Bettie's Books

Read on September 20, 2014

Read by James Wilby

Description: Graham Greene’s first published novel tells the story of Andrews, a young man who has betrayed his fellow smugglers and fears their vengeance. Fleeing from them, with no hope of pity or salvation, he takes refuge in the house of a young woman, also alone in the world. Elizabeth persuades him to give evidence against his accomplices in court, but neither she nor Andrews is aware that to both criminals and authority, treachery is as great a crime as smuggling. The first step in a brilliant career, The Man Within offers a foretaste of Green’s recurring themes of religion, the individual’s struggles against cynicism, and the indifferent forces of a hostile world.

Recalling Household's 'Rogue Male', sometimes the paranoid suspense here in 'The Man Within' is riveting, however this early Greene lacks sufficient subtlety to immerse a reader. One for the Greene completists.


Trivia: Thomas Browne's Religio Medici: 'There's another man within me that's angry with me.' In 1947, a film version The Man Within was made of the novel (called The Smugglers in the United States) starring Ronald Shiner, Michael Redgrave as Carlyon and Richard Attenborough as Andrews.


3* The Quiet American
4* The End of the Affair
3* Our Man in Havana
4* Brighton Rock
4* Travels With My Aunt
3* The Third Man
4* The Human Factor
4* A Burnt Out Case
4* Monsignor Quixote
3* The Captain and the Enemy
3.5* This Gun for Hire
2* The Man Within