Book Review: Complete Short Stories by Graham Greene

“You don’t bless what you love…It’s when you want to love and you can’t manage it. You stretch out your hands and you say God forgive me that I can’t love but bless this thing anyway…We have to bless what we hate…It would be better to love, but that’s not always possible.”

Graham Greene, Complete Short Stories

Review:

I saw this in the bookstore shortly after I finished reading The End of the Affair. I was entranced with Graham Greene’s writing. This book has a variety of different stories.

I can’t say I liked a lot of them. Most I found extremely dated, regional, and frankly, boring with no plot or character development even for a short story. The ones I liked I loved intensely. The length of the stories ranges from a few pages to a couple dozen pages.

Despite it not being an all-around five-star read for me, I feel like I came away with a lot of insight and even some inspiration. My favorite stories were The Hint of an Explanation, The Last Word, A Visit to Morin, and An Old Man’s Memory.

Likes & Dislikes:

What I liked:

• Good range of stories.
• The stories with religious themes were fantastic.

What I didn’t like:

• A couple of the stories had be concerned about Graham Greene…
• A lot of these stories had absolutely no substance.

Afterthoughts:

I’m getting the feeling that Graham Greene is going to be a hit or miss author for me, but I am still looking forward to exploring more of his books.

Where to buy the book: