Book Review: Graham Greene: The Last Interview

“The theme of human beings [being] lonely without God is a legitimate subject. To want to deal with the theme doesn’t make me a theologian.”

Graham Greene, The Last Interview

Review:

I didn’t want this year to end without reading this much-anticipated book from my bookshelf that somehow kept getting shuffled to the bottom of my priority list. Unfortunately, now that I’ve finally read it, I realize that this wasn’t as spectacular as I’d built it up to be in my mind.

This book is a compilation of some of the final interviews with Graham Greene (who passed away in 1991) with Anthony Burgess, Martin Amis, John Mortimer, and John MacArthur.

To my disappointment, these interviews hardly touched upon Graham Greene’s writing career (with a slight exception to the interview with Anthony Burgess) but rather focused on world politics at the time. Even religion, which is a common theme in Greene’s works, mostly took a backseat. Unless you have a prolific grasp on the events of this time period, you’ll likely be as confused as I was. There was a lot of discussion about Panama, which is not a topic I expected. I’d hoped to gain an insightful look at his career, but finished the book disenchanted and feeling left out of the loop. 

As for the compilation itself, I thought it was done well and was easy to read, which I appreciated. I wish there had been more footnotes included, though.  

Likes & Dislikes:

What I liked:

• Compiled well.

What I didn’t like:

• Not enough context. Footnotes were used sparingly.
• The interview content itself was anti-climactic.

Afterthoughts:

Super disappointed, but I suppose it’s partly on me for not knowing more background on Graham Greene before picking it up.

Where to buy the book: