At one point Iyer was considering editing a collection of essays by writers discussing Greene. It seems that by the turn into the 21st Century most writers note not critics but those who actually WRITE have pointed to Greene as the greatest of the 20th Century. To quote another brilliant writ Full disclosure: By the time this book was published I had become friends with Iyer and had shared with him many of my notions of Graham Greene and how he has existed in my own head and heart for so long.
To quote another brilliant writer, Lynn Freed: "We all cut our teeth on Greene. As a memoir between father and son the book is elegant and heartfelt and moving; as a memoir between greatest traveler of the 20th century and greatest traveler of the 21st century, it is informing, blindingly sharp, and thoroughly engaging.
Jul 09, Arvind Radhakrishnan rated it liked it. A tad disappointing. I have been hugely impressed with Pico Iyer's abilities. His books and reviews especially on japanese literature have struck me as being very insightful and original. However in this book he seems to fall short on various counts. He seems unable to convey the subtle nuances present in Graham Greene's works. His attempt to interweave his own life story with the works of Greene is very commendable.
That said,I feel he fails to go beyond a superficial reading of Greene's great nov A tad disappointing. Greene is a complex writer whose works are layered with meanings and cannot be classified easily. He eludes literary labels.
I would desist from making disparaging remarks on Pico's prodigious talent. Just feel that Greene deserved better. Jan 18, Barksdale Penick rated it really liked it. If you have read most of Graham Green, you will enjoy this book for the observations about those books that are mixed in to this reminiscence of a man who reads them over and over again. I found the author's observations about his own life less interesting than those about Graham Greene.
Sort of a My Life With Julia kind of a tale, where we have a structure that tells us much about one famous person with a lesser figure, the author, also telling about himself.
It actually gives a good biography If you have read most of Graham Green, you will enjoy this book for the observations about those books that are mixed in to this reminiscence of a man who reads them over and over again. It actually gives a good biography of Greene as well.
But it isn't for everyone Mar 12, Ananta Pathak rated it it was amazing. I enjoyed reading this even amidst clutter of classroom noises and boring lectures of stern professor. Feb 01, Kevin rated it liked it. Iyer is has some genuinely interesting insights into Greene and his work, but for some reason his style becomes painfully awkward when he writes about himself.
He often reverts to the worst sort of memoir-prose that is characterized by the overwritten banal observation of the why-use-one-adjective-when-two-will-do school. He somewhat redeems himself with the last twenty pages or so. Jun 24, Robert rated it it was amazing Shelves: first-edition , signed-and-or-inscribed. I could have written this book.
I have an enormous collection of Graham Greene's first editions that I have collected for the past 30 years. I carry him around in my head in almost exactly the same way that Pico Iyer does. Not everyone will like this kind of interior writing, but I loved it. Of course, I think that Pico Iyer is one of our best writers today. Feb 27, Chaitrali Joshi rated it it was ok. Yeah I gave up this book halfway. One because I have never read Greene so I have no context. Second because even if I wanted to, he just gave away half the books.
Three, I felt he had some interesting travel stories which never started even halfway through the book. The stars are for the writing, which is pretty good. Hopefully I can find a better book by him somewhere ahead.
May 01, Derek rated it liked it Shelves: creativity , travel. The front half is highly insightful and engaging. Almost an autobiography. Also Graham Greene's biography. This is a travel book like no other. Apr 28, Pascale rated it liked it.
A rambling meditation on life with the author's fascination with Graham Greene as its connecting thread. Iyer never met Greene, having made his sole attempt at getting in touch with him when Greene was already too old to waste time on getting to know new admirers. Yet Iyer feels great affection for the man and considers him a friend as well as a kindred spirit. It's a dynamic I've experienced myself and so I was very interested in reading what Iyer had to say about it.
What I found a little disa A rambling meditation on life with the author's fascination with Graham Greene as its connecting thread. Along the way we get to learn quite a bit about Iyer's larger-than-life father, an Indian man from a poor background who managed to get one scholarship after another and ended up working for a think-tank in California. While Iyer is aware of his father's achievements there is a palpable sense that he was embarrassed by Iyer Senior's garrulousness and it's quite obvious the 2 men weren't close.
Iyer made the bold choice to return to England for his education after his parents relocated to California. Not every little boy in the twentieth century would choose boarding school an ocean away from his parents. Iyer had a typical public school education in Britain and that's one of the things he has in common with Graham Greene.
