The Captain and the Enemy

By: Graham Greene

Narrated by: Kenneth Branagh

Victor was only 12 when the Captain took him away from school to live with Liza, his girlfriend. He claimed that Victor, now reborn as Jim Smith, had been won as the result of a bet. Having reached his 20s, Jim attempts to piece together the story.©2014 Graham Greene (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Interesting

The story is a typical Graham Greene novel and has all the nuances you look for in his work. It was an enjoyable short story and I would definitely recommend it.

Poorly performed but excellent short read for Greene fans.

The butchering of the required Spanish accent for the nonfiction elements of this work drag down the production irredeemably.

Inexplicably, we hear a German accent from what is supposedly a Latino official.

Otherwise this is what you would expect from a short story from this legendary author. I would still recommend just be prepared to crank through some of the accents.

Imagine Conrad wrote Treasure Isle as a SPY novel

An under appreciated milky gem of a Greene novel for sure. One that resonated strongly with me. Greene is always a bit of a risk taker and this novel proves no different than many of his others. It is ambiguous, slightly absurd, and feels a tad like Conrad wrote Treasure Island as a Central American spy novel. As Greene's last novel, it incorporates aspects of both his more Catholic novels with his spy novels. To me C&E read as a fragmented meditation (read map) on love, kindness, truth, sacrifice and buried underneath it all - God.

Good enough

The Alchemist and Le Petit Prince are better. I downloaded this simply for the narrator. The story is good enough but a bit long and dry. It ends very well though. The conclusion is the best part of the story.

parable

Although this works as an engrossing story related in Greene's fine dialogue-driven prose, it's more of a parable than a novel. Greene weaves themes and situations from his earlier work into a parable about human love and responsibility, politics, and (I think) God's relationship with humans and the human relationship to God (but I tend to over read Greene's religious themes). It's like Greene re-visited "Confidential Agent" in his last years, adding unstated theology and abandonning the "hollywood' ending.

Who were these people?

This was a very different reading experience. The character development is so sparse as to keep the reader at a distance. The Captain is especially enigmatic, and as he is the fulcrum around which all the other characters revolve, it is a challenge to know what to think of any of them. The premise of the story raises many questions of morality, ethics, love and commitment, but oddly it does not really study or explore the issues so much as it leaves the exploration to the reader. In the end, this is not a book for the reader who needs or wants everything laid out plainly and characters who fall into prescribed niches. By seeing the story almost exclusively through the boy's eyes over his lifetime, and as he confesses from the beginning that his memory is not likely to be reliable, we can take little of the narrative at face value. Using our own perceptions of human nature we have to work at figuring out where we are going, and I admit that for a large part of the book I wondered if there was going to be any kind of resolution. There was not a resolution in the traditional "here's what it was all about" sense - I never really know who "The Enemy" of the title is intended to be. But in the last moments, as Jim reads the last letter from The Captain, we get the payoff. At that moment I thought of Rosebud in Citizen Kane, and as in Citizen Kane, whether all becomes clear or not, a certain understanding is achieved.

Kenneth Branaugh was almost perfect in his performance, showing an ability to lend unique voice to each character through cadence and slight pitch changes that felt natural, not forced. In some passages of rapid or intense interaction between two characters, it became difficult to distinguish one from the other, in a couple of instances requiring me to back up to catch up. A minor and only occasional flaw, and not enough to reduce the rating.

Narration A+ Writing B+ Story C+

Kenneth Branagh is a talented actor who brings the characters to life. Graham Greene is one of the greatest English novelists. The story is authentic and human, if a bit anemic. overall, worth the time.

Deeply Personal & Moving Tale, Superbly Performed!

Graham Greene is (of course) one of the true masters of short fiction, and this seemingly semi-autobiographical novella is one of his best. The ending was perhaps a bit unsatisfactory and anti-climactic(?), as were the outcomes of various events throughout- yet this only lends itself to the subject matter at hand, which I shall not spoil. Kenneth Branagh's narration immediately captures the imagination, and draws you in with such sublime warmth and personality, that I would recommend this steadfastly on that aspect alone. Most importantly, he clearly understands the implied emotion behind each sentence!! (Sometimes even my favorite narrators seem to not "get" the tonality necessary to convey the meanings of the work they are reading.) Filled with memorable quotes; this is an entrancing, charming, warm, comical, heartbreaking, and insightful tale. This is a must listen.

fascinating read

A dark, humorous tale I highly enjoyed. quite many jokes and quotes to be remembered and very unique and creative story. took a lot of unexpected turns and yet it made perfect sense.

A Classic Story, Expertly Told

Fascinated by the storyline and tempted with the idea of spending 4 luxurious hours with Kenneth Branagh whispering in my ear, this selection has been sitting in my wish list for quite a while, waiting it's turn. Now completed, I can report it did not at all disappoint.

The Captain and the Enemy follows the life of a boy who is plucked from his boarding school as a child by a man he doesn't know, told he's been won in a backgammon game, re-named, and taken to live with a woman he's told to call mother. Throughout his life, the man that took him remains a powerful interest and influence to him, even though he sees him only occasionally. As he becomes a man, he sets out to locate the "Captain" with many goals and reasons in mind.

This is not a story of noble people. It's a story of unanswered questions and self serving motivations. If you read it hoping to become attached to the characters in a more traditional way, you may find yourself disappointed. That said, I found the story fascinating, well told, and very memorable. It's a story of lives that were never what the characters wanted them to be; lives they seemed incapable of transforming into the ones they envisioned.

Starkly told and thought provoking: I really enjoyed this selection.