Penguin Classics: The Orient Express

For some reason I haven’t gotten around to reading Graham Greene’s well-known ‘entertainment’, The Orient Express, until just recently.  This anniversary edition contains an analytical introduction where Christopher Hitchens discusses the charges of anti-Semitism against Greene and convincingly defends him.  His story has been appropriated through the years and made into several film versions, however, his own version was one of the weaker productions according to Greene and Hitchens in the introduction. The book seems somewhat shocking in that one of the main characters is an alcoholic lesbian journalist.  And one of the main plot points concerns a chorus line girl becoming the mistress of a Jewish businessman.  Perhaps, these details were chosen in order tot titillate the audience that he was trying to reach-he wanted it make a lot of money and be made into a film, but that doesn’t necessarily detract from the novel in my opinion.  Not one of  his major novels, but a worthwhile diversion.