Traveling on the Edge: Journeys in the Footsteps of Graham Greene - Hardcover

Llewellyn Smith, Julia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312282923 ISBN 13: 9780312282929

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2001

Synopsis

Fascinated by depravity and unpredictability, horrified by the prospect of family life, Graham Greene's travels took him to some of the most neglected and dangerous parts of the world. Julia Llewellyn Smith catalogs Greene's destinations with political insight as well as humor, and finds herself attracted to the places where Greene had found himself at particularly dark times: Argentina at war, Mexico during religious persecutions, Vietnam on the brink of war, and Cuba just before the revolution. As she travels to these countries herself, Llewellyn Smith comes to understand them through Greene's accounts, and writes about their contemporary color and depth with a discerning perspective all her own.

About this title

Review:

Graham Greene liked to set his novels in lost and dangerous countries in darker moments in history: Haiti under President-for-Life "Papa Doc" Duvalier; Cuba on the eve of revolution; Mexico during a decade of religious persecution; Vietnam as it careened towards war. For British journalist Julia Llewellyn Smith, the places Greene chose were as irresistible as his writing, so she set out to discover whether "Greeneland" still existed and how greatly it had changed in the intervening years.

After a slow beginning in Brighton, England, Llewellyn Smith reveals herself to be as bold a traveler as Greene. She meets clandestinely with a priest in Chiapas, Mexico who tells her the paramilitaries "murder anyone they suspect of being a Zapatista and they rape their wives. They shoot at priests who try to help." In Mexico, and elsewhere, Llewellyn Smith finds that "nothing has changed in Greeneland, yet so much has happened." Vietnam may be communist, but it has "one hundred percent capitalist freedom" and is very much like pre-war Vietnam with its colonial cities, dense jungles, gleaming rice paddies, and the brothels and opium dens Greene enjoyed. Cuba is now almost as fashionable for tourists as it was in 1955, while Haiti is still gripped by fear, frustration, and poverty despite having a democratically elected president. Like Greene, Llewellyn Smith rarely stays in one place very long, which occasionally makes her as reductive as Greene in his worst moments. Still, she falls in love with all the same places he did, and her lively dispatches provide illuminating glimpses into some fascinating places. --Lesley Reed

About the Author:

Julia Llewellyn Smith lives in London. She is a former columnist for The Times, Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Express.

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0312282923
• ISBN 13: 9780312282929
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320