In
Ways of Escape,Graham Greene wrote that in “1931, for the first and last time in my life I deliberately set out to write a book to please” (26). That novel,
Stamboul Train(U. S. title
Orient Express, 1933), launched what Greene termed his “entertainments”, heavily plotted novels that depend on suspense, bathos, espionage, crime, and betrayal. The entertainments were written in short, cinematic episodes that suggest Greene’s hope the books would be both bestsellers and profitable movies. Like Greene’s more serious work,
Stamboul’s often self-destructive characters inhabit a world of seedy locales in which evil is an ever present force. The characters struggle with moral and spiritual conflicts within the context of fraught political settings and prejudicial social…
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Citation: Beene, LynnDianne. "Stamboul Train". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 March 2023 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13300, accessed 04 December 2024.]
