A Gun for Sale: An Entertainment

Mine is clearly a minority opinion, but I think this novel is actually more complex and interesting than many other critics and readers do. I remember first reading it in a college British literature class and finding Greene's juxtaposition of a typical crime novel, the backdrop of international intrigue and the paranoia conspiracy of traitors everywhere, Raven's disfigurement, and what was for me a very moving relationship between Raven and Anne a wonderful and engaging read. I just reread it for a critical study I've been doing and, while I agree there are holes in the plot, I'm not sure they are anymore distracting than the series of coincidences that drive Brighton Rock. I read BR recently also, for the first time, and I see why critics rate it higher--the psycho-sexual pathology of Pinkie, the moral-religious issues of his "Roman" identity, but I have to say I find lonely Raven a more memorable character in many respects.

The assassination of an influential public figure leads to a complicated web of betrayal and murder. As the double-crossed assassin hunts down his former employers, a policeman and his fiancee find themselves on opposite sides of the fray. Graham Greene's writing style is very cinematic here; many passages played out effortlessly in my mind's eye like scenes from a vintage film noir. It almost makes me think that it may have easy for Carol Reed to direct the classic "The Third Man" (also based on a Greene story). Greene is not satisfied with simply providing an involving plot; he gives his characters depth and dimension and interesting dialogue as well. Recommended.

Greene just can't be less than substantial, even when he's writing an early noir crime thriller. The depth of insight -- both spiritual and psychological -- is impressive, even by the standards of later Greene novels. His characters are real, the story unfolds with only a minimum of coincidences, the action is gritty and satisfying and unpredictable, and a rich sense of underlying humanity pervades the work. As always with Greene, compassion -- the fierce volcanic eruptions of pity in unexpected peoples and places -- is a major theme. And as usual, a subtle Catholic sensibility is at work throughout, making relevant to 20th-century man a few of the Faith's most central tenets.Good, though sometimes grim, fun. Picture Peter Lorre in the Raven role, and Sidney Greenstreet in the Chumley part, and Hitchcock overseeing it all, and you get some idea, perhaps, of what Greene had in mind. Highly recommended.

Murder didn't mean much to Raven. It was just a new job. You had to be careful. You had to use your brains. It was not a question of hatred. He had only seen the minister once : he had been pointed out to Raven as he walked down the new housing estate between the little lit Christmas trees--an old rather grubby man without any friends, who was said to love humanity. -Graham Greene, This Gun for HireRaven is a hired killer with a harelip. His profession and his deformity combine to give him a passion for privacy. But when he's hired to kill a socialist minister who's active in the peace movement and ends up also shooting an elderly woman from his household staff too, he's suddenly one of the most sought after men in England. And when the man who hired him, Mr. Cholmondeley, pays him off in counterfeit notes, he becomes an easy man to track. In addition, his strong sense of professional ethics lead him to try and find Cholmondeley and whoever's behind him, rather than simply hiding out.Through a circuitous set of circumstances, Raven is helped in his search by a young woman, Anne, whose boyfriend just happens to be the lead detective on his case. She recognizes how dangerous Raven is, but feels sorry for him and, with Europe sliding into war, thinks she can use him to strike back at the shadowy forces who wanted the peace loving minister dead. Though it lacks the universal moral tension of some of Greene's better work, this is an entertaining noir thriller. The plot depends on a few too many fortuitous twists, but if you take it in the spirit of say The 39 Steps or a Hitchcock movie, the implausabilities aren't unbearable. Perhaps the most interesting reading of the book is as a forecast of the central ethical dilemma of WWII. Think of Raven as the USSR and of Anne as the Allies. She accepts Raven out of sympathy for his physical and spiritual deformities and assumes that he, despite his amorality, can be twisted to serve her own noble purposes. In the end, a lot of folks die as a result of her naiveté.GRADE : B-

'A gun for sale' is considered a minor Graham Greene work, two years before his acknowledged first masterpiece, 'Brighton Rock'. Admittedly, the book is hugely flawed - the plot becomes increasingly implausible; the dialogue is sometimes false; the characterisation, especially in the central relationship between Raven the runaway hitman and Anne, sometimes doesn't quite ring true. But there is so much that is excellent - the mixture of dusty, fish and chips realism with almost whimsical fantasy, precise detail clashing with a nightmare-world of physical grotesques; the brilliant control of language, in which a deliberately limited vocabulary is used to imprison characters in a social and implicitely metaphsical destiny. The first half is a superb, almost intolerably nerve-wracking, thriller, and the second, as Raven seeks revenge during a practice gas raid, is dottily surreal. The allusions to fairy tales, history , poetry, popular music, drama, philosophy etc. open the book from its generic base, and makes it infinitely richer than it first appears. It should be read anyway by anyone who loves the cinema of Jean-Pierre Melville, who based his masterpiece 'Le Samourai' on it. A flawed, yet fascinating work.