The Confidential Agent
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''The Confidential Agent'' (1939) is a
thriller novel Thriller is a genre of fiction, having numerous, often overlapping subgenres. Thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety. Su ...
by British author
Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...
. Fuelled by
Benzedrine Amphetamine (contracted from alpha- methylphenethylamine) is a strong central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is used in the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), narcolepsy, and obesity. It is also commonly used a ...
, Greene wrote it in six weeks. To avoid distraction, he rented a room in
Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...
from a landlady who lived in a
flat Flat or flats may refer to: Architecture * Flat (housing), an apartment in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and other Commonwealth countries Arts and entertainment * Flat (music), a symbol () which denotes a lower pitch * Flat (soldier), ...
below him. He used that apartment in the novel (it's where D. hides for a day) and had an affair with the landlady's daughter. He wrote the book for money and was so displeased with his work that he wanted it published under a pseudonym. But critics took a far different view; ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', for example, called the novel "a magnificent tour-de-force".


Plot summary

D, a former university professor from the Continent who speaks English, is sent by his government, two years into a vicious civil war, on a secret mission to buy coal in England. Traumatised by the war, in which his wife was executed in error and he was buried alive in an air raid, England to him is a place of peace and happy memories. On the ferry he sees L, an aristocratic supporter of the right-wing rebels, and Rose, a bold and wilful English girl. Waiting for the train to London, Rose tells D she is the estranged daughter of Lord Benditch, the mineowner whom D has come to negotiate with. Impatient, she hires a car and offers D a lift, but when they stop at a hotel a man in the washroom tries to rob D. Deciding to drive on alone, he is followed by L, whose chauffeur beats him up and leaves him by the roadside. They do not find the government documents D had hidden in his shoe. Hitching a lift to London, D follows instructions by booking into a seedy hotel, where he befriends the 14-year-old maid Else and persuades her to hide his documents in her stocking. Then he goes to meet his contact K, who works at a language school teaching an invented language called Entrenationo (obviously modelled on
Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communi ...
). Back at his hotel, Rose rings and asks him to meet her, but on his way a bullet misses him. When Rose returns to the spot with him, she finds the bullet and realises he is in mortal danger. Telling her about his work before the war as one of the world's leading experts on the ''
Chanson de Roland ''The Song of Roland'' (french: La Chanson de Roland) is an 11th-century ''chanson de geste'' based on the Frankish military leader Roland at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778 AD, during the reign of the Carolingian king Charlemagne. It is ...
'', he becomes closer to her. Retrieving his documents from Else next day, he goes to see Lord Benditch and his fellow directors, one of whom is Forbes, informally engaged to Rose. They are ready to do a deal and ask for his documents, which he discovers have been lifted from him on the way in by Benditch's butler. Dismissed, on his way out he sees L going in to talk to the mineowners. Rose comes in and gets Forbes to come with her to D's embassy, where she thinks he will be authenticated. The official they see, a supporter of the rebels, claims that D is dead, pulls out a gun and calls the police. They question D about the death of Else, thrown from an upper window of the hotel. Enraged that an innocent girl has been killed, D grabs the gun and, evading pursuit, breaks into an empty flat. Convinced that K is not only working for the rebels but is also a murderer, he takes him at gunpoint from the language school to the flat he has found. In the bathroom he shoots at him, but misses. Rose knocks on the outside door, having tracked him down, and they discover K has died of shock. The two admit that they have fallen in love, but she is meant to be marrying Forbes and he has to try and save his mission. In a final effort to stop the deal with L, he takes a train to the Midlands town where Benditch's mine is and attempts to dissuade the workers by telling them where the coal is going. They put work ahead of solidarity. Some teenagers he befriends want to blow up the mine and he helps them, but is knocked out by the blast and taken back to London by the police. Released on bail thanks to lawyers engaged by Forbes, he learns that the firm now think it too dangerous to sell coal to the rebels and have cancelled the deal with L. Realising where Rose's affections have gone, Forbes renounces her and agrees to drive D to the south coast, where he is taken out to a ship that is heading home. On the ship he finds Rose. Altogether, D. has failed in his primary mission – to procure British coal for his own side – but at least managed to deny it to his foes.


