond the raucous clamor of sin -

To that final peace past all understanding.

[Michael Perkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.” GG

In David Cornwell's view, the former MI6 officer who writes as John le Carré, intelligence work appeals to writers as it is close to their own process, and they find it has a lasting hold on them:

". . . watchfulness, the secrecy of your perceptions – you keep them to yourself – and the sense of alienation, of being an observer within society rather than a member of it. And I think that was very much in Graham Greene. There are people, I count myself among them, who are writers first and everything else second, who go through these strange corridors of the secret world and find an affinity with them and it never leaves them. There’s a kind of inside-out thinking that never leaves you. It has to do with the manipulation of people, and with self-examination – so if I am constantly wondering what will procure you as my friend, my informant: what do you eat? What are your appetites? How can I get hold of you? – then by the same token I am asking the same questions of myself: what will I actually fall for? I think it invests you, while you are in this mode, with a superior power which is thoroughly unhealthy. And I don’t think Graham Greene ever shook it off. Even when he was being oppositional, he imagined he was changing world history."

His writing habit.....

https://www.williamlanday.com/2009/07...

More...

http://greeneland.tripod.com/writing.htm

[Zoeb · Rating 5 out of 5]

How wonderfully light an autobiography does an autobiography by the one and only Graham Greene feel, indeed. While “A Sort Of Life” was a slim, stirring and utterly exquisite memoir of the writer as a child, boy and young man in the most succinct and mesmeric fashion, this book was considerably more crammed with travel, political intrigue, espionage, religious and moral conundrums, revolutions and conflicts and even friendships and encounters that influenced and inspired his novels and stories. However, such an intuitive storyteller was Greene that these two-hundred and thirty seven pages turn out to be an extremely exhilarating delight to read and rediscover again. Yes, a delight for no matter how dark or grim the world explored in this book might seem, in the hands of a master storyteller, it can be rendered in the most compelling ways to grip the reader’s attention and interest like a vice. And we all know that Greene could never err in that regard.

By some stroke of miracle, it was precisely four years ago when I had first finished reading this book for the first time and the passage of time has done its work all too well in reiterating my growing and heartfelt affection and admiration for the author that has only matured like old wine over these years. When I first finished reading “Ways Of Escape” back in the blissful February of 2019, my feeling was primarily of exhilaration – this was the man, the intrepid, almost swashbuckling author of “The Quiet American” who shuttled from the opium-houses of Saigon to the same up in Laos in search for the most fragrant strain, the screenwriter of “The Third Man” who had prowled along with the underground police in the sweet-smelling sewers of Vienna, the anguished writer of “The Comedians” who got Papa Doc on the raw. This time, he was all these things but it also felt as if one was reading the confessional or confidential reminiscences of a man, less cocksure and more of a wise yet vulnerable veteran of the world, fondly regaling his readers with stories that are fragrant with the most wonderful and poignant perfume of humanism. After having read all his works and almost lived with him (for Greene, through his words, had been the best of my companions through many a dark day), one sees for the first time a human being, almost akin to a second guardian in these pages – the young thriller writer whose hands tremble and whose nerve are stretched due to the Benzedrine diet that he takes to complete a novel, the disillusioned spy in West Africa who grows to love the strange land when the sun sets at a hour every day, the objective journalist abroad in Indo China who is entranced by its charms, the hedonist in Havana who is tugged into a cause and the disciplined novelist finding an escape of sorts in the collaboration of a play or in the brisk economy of the short story.

Nor does this deep sense of human resonance confine itself to his frank, candid and self-depreciating self-assessment. As Maria Aurora Couto once observed, the human factor of the title of one of his novels was never beyond Greene’s grasp and “Ways Of Escape” can be savoured and enjoyed even as a revealing and accessible summary of all the dilemmas, moral and political, that plagued the modern world in the wake of the two world wars and under the shadow of the Cold War as well. He never just explored these far-off lands to simply find exotic landscapes for his novels. Rather, even in his briefest travels, he could always probe and disinter the conundrums that lingered over each war zone or field of revolution that caught his fancy. The book is rich with dazzling and skilfully observed vignettes – the atmosphere of destruction and disorientation during those nights of the Blitz, the despair and violence of the Emergency in Malaya with a glimpse at both the nervous paranoia of a planter and the romantic idealism that lay behind the anarchy of the Communists, the danger of shifting loyalties of race and tribe in the Mau Mau rebellion or the inexorable routine of cease-fire violations across the Suez Canal. Greene’s objectivity has been mistook by his detractors for cynicism but it is instead a sense of neutrality, a feeling of empathy that marks his stance and the same capacity for understanding compels him to render many simple and moving scenes of description, such as the Spartan efficiency of the Ghurkha patrols in the jungles of Malaya or the Israeli soldiers on the other side of the Canal watching Egyptian television with bad reception in boredom.

In the fine tradition of Conrad, Haggard, Stevenson and even Doyle and Maugham, Greene was always fascinated by the allure of these faraway lands and their own reserve of danger. Yet while all these noble writers were, to an extent, enchanted and even compelled to map their boundaries, Greene always balanced his boyish curiosity with a keen understanding of the grime and grit of these lands. In that way, he can almost be considered as the Kipling of the post-war generation, except that even a skilled storyteller like Kipling was in a sense an idealist while Greene, with true honesty, always sought to question that idealism, without however Orwell’s single-minded deconstruction of those ideals. Unlike him, Greene always found his most compelling arguments birthed from doubt and ambivalence, a greyness instead of a Manichean division of extremes.

In an interview with Greene (the text of which was shared by a very good friend of mine), Martin Amis remarked, rather narrowly, that Greene’s work always carried a spirit of adolescence. What Amis mistakes for adolescence is instead an affection for humanity driven by an astute awareness of its failings, a passionate belief stemming from doubt. “Ways of Escape” is indeed as much a wonderful chronicle of the art of writing as of travelling – the two greatest escapes in Greene’s life ambushed by disillusionment and depression – but above all. it also sees Greene as the paradoxical yet wholly admirable man he was – the stranger suspected by the French of spying, the fugitive pursued by stupid Americans for being a Communist for nine weeks in his youth, the hesitant rebel caught up in Santiago and the quixotic Englishman who ended up teaching the Paraguayans about Fidel Castro and contraceptives. And as that hilarious and suspenseful epilogue proves, a man haunted by his namesake. What a man, indeed.

[Smiley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first knew Graham Greene by means of an extract of some paragraphs taken from his “The Power and the Glory” assigned to study as part of an English literature course in my college years (Year 3) nearly half a century ago (it's a pity the extract has long disappeared with no trace; however, I'd try asking some of my classmates for its information or xeroxed copy. In the meantime, I vaguely recall reading a scene depicting the protagonist who, on the run, sits somewhere and watches a swarm of flies on the floor). Really, Reading his passage has still haunted me whenever I recall my first encounter with one of the internationally-acclaimed novelists then. One of the reasons, I think, was that I had never read him before so I decided to have a plan to acquire a bit of acquaintance or familiarity by collecting his Penguin paperbacks and starting reading some of his accessible novels or short stories. I sometime reflect on his writing style that looks seemingly descriptive, brisk, dialogical, etc. like Hemingway’s but that is something in disguise or easier said than done because his is definitely deeper than that.

Since a few years ago I had had this copy of “Ways of Escape” and traded it in at the Dasa BookCafe in Bangkok (It's my misunderstanding, in fact, last Thursday on August 17 th I found it kept in a large box at home); I could not find any motive to keep on reading it, I thought it was not interesting as compared to his “A Sort of Life”. Early last month I got an idea to resume reading his espionage novels and compare him to John le Carre, one of my favorites since the year I was thrilled from reading his “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold”. So I visited Books Kinokuniya, Siam Paragon Branch in Bangkok and bought this one and “The Confidential Agent”. Moreover, I found reading his biography in Wikipedia informative (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_...), for instance, reading “The Power and the Glory” was incredibly difficult when I had no idea, background, understanding, etc. on Catholicism as portrayed in this novel. Therefore, I have resolved to read another genre, that is, his spy fiction backed up by his memoir.

Reading this amazing autobiography will guide those Greene newcomers to see more light on his tough writing career as well as innumerable backgrounds related to each novel in which, I think, we are delighted to find out, know more details and thus find reading his novels in any genre interesting to us more enjoyable and worthwhile. However, I cannot help wondering on the meaning of the title, that is, what are the “Ways”? So these three excerpts are for the newcomers as Greene enthusiasts:

The strain of writing a novel, which keeps the author confined for a period of years with his depressive self, is extreme, and I have always sought relief in entertainments – melodrama and farce are both expressions of a manic mood. So with my third play, The Complaisant Lover, I sought my usual escape – only to find as I reached the final curtain . . . (p. 202)

And so the short story for the novelist is often yet another form of escape – escape from having to live with a character for years on end, . . . (p. 235)

My stories therefore can be regarded as a collection of escapes from the novelist’s world – even, if you like, of escapades, and I can reread them more easily because they do not drag a whole lifetime in their wake. (p. 235)

In essence, I think reading this book should be consolingly rewarding to not only his readers but also to some fledgling writers since they may use and apply what they've read including his other works in their prospective writings as the genesis of their own output. In other words, we can learn a lot from Graham Greene's miraculous pencraft, one of the great novelists in the 20th century.

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

The view of an outsider at a revolution is an odd and slanting one, rather lie a pretentious camera angle; he may sometimes even be unaware that anything is happening around him at all.

A most curious color of memoir, Ways of Escape plumbs and exposes Greene and his project. For myself I recall buying The Quiet American in New Orleans. It was a statement. Alongside viewing Man For All Seasons at party, this was a time when I finally decided how I wanted to live. I was not going to suffer fools, if that's what being normal promoted. Greene regards similar impulses here. His antidote was often travel and prostitutes. His coverage of events in Malaysia, Indochina and Haiti is simply astonishing, especially if one is wary of "the dangerous third martini." Plenty of spoilers concerning his work.

