Word: greeneland
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Welcome to Greeneland...
...taste in heroes is phrased, his fascination with the fallen and corrupted human is undeniable. Wood says Greene’s novels are not known for a consistent character type but rather for a characteristically modern and morally-depraved wasteland environment that critics have named, “Greeneland...
...ultimately no one is pure in Deighton's 17th spy novel. Intrigues misfire; disease kills more effectively than bullets; and corruption becomes the order of the day. Even so, the characters are shrewdly delineated, and the suspense continues until the final paragraph. Moral ambiguity used to be called Greeneland. Since Graham Greene's death, that territory is open for conquest. At least a part of it ought to be renamed Deightonsville...
Greene did not dream up this terrain of momentous border crossings and casual betrayals, and he could be peevish with those who praised his inventiveness: "Some critics have referred to a strange violent 'seedy' region of the mind (why did I ever popularize that last adjective?) which they call Greeneland, and I have sometimes wondered whether they go round the world blinkered. 'This is Indochina,' I want to exclaim, 'this is Mexico, this is Sierra Leone carefully and accurately described.' " But on his journeys the author carried a transforming talent and temperament that rendered all the places, no matter...
...principal settings are those favorite corners of Greeneland, grimy London and a sunnier Third World capital, both pregnant with menace. The story lurches, sometimes comically, toward a classic Greene ending, which combines plausible irony with amazing grace. And the Captain is a typical Greene figure: a man of several names and many shadowy occupations and absences. His enemies are, of course, corrupt officialdom and bourgeois smugness. His story is told by Victor, the boy he says he won at backgammon, or maybe chess -- the tale shifts with the passing years. Along with the wraithlike woman who is the Captain...