Setting

"D", a patriot from a country suffering a civil war, is in England to secure a contract with coal magnate Lord Benditch that will greatly assist the faltering loyalist cause. His country is nameless and the details of its history, geography, and current politics remain vague. However, the reader could have little doubt – and Greene himself admitted as muchGraham Greene on The Confidential Agent
/ref> – that the
Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...
was his main inspiration for the book's depiction of a left-leaning, popular
revolutionary republic A revolutionary republic is a form of government whose main tenets are popular sovereignty, rule of law, and representative democracy. It is based in part on the ideas of Whig and Enlightenment thinkers, and was favored by revolutionaries dur ...
. Like Spain, the country in ''The Confidential Agent'' is embroiled internally in bitter factional fights while fighting a brutal civil war and a land-owning aristocracy determined to destroy the republic to regain its centuries-old privileged position. Underscoring the Spanish connection, in the novel's final section, a ship travelling from England to the unnamed country must sail westward in the
Channel Channel, channels, channeling, etc., may refer to: Geography * Channel (geography), in physical geography, a landform consisting of the outline (banks) of the path of a narrow body of water. Australia * Channel Country, region of outback Austral ...
and then cross the
Bay of Biscay The Bay of Biscay (), known in Spain as the Gulf of Biscay ( es, Golfo de Vizcaya, eu, Bizkaiko Golkoa), and in France and some border regions as the Gulf of Gascony (french: Golfe de Gascogne, oc, Golf de Gasconha, br, Pleg-mor Gwaskogn), ...
.


Themes

D is a man of peace, a university intellectual who values truth and honour. For the sake of his mission he initially accepts insults and beatings, until a turning point occurs. After all the injustices he has suffered, back in his home country and then in England, he becomes a solitary instrument of justice.Greeneland http://greeneland.tripod.com/agent.htm. Retrieved 18 December 2015 Without promoting a left-wing agenda, Greene shows a distaste for the authoritarian militaristic regime of the Nationalists in Spain and, readers then would quickly have made the connection, that of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. England by contrast, though often humdrum and uninspiring, is at peace under the rule of law. Greene emphasises the horrors of modern war, in particular the physical and mental effects of bombing on civilian populations. Jews, for Forbes is Jewish, are portrayed as different from English or Spaniards. As in '' Stamboul Train'', Greene uses a rich and sensual older Jewish man who fails to win the young Gentile girl he wants. In the end, however, a weeping Forbes rises above his self-interest. Literary resonances are explicitly and covertly included, for Greene sought to ''... create something legendary out of a contemporary thriller''. The ''Chanson de Roland'' is used by D and Rose as a yardstick for measuring heroic or treacherous behaviour, while Rose's rôle as a mysterious helper to the hero reprises that of princesses like
Ariadne Ariadne (; grc-gre, Ἀριάδνη; la, Ariadne) was a Cretan princess in Greek mythology. She was mostly associated with mazes and labyrinths because of her involvement in the myths of the Minotaur and Theseus. She is best known for having ...
and
Medea In Greek mythology, Medea (; grc, Μήδεια, ''Mēdeia'', perhaps implying "planner / schemer") is the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, a niece of Circe and the granddaughter of the sun god Helios. Medea figures in the myth of Jason an ...
. Greene saw D and Forbes as medieval knights, equally chivalrous in their actions.


Adaptations

The novel was the basis for the 1945 film ''
Confidential Agent ''Confidential Agent'' is a 1945 American spy film starring Charles Boyer and Lauren Bacall which was a Warner Brothers production. The movie was directed by Herman Shumlin and produced by Robert Buckner with Jack L. Warner as executive producer ...
'', starring
Charles Boyer Charles Boyer (; 28 August 1899 – 26 August 1978) was a French-American actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he found his success in American fi ...
, Lauren Bacall, Katina Paxinou and
Peter Lorre Peter Lorre (; born László Löwenstein, ; June 26, 1904 – March 23, 1964) was a Hungarian and American actor, first in Europe and later in the United States. He began his stage career in Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, before movin ...
. In the book, the nationality of the agent is not stated; in the film, he is Spanish. ''The Confidential Agent'' was adapted for the radio program ''
Escape Escape or Escaping may refer to: Computing * Escape character, in computing and telecommunication, a character which signifies that what follows takes an alternative interpretation ** Escape sequence, a series of characters used to trigger some so ...
'' by Ken Crossen and broadcast on 2 April 1949, starring
Berry Kroeger Berry Kroeger (October 16, 1912 – January 4, 1991) was an American film, television and stage actor. Career Kroeger was born in San Antonio, Texas. He got his acting start on radio as an announcer on ''Suspense'' and as an actor, playing fo ...
.


See also

* ''
Confidential Agent ''Confidential Agent'' is a 1945 American spy film starring Charles Boyer and Lauren Bacall which was a Warner Brothers production. The movie was directed by Herman Shumlin and produced by Robert Buckner with Jack L. Warner as executive producer ...
'' (film)


References


External links


Graham Greene on ''The Confidential Agent''


* ttp://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=1573 A Book & Movie Review by Dan Stumpf in Mystery*File
Greene's concept of heroism, as exemplified in ''The Confidential Agent'' – discussion in "Graham Greene: an approach to the novels" by Robert Hoskins, p. 122


{{DEFAULTSORT:Confidential Agent, The 1939 British novels British novels adapted into films Novels by Graham Greene Spanish Civil War books Novels set during the Spanish Civil War Heinemann (publisher) books