[Shane · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in the human situation.” - quoted towards the end of the book, but a theme that reverberates throughout. Greene not only wrote to escape, he escaped to places far beyond the safe reaches of his British Empire to tempt death and assuage his manic depressive impulses.

Unlike his previous autobiography, A Sort of Life, this book begins with the writing of his first published novel, The Man Within, and takes us through the circumstances that led to and resulted from him writing each subsequent piece in his large and diverse oeuvre. He was a typical journeyman writer in his early days, working on an “entertainment” and a serious novel at the same time, constantly in debt to his publisher, writing 500 words a day (or 2000 when he was on Benzedrine while writing The Confidential Agent and The Power and the Glory simultaneously). He claims six weeks of Benzedrine killed his marriage, but his itinerant and solitary lifestyle and brothel-child proclivity did not leave much room for family. Later, in Indo-China while writing The Quiet American, he graduated to opium.

Greene is critical of his writing: he admits to a terrible misuse of simile and metaphor, to an excess of adjectives and explanations of motives. He preferred the novel to the short story: the former allowed him to roam not knowing which plot twist or new character was around the corner. Although not considered an intellectual, his insights into human nature and the art of writing abound: “True glory is private and discreet and fully realized in solitariness,” “To an Englishman war is like passion, to a Frenchman war is like adultery,” “Love isn’t safe when pity is prowling around,” “To a novelist, his novel is his only responsibility.”

Greene never saw combat, being born too young for WWI and too old for WWII, but he served in the British Secret Service (I suspect for his entire life, hence his access to various hot-spots and colourful political personages) during the 1940’s. His solitary world became a shadowy world too; among his colleagues numbered double agent Kim Philby who critiqued Greene’s novel The Human Factor while hiding out in Russia. The 1950’s saw Greene as a travelling journalist, landing in international conflagration points: Cuba, Paraguay, Mexico, the Philippines, West Africa, the Belgian Congo, Panama, Haiti, Vietnam, Israel, Kenya among others. Much like his fascination with Russian Roulette during his teen years, he exposed himself to situations where death could come randomly, but like the miracle portrayed in his classic The End of the Affair, God seems to have saved him for a higher purpose, that of revealing his learning to us in gripping novels coming out of those experiences. Not all places produced novels: the Philippines and Kenya did not; “A writer doesn’t choose his subject, it chooses him.”

He pushed the envelope in his writing: J.B Priestley sued Greene for the character, Savory, in Orient Express who was apparently modeled on him; Twentieth Century Fox sued Greene for a derogatory comment made about child-star Shirley Temple in a film review; Paraguayan dictator Stroessner didn’t like him, although Greene travelled in that country and set Travels with My Aunt and The Honorary Counsel there; the Americans declared him persona non-grata for having joined the Communist party during his youth.

A Burnt Out Case was to be his last novel (ironically it was the first Greene novel I read before applying immediately for permanent residence in Greeneland) for he was truly burnt out from his travels at the time. But like all consummate writers who need to write to breathe, he went onto produce more books, some even after this autobiography was written.

In typical Greene fashion, he ends the book discussing the Other: a person who impersonates Graham Greene and usurps his glory. There are many Other sightings and transgressions that Greene is held responsible for. Greene even begins to believe that he is the Other and leaves us with the question: Who is the real Graham Greene? I doubt anyone really knows.

[BrokenTune · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

I miss reading Greene. I miss discovering his stories for the first time. He's still one of my favourite authors - not because I loved all of his books without fail and without criticism, but because his writing has a quality to it that is just beautiful while still being totally on point.

So, when I picked up Ways of Escape, I hoped to reconnect with that wonder of entering Greeneland, a term Greene used himself (as I found out in this book).

To some extent this was successful. Ways of Escape is one of Greene's autobiographical books (there are several volumes) in which he explores, in parts, his biography, and in parts his own works.

While the biographical background was interesting (his travel experiences were fascinating, his deliberations about Catholicism not so much), his analysis of his own works largely left me wishing I hadn't read them. This isn't because they were disappointing - they weren't! But when the magician discloses the workings of his tricks, some of the magic gets lost.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This wonderful book is a witty, incisive and graceful memoir. It functions as a sort of book-by-book autobiography; he tells you what was happening in his life at the time, what motivated him to write it, his themes and motivations and intentions for each book, and whether he thought he was successful. Incisively useful information on how to put a story together, character development, dialogue, description, action, and setting, a sort of how-to primer for writers.

Reading this book was very much like a long night of drinking with a sharp, funny friend, one who has done everything and been everywhere. His wit, his intelligence and his compassion blaze across every page. I never wanted it to end.

[F.E. Beyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 'Ways of Escape,' Greene reflects on the merits of his various novels. He says it took him until his sixth attempt to produce a good one. He wrote two unpublished novels before his debut 'The Man Within.' Then came two novels he later repudiated, and finally the successful 'Stamboul Train.' He suggests he reached his peak after forty years of writing with 'The Honorary Consul.' I agree, although not many think this his masterpiece.

