Graham Greene: Doctor Fischer Of Geneva or The Bomb Party

[novella]

Just finished this.

The story is set in Switzerland about 1980, but the narrative has a strange foreignness and feels like it's set in the post-WWII years. The characters are not modern at all, and the protagonist has a weird stiltedness and ineffectualness about him (that is intentional, I'm sure). It feels neither real nor entirely contrived, but sort of like a misremembered episode transported to a different era.

The theme seems to be greed and emotional twistedness. Nothing like other Greene books I've read and enjoyed, but not entirely bad. I think it would appeal to someone who likes Eurocentric allegories along the lines of some 20th century French authors.

 

[Shade]

Thanks for reminding me of this novella. I enjoyed it a lot when I read it as part of a splurge of Greene about 10 years ago. It's lighter in tone than most, in common with his later stuff generally, but still highly interesting and readable. In a strange way it put me in mind of Roald Dahl, or Ian McEwan's early stories.