The Comedians (novel)

infobox Book |
name = The Comedians
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Graham Greene
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United Kingdom
language = English
genre = Novel
publisher = Bodley Head
release_date = 1966
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages =
isbn = NA
preceded_by = A Burnt-Out Case
followed_by = Travels with My Aunt

"The Comedians" is a novel by Graham Greene, first published in 1966. Set in Haiti under the rule of François "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his secret police, the "Tonton Macoute", "The Comedians" tells the story of a tired hotel owner, Brown, and his increasing fatalism as he watches Haiti descend into barbarism. The story begins as three men: Brown, Smith the innocent American, and Major H. O. Jones the confidence man meet on a ship bound for Haiti. Brown, Smith, and Jones, their names suggesting a curious facelessness, are the “comedians” of Greene’s title. Complications include Brown’s friendship with a rebel leader, politically charged hotel guests, the manipulations of a British arms dealer, and an affair with Martha Pineda, the wife of a South American ambassador. The setting for much of the novel, the Hotel Trianon, was inspired by the Hotel Oloffson in central Port-au-Prince.

The novel was made into a motion picture in 1967 with Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Alec Guinness, Peter Ustinov, James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson, David Niven and Lillian Gish.

Plot Summary

The reader is introduced to the main characters on board the "Medea", a Dutch ship serving Port-au-Prince and the Dominican Republic. The narrator is Mr. Brown, who is returning from an unsuccessful trip to the United States to sell his hotel, located in Port-au-Prince. Also present are Mr. Smith, (the Presidential Candidate), who ran on the vegetarian ticket in the American election of 1948; he and Mrs. Smith are on an optimistic journey to build a vegetarian center in Haiti. "Major" Jones is a likeable person of dubious history; he is full of stories about exploits which are not quite believable.

Duvalier's reaction

In his "Ways of Escape", Greene wrote that the book "touched him [Duvalier] on the raw". Duvalier attacked the book in the press, and also had his Ministry of Foreign Affairs make a brochure named "Graham Greene Demasque Finally Exposed" whose distribution was cut when it failed to achieve the expected result. The book called Greene, "A liar, a cretin, a stool-pigeon... unbalanced, sadistic, perverted... a perfect ignoramus... lying to his heart's content... the shame of proud and noble England... a spy... a drug addict... a torturer." ("The last epithet has always a little puzzled me", added Greene.) [http://members.tripod.com/~greeneland/comedians.htm Graham Greene about "The Comedians"] ]

Footnotes

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