Greene details his Malayan Emergency experiences with British planters in a state of siege, waiting for Chinese communists hiding in the jungle to attack. He also reported on the Maomao rebellion in Kenya. Neither of these two interesting journalistic assignments led to a novel.

A worthwhile read for Greene fans.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laughed out loud to the last sentence in this book. This man had a wicked sense of humour. I really enjoyed finding out the background to many of his famous novels. I see a few more rereads in the future of his novels.

Interesting to read about his friendship with Evelyn Waugh. His experiences during the Blitz, being based in West Africa as a military intelligence officer and his travels in Austria, Cuba, Africa, South America as well as his near misses. Vietnam in the fifties sounded exciting and how he got his ideas simply fascinating.

He also enjoyed his whisky and more than the occasional opium pipe!

[Noah · Rating 4 out of 5]

1. Ein seriöses Buch, dass auf dem Cover tatsächlich mit einer Buchbesprechung des Playboy wirbt. Wie viele Welten liegen zwischen der heutigen Zeit und dem Jahr 1981 als diese Ausgabe gedruckt wurde?

2. Ich habe keine der Romane von Graham Greene gelesen. Ich habe das auch nicht vor. Mich interessieren Thriller und Spionageromane als Genre eigentlich gar nicht aber mich interessiert die Person Graham Greene. Auf allen erdenklichen Reisen über all die Jahre fand ich im Reiseführer stets den Hinweis, Graham Greene sei schon dagewesen, habe dies oder jenes geschrieben und hier oder dort gegessen und getrunken. Zwar benutzt Graham Greene seine Romane als Aufhänger oder Gliederung aber man kann dieser eingängig geschriebenen und lesenswerten Biographie gut folgen, ohne sich für seine Romane zu interessieren, da er vor allen Dingen ab etwa 50 Seiten immer mehr auf sein recht abenteuerliches Leben und Reisen, insbesondere die Erlebnisse als Kriegsberichterstatter beschreibt. Nie habe ich so charmant jemanden über seine Drogensucht schreiben sehen. Insgesamt nichts, was man gelesen haben muss aber etwas Interessantes, leicht Zugängliches und Vergnügliches in einer reisearmen Zeit.

[Hoda هدى · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had Ways of Escape for sometime on my shelves. I really wasn't planning on reading it anytime soon. And since I like reading Graham Greene very much (He's my favourite author), I planned on reading other books by him first, and I even forgot I had this one.
Anyway, this year I started my preliminary MA in English literature and one of the courses which I had the freedom to choose, was Non-fictional prose. My professor loves Autobiography, so it was what we started studying. She asked us to choose an autobiography and after reading it, we can write a Reading of it. Graham Greene never crossed my mind, I didn't even know that he wrote an autobiography (Shame on me really). To make a long story short, I searched, I found A Sort of Life, couldn't get it, I found somewhere (I can't remember where) that Ways of Escape is the second part of his autobiography, I felt like I heard or saw that title before, my mind flashed, got up and there it was among his other beautiful books.
When I told my professor about him, she gawked at me, then said: "Oh my God, your favourite author?! why honey? you're so young and he's so old and complicated." It was my turn to gawk. I told her that no he's not complicated at all, he's a beautiful writer and I enjoy him so much. And I did enjoy this book.
I loved his many travels and his writing about his favourite works and what gave him the idea of writing such and such and the repeating idea of 'escape'. Escaping from the miseries of his world and of his personal life to writing. There is this part towards the end in which he says: "I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in the human situation." And he is right in every word. His time was full of wars and disruptions. The world was in turmoil and so was the human sense of psychological well-being. I agree with Mr. Greene, because I find my escape in reading. I honestly cannot think of my life without it.
One more thing I really like about him is his sense of humour. I don't know if anyone feels it or agrees with me that he has it, but when I read any work by him, I feel that there is a hidden comedy between the words. Even in Ways of Escape, some parts had me laugh heartily. But, among his books, the one that had me laugh so many times has been Travels with my Aunt. It was hilarious. You know, he's that kind of person who makes you laugh without intending to, or maybe he did, who knows? :)

[Seamus Mcduff · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Vintage Classics copy (from the library) states on the jacket: 'Inspiring... provides the best possible introduction to the novels but also the portrait of a dedicated artist' - Observer

This pretty much sums up my reaction. Reading this definitely makes me want to read many more of Mr Greene's books, whether novels, short stories, non-fiction, plays. I think an even stronger reaction is to the details of his life itself. His was an enviable life for a novelist; he lived in and visited many interesting, exotic - and dangerous places. I'm extremely jealous. To be able to say that you'd been a Secret Service agent in East Africa in World War II or an opium addict in Hanoi during the French Indochina war... not many individuals these days have such solid street cred in terms of leading the artistic life.

You pretty much get a sense though that as a husband and family man Greene was a hopeless case. He paid a high price for his lifestyle - or somebody did. The mistresses and harlots are seemingly without number, in each country he seems to be checking out the brothels for the local 'ambiance'.

But this is a valuable glimpse into the artistic processes and struggles of a very successful writer. Hopefully I can take away something from it - either to be inspired, encouraged or comforted when things don't seem to be coming together.

[João · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gosto de ler sobre autores e sobre livros, e quando é um autor que escreve sobre os seus livros, ainda para mais com a mestria com que Greene o faz, o prazer é ainda maior. Menos interessantes são as transcrições diarísticas dos tempos de Hanói e outros, que, de alguma forma, parecem deslocadas e incoerentes.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Graham Greene reminisces on his career as a writer. He began with journalism and was employed at "The Times" as a sub-editor which offered a stable income and employment. He admits that his first few novels were not particularly successful and discusses the problems that writers face such as finance, rejection of manuscripts, depression (and in his case manic depression) and success. Income was always a problem. Much later, he diversified into film reviews for British publications and then became involved with writing film scripts. Because I have only read one of Graham Greene's novels there are many references he makes that I have absolutely no knowledge of. He certainly travelled to extraordinary theatres of war, revolutionary environments and met many leaders of those countries and when he writes of those experiences it is very interesting, particularly his time in Asia in the 1950's where he seemed to indulge in and very much enjoy smoking opium. However I haven't really enjoyed this introspection by Graham Greene as I found parts of the book rather dry, but I am sure those who have read much more of his writings will gain something extra from the insight he provides.

[Parvathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Quiet American is one of my favourite novels of all time. But while I have read some of his other novels (Stamboul Train, The End of The Affair, The Heart of the Matter), I am no expert on Greene. Ways of Escape seemed like an interesting memoir of an interesting life. It is. Greene has travelled extensively, and more importantly, to places where the political situation has been volatile. So the book reads like reportage from some of the most dangerous areas in the world - Malaya during the communist insurgency against the British, Vietnam when the French were getting out, Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion, Cuba during the last days of Batista, Haiti during Papa Doc and so on and so forth. What differentiates it from reportage though is Greene relating each of these situations to his books, identifying real life characters and settings to those he creates in his books. It's fun for a while, especially with the books you are familiar with. But for the rest, it becomes a bit of a drag, as he goes on about people and plot lines you have no idea about. It's still a decently engaging book. But honestly, this one is meant for a more die-hard Greene fan than me.

[Jonathan Corfe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably more of an indulgent read for me rather than for the pursuit of scholarship. I had a bit of a lumpy start with Graham Greene's writing last year but this one is a compelling read as it is autobiographical; secret service work in Sierra Leone during WWII, hoovering up opium in French Indo-China, cocaine in Cuba and being inadvertently present during revolutions in Latvia, Czechoslovakia as well as pissing off dictators in Haiti and Paraguay. This book also covers how he went about his writing and his relationships with some of the truly great writers of his day.
I was sorry to end this book and could have happily gone on reading.

[Lee Kofman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a bumpy read. There were many joyful, hilarious, profound pages and there was also much boredom in between. It’s an ambitious endeavor to combine a memoir of a writing life with a travel memoir. It’s true that in Greene’s life these two aspects are inseparable, but he actually kinda wrote them relatively separately and that felt artificial. The book could definitely do better without such passages as lengthy quotations from his ‘Blitz diary’, but then his very fair account of the aftermath of the war between Israel and Egypt was excellent. I just wish the integration of the creative and the adventurous was at once smoother and more reflective on the marriage between the two. Having said this, I’m glad to have read this book. There is a wise, rich, very independent-thinking consciousness behind it.

[Ziggy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ways of Escape is a book that Anthony Bourdain said he read many times and kept coming back to. This recommendation, plus having just finished reading The Quiet American, compelled me to read it.

In Ways of Escape, Graham puts some of his novels, short stories, films, and plays into context. For Graham Greene fans, this book is a chance to see the world through the mind of a great writer.

Reflecting on his life, Graham concludes that he has always been trying to escape reality (i.e. responsibility). For Graham, writing is everything: “It is for the sake of creation that one lives…”

“I can see now that my travels, as much as the act of writing, were ways of escape.”

“I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in the human situation. Auden noted: “Man needs escape as he needs food and deep sleep.””

Graham writes of his experiences surrounding his first novels and how he can barely stomach reading them now. A good lesson for aspiring writers: even exceptional authors wrestle with doubts and insecurities, and are ashamed of their earlier efforts. The goal is to get better. You have to start somewhere. And your beginnings will probably be crappy, even if they were published and successful. “I can only wonder why the book was accepted for publication.”

“What do I find when I painfully reread the novel (his own book: Rumor at Nightfall) today?…All is vague, shadowy, out of focus—there are no clear images, but the same extravagant similes and metaphors…There are far too many adjectives and too much explanation of motive, no trust in the reader’s understanding, and overlong description…The dialogue is ambiguous and dialogue in a novel as in a play should be a form of action, with the quickness of action.”

After a bit of success on his first novel, then two subsequent failures, he was in the dumps. But a mysterious Norwegian poet, Nordahl Grieg, entered his life. What was it about Nordahl that was so inspiring? Nordahl was a traveler, adventurer; he seemed to be everywhere all at once. He renewed Graham’s childlike sense of possibility, adventure, fun. “Any plan seemed possible for a few hours after I had read one of Nordahl’s letters.”

Graham represents most of us: he was too tied down, in reality and his imagination, to accept one of Nordahl’s spontaneous invitations to travel. After remembering how Nordahl once invited him to a ski hut near Oslo in the forest: “How I wish I had borrowed, begged or stolen the necessary funds and replied to at least one of those messages—“I arrive on Saturday.””

Nordahl was good company:
“There were always too many other things for Nordahl to talk about.”
With him there were always arguments but never a trace of anger. He always had goodwill and an open mind. “He not only had goodwill himself, but he admitted it in his opponent—he more than admitted it, he assumed it. In fact he had charity, and to me he certainly brought a measure of hope.”

Writers invent their world. Graham often wrote of places he had never seen. Of his novel set in Sweden: “I am amazed now at my temerity in laying the scene of a novel in a city of which I knew so little.”

On his friendship with Herbert Read. “A friendship can be a way of escape, just as much as writing or travel, from the everyday routine, the sense of failure, the fear of the future.”

“We were a generation brought up on adventure stories who had missed the enormous disillusionment of the First World War, so we went looking for adventure…I used to spend Saturday nights looking for an air raid, with little though that in a few months I should have my fill of them in London day and night.”

Graham loved watching movies and writing about them. We cannot plan for the future as it is always changing. The most wonderful things in our lives comes as complete surprises: “The idea of reviewing films came to me at a cocktail party after the dangerous third martini.” After the Spectator’s editor accepted Graham’s proposal, which he expected to be rejected: “I thought that in the unlikely event of his accepting my offer it might be fun for two and three weeks. I never imagined it would remain fun for four and a half years and only end in a different world, a world at war.

As Graham describes his constant writing and lonely travels, I can’t help but wonder what his relationship was like to his wife and kid(s).

“So it is that the material of a novel accumulates, without the author’s knowledge, not always easily, not always without fatigue or pain or even fear.”

“In 1938…trenches were being dug on London Commons, when our children were evacuated carrying gas masks in little cardboard containers to strange homes in the country” In school we learn of battles and bombings but not what it actual experience was like.

“To create a proper atmosphere for work, free from telephone calls and the cries of children, I took a studio in Mecklenburg Square.” How nice I think as my baby starts to cry in his bassinet. How many spouses today would put up this? Well, we get an answer a few pages later…”Sometimes looking back I think that those Benzedrine weeks were more responsible than the separation of war and my own infidelities for breaking our marriage.”

Writing was the only thing that engaged him. “What I was engaged in through those war years was not genuine action—it was an escape from reality and responsibility. To a novelist his novel is the only reality and responsibility.”

Like any pursuit that requires intense concentration, writing requires stability and minimal distraction. Unfortunately for Greene: “Work was not made easier because the booby traps I had heedlessly planted in my private life were blowing up in turn. I had always thought that war would bring death as a solution…but here I was alive, the carrier of unhappiness to people I loved…” He even contemplated suicide. I heard somewhere that he played russian roulette (update: he mentions it in this book, too).

“A novelist often makes a bad husband or an unstable lover.” No shit. Though I love novels, nothing of what Graham says in this book would inspire me to want to write one.

Writing, like life, comes down to decisions. “I couldn’t for months get the character Wilson off his balcony…To get him off the balcony meant making a decision. Two very different novels began on the same balcony with the same character, and I had to choose which one to write.”

The good writer is never satisfied. “It was to prove a book more popular with the public, even with the critics, than with the author. The scales seem too heavily weighted, the plot overloaded, the religious scruples of Scobie too extreme.” The meaning the reader finds in the novel is not what the author intended: “I had meant the story of Scobie to enlarge a theme…the disastrous effect on human beings of pity as distinct from compassion…The character of Scobie was intended to show that pity can be the expression of an almost monstrous pride.”

“Sometimes one wonders why one bothers to travel, to come eight thousand miles to find only _____ at the end of the road…Places in history, one learns, are not so important.”

When asked to write on a decisive battle of his choice, Dien Bien Phu came immediately to his mind. The battle occurred in 1954, and Graham wrote, “The battle marked virtually any hope the Western Powers might have entertained that they could dominate the East...That young Americans were still to die in Vietnam only shows that it takes time for the echoes even of a total defeat to encircle the globe.”

Graham publishes his first play in his fifties. But he had been writing plays since he was 16 years old. Great writers write way more than gets published: “my life as a writer is littered with discarded plays, as it is littered with discarded novels.”

He goes to Havana and spends time in the seedier parts of the city. On why he went to Havana: “ I came there for the sake of the Floridita restaurant, for the brothel life, the roulette in every hotel….the Shanghai Theatre, where for one dollar and twenty-five cents one could see a nude cabaret of extreme obscenity with the bluest of blue films in the intervals. Suddenly it struck me that here in this extraordinary city, where every vice was permissible and every trade possible, lay the true background for my comedy.”

At the Shanghai Theatre, Graham sees Superman perform in person and is underwhelmed (as uninspiring as a dutiful husband’s).

He bought cocaine from his taxi driver but it turned out to be boracic powder. When Graham returned to Havana on a later trip, he sought for the taxi driver who swindled him with boracic powder because he “had no desire for a dull and honest man to be [his] daily companion on this long trip.”

“A writer isn’t so powerless as he usually feels, and a pen, as well as a silver bullet, can draw blood.”

“I felt some pride—as I had when Papa Doc so furiously attacked me—that a mere writer could irritate a dictator so irremovable.”

A few of his stories originated from dreams he had. He frequently mentions how the narrative is always working in the subconscious. “The unconscious collaborates in all our work.” If he ran into an insurmountable obstacle, he would read the day’s work and then sleep on it, and the solution was often waiting for him when he woke up—“perhaps it came in a dream which I have forgotten.”

He says somewhere that the adverb and adjective are overused and signs of bad writing. Describing a good novel: “There is almost a complete absence of the beastly adverb—far more damaging to a writer than an adjective.”

When he first began to write short stories, he experienced boredom. Based on everything he’s written so far in this book, his disinterest in the short story isn’t surprising. The short story is too planned and precise for him. “I knew too much about the story before I began to write—and then all the days of work were unrelieved by any surprise.” A novel, on the other hand, is long enough to get lost and find something unexpected.

But later in life he realizes that he was mistaken in his view of the short story: “It was only the surface of the story which I knew as I began to write—the surprises might not be as far reaching as the novel, but they were there all the same. They came in the unexpected shaping of a sentence, in a sudden reflection, in an unforeseen flash of dialogue.”

Graham said that when writing a novel he sometimes began to dream AS the character. “Sometimes identification with a character foes so far that one may dream his dream and not his own.”

He says somewhere that the reader notices the same faults that the writer notices, but unconsciously. Where did he say that? “One can’t underestimate what Trollope calls “the unconscious critical acumen of the reader.” What the novelist notices the reader probably notices too, without knowing it.”

“I know very well from experience that it is only possible for me to base a very minor character on a real person. A real person stands in the way of the imagination.”

He ends the book with a funny story. For years a con artist, pretending to be Graham Greene, circles the globe, living off Graham’s fame. They never met but the real Graham was impressed-“an adventurous spirit indeed.” His doppelgänger is worthy of a character in one of his own novels. I would read that novel.

[Miguel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A primeira obra de cariz autobiográfico que leio, da autoria de um dos meus romancistas favoritos. Trata-se, contudo, de uma autobiografia sui generis: GG vai percorrendo a sua vida tendo como guia os seus livros: as circunstâncias em que foram escritos, o que esteve na sua origem, o processo de escrita. Mas o mais fascinante é que GG nos fala sobre a relação entre os livros e a sua própria vida, o modo como as suas experiências aparecem nos livros, como estes reflectem (resolvem, apaziguam) a sua própria vida. Esta obra de GG dá um sentido muito próprio e intenso à expressão de que todos os livros são autobiográficos.

[Patrick McCoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ways of Escape (1980) is the fascinating second volume of Graham Greene’s autobiography. Since I am a huge fan of Greene’s writing it gives great insight into how he created his novels, stories, plays, and other writings. However, it also gives insight into Greene’s obsession with Catholicism and struggle against depression and ennui, which lead him to travel and write and become a film critic at one stage (which also led to becoming a screen writer). The main theme is that of escape, escaping ennui, escaping one’s self. I also like how Greene incorporated other sources to round out things like his cousin’s journal entry of the trip they took together to Africa in the 30s or a description of a Henry James character that Greene thought summed up the character of his friend and author Evelyn Waugh. I’ve always found his travel writing as interesting as his novels and there’s a lot about his experiences in Africa, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Caribbean-often during times of conflict like the Malaya incident, the Vietnam War, in Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion, and Haiti during the terror years of the Papa Doc government. Greene is one of my favorite writers and he lived a fascinating life and I am sad to say that I’ve read all his major books, so it’ll be bits and pieces and perhaps Norman Sherry’s three volume biography from here on out.

[Aggrey Odera · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd only read "The Power and the Glory" before this and had, without doing any further research, fully bought into the idea of Greene as a "Catholic writer". For that reason I'd always assumed he'd be, well, a prude. I couldn't have been more wrong.

This was an interesting way to write an autobiography. Instead of Greene writing mostly, as many memoirists do, about the linear trajectory of his life, he chooses instead to reflect on the the experience of writing each of his books/screenplays/plays etc. In the process, the happenings of his life obviously emerge.

And what an interesting life it was! Green was everywhere during some of the most historically significant moments of the twentieth century: Liberia and Sierra Leone during the second world war; Vietnam during the battle of Dien Bien Phu; Cambodia and Laos soon after; Cuba right before the revolution; Haiti during the worst times of Papa Doc; Kenya during the height of the Mau Mau emergency; Paraguay with Stroessner on the loose; Mexico during the killing of priests in Tabasco; Malaya during the communist uprising; Israel right after the six day war etc. And though he was depressed for a long time, he also found time to be naughty: so much opium smoked, so many brothels visited. And what interesting close friends he kept: Alexander Korda, Evelyn Waugh, Alberto Cavalcanti.

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having read and enjoyed the prequel to this volume, "A Sort of Life", I came to this one hoping to read more about Greene's professional writing life, the background to each of his novels as well as his personal affairs during these times. While these are naturally touched upon, Greene seems more interested in detailing his extensive travels around the world, and ends up digressing into long and rather tedious passages of African and Korean military history, among other countries.

As a result I found myself skipping through quite a few of these pages, and couldn't help feeling a little short-changed at the end - those like me wanting to know more about Greene the man and writer, rather than Greene the intrepid explorer, would no doubt be better off sticking to the first volume, or maybe trying a more recent biography...

[Erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. It taught me a lot about writing, especially Greene's trick of reading troublesome passages just before he went to bed--and then finding invariably that by morning the problem was solved, thanks to the wonderful ability of the brain to "think" even while we sleep.

[James Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The subject of the book lends perspective one Greene's worldview and how he became the writer that he was.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please see my review of "A Sort of Life".

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to admit to being a little disappointed in this volume – and prescient at the same time. I had been looking forward to it – the follow-up to Greene’s first volume of autobiography, A Sort of Life. I was prescient because I had already read most of the new introductions to Greene’s books which appeared in the Collected Editions. I remember thinking as I read them that someone should pull them all together because each one was excellent in its own way. They would make a pretty good book.
Which explains my disappointment: well more than half of Ways of Escape is exactly what I had hoped for, the collection of the new introductions from his Collected Editions. I got what I asked for.
Greene’s use of the concept of “escaping” is well-known, but escaping from what? He says in the introduction to this volume:” Writing is a form of therapy, sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in the human situation.” So, perhaps his escape was indeed from himself – the inner turmoil which began so early in his life. But, even as he suggests, the escape may be also from boredom, thus the incessant traveling, the search for conflict, excitement.
In any case, especially if you have not read his new introductions to his novels and travel books, this volume will be an excellent companion. The book ends with the amusing incident of Greene’s search for “the other,” an unidentified individual who apparently posed as Graham Greene all over the world. I read it with the strange idea that the poseur really was Greene himself, and that while “escaping,” he was also having us on.

[1.1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written autobiography about a well-lived life.

Absolutely wonderful, funny, wry, and full of really interesting anecdotes and fascinating glimpses into a world long gone. Greene had an adventurous life that spanned some very turbulent eras and troubled places, none of which he was afraid to visit.

”…I couldn’t help smiling when I thought of all the readers who have asked me why I sometimes write thrillers, as thought a writer chooses his subject instead of his subject choosing him. Our whole planet since the war has swung into the fog-belt of melodrama, and, perhaps, if one doesn’t ask questions, one can escape the knowledge of the route we are on.”

He discusses writing quite often but there’s often so much involved, and he discusses poetry, novels, screenwriting, playwriting which reveals a love of the act of writing in some different scenarios for some different audiences and uses. I believe I’m fond of this book, and I believe most people would be if they also read it.

The theme, of course, is escape. In Greene’s case this is often escaping from some distasteful aspect of reality. Writing functioned as his main way of escape, next to or perhaps equal with travel, and fortunately for us, he had both the talent and humility to make the reminiscences very much worth reading.

There’s epistolary exchanges with Evelyn Waugh, discussions with even more illustrious friends, and even of smoking opium. This book is absolutely packed with good quotes, a couple of sharp epigrams, and other witticisms in addition to the priceless stories.

[Emily Suchanek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ways of Escape feels like sitting across from Graham Greene while he explains—almost sheepishly—how much of his life was driven by restlessness. This isn’t a conventional autobiography so much as a map of impulses: why he traveled, why he wrote, why danger and distance felt necessary rather than indulgent. Greene moves between memories of childhood, espionage-adjacent adventures, failed marriages, and the writing of his novels with an offhand intimacy that makes the whole thing feel conversational, even sly. You get the sense that he’s less interested in presenting a tidy life story than in tracing the itch that kept pushing him elsewhere.

What makes the book so absorbing is how self-aware it is without ever becoming confessional in the modern sense. Greene understands his flaws, his contradictions, his appetite for escape, and he treats them with curiosity rather than apology. Writing, travel, faith, and politics all blur into one larger question: how to live with intensity without being consumed by it. The tone is wry, reflective, and quietly generous, full of moments where you feel Greene thinking on the page rather than performing for it. Ways of Escape is the kind of memoir that doesn’t try to impress you—it invites you in, lets you wander, and leaves you with the sense that a creative life is often less about answers than about choosing the right places to run to, and occasionally, the right ones to return from.