Aug 23, Nicholas Whyte rated it really liked it. Iyer is much more into Greene than I ever was, but I appreciate the depth and sincerity of his fannish attachment, and also his honesty in questioning the extent to which he has allowed his imagined Greene to take over the mentor role that his real father could or should have occupied.
Very thought-provoking. Jul 08, Clivemichael rated it really liked it Shelves: travel , writing , biographic. Jul 23, Sumit Bhagat rated it it was amazing Shelves: own , non-fiction. Everything that Pico Iyer says, writes or does has a meditative quality about it.
It is a breathtaking piece, quite literally so, and I have lost track of the number of times I have shared it with my friends, often, for the lack of a better memory, multiple times with the same friend. A tweet by the Bangalore Lit Fest led to a wonderful chat session between Samanth Subramanian and Pico Iyer, and then a subsequent blog post by Samanth highlighting the session led to me this book.
Having held Pico Iyer in ridiculously high regard despite having read so little of him, I was prepared to be disappointed.
Thankfully, I ended up being overwhelmed. The Man Within My Head is a very atypical book. There are several scintillating parts in the book. One of my favorites is the point at which Pico ruminates about how writing turns friends into strangers, and strangers into friends.
The writing is dense and extremely profound. Another aspect of the book that I thoroughly enjoyed was how Pico, much like Greene, does not seem to belong anywhere or rather seems to belong everywhere depending on which way you look at it. The book provides enormous food for thought as to the homes we inhabit inside of us and those outside of us, the fathers we are given and the fathers we choose and the darkness within the light and the light surrounding the dark spaces within us.
Oct 03, Uwe Hook rated it really liked it. Pico Iyer's latest book is not exactly a memoir, not quite a literary biography--or an homage--to Graham Greene, and certainly not a book of travels. But it is, of course, something of all of those things, a hybrid creature that carries the reader along, thanks to Iyer's usual facile way with words. It is Iyer's most enjoyable book I've read, and not surprisingly, it's his most personal.
He opens the book during a visit to La Paz, Bolivia, and I can picture being back there myself, along the main Pico Iyer's latest book is not exactly a memoir, not quite a literary biography--or an homage--to Graham Greene, and certainly not a book of travels. I picture a simple hotel room--and that's where Iyer is: sitting at a desk thinking about Graham Greene and writing, always writing or reading.
When he was at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge in February , Iyer said he had been working on this book for more than eight years, and had accumulated more than 2, pages in drafts: the words kept spilling out of him.
Happily, he trimmed it down to its current pages. The man within his head is Graham Greene. Like Iyer, Greene was a bit too popular to be admitted into the literary establishment, and a man who was always an outsider, more by choice than anything else. Greene spent many years toward the end of his life in a small apartment in the Antibes, far smaller and almost hidden compared to his neighbor, Somerset Maugham, not too far a way in an impressive mansion.
Iyer, too, willfully sets himself apart: he's lived for years in a small two-room apartment outside of Kyoto. Iyer recounts his childhood: born to Indian parents, initially growing up in Oxford; a move to California in the s, where his father teaches and accumulates acolytes; traditional boarding school back in England; always split between worlds.
Much like Graham Greene, who never quite felt at home anywhere, and whose characters had the same experience of, well, not exactly alienation, but a clear sense of being apart. Iyer returns often to Greene's The Quiet American, and its prescient understanding of how the British and Americans are swapping not just positions of dominance in the world but also those of certainty and doubt. Iyer travels to Vietnam, and we see how the types Greene writes about linger on still.
Readers would probably get more out of this book if they are familiar with the Greene originals; maybe it will inspire me to read him again. For much of Iyer's life, that man is Greene, but he comes to realize there's another man he really barely knows who has also taken up residence in his head: his father, with whom he's never been very close.
It's that old inheritance: we are our father's sons, even if we'd prefer to think that our literary heroes are our pole stars. In the book, Iyer slowly learns these lessons, and he tells the story with ease. This relationship is only partly circumstantial. Iyer was born in the same Oxford hospital as Greene's daughter, and in his early years lived on a street a short walk from Greene's Woodstock Road home. Both men attended English boarding schools suffused with Greek verbs and loneliness and regimented pleasures, their atmospheres so identical that they seemed to have been sliced out of some larger pie of pedagogy.
During his career, Iyer has travelled through many of the geographies in Greene's books: Mexico, Cuba, Vietnam, Haiti. He had friends who knew Greene well, but he never sought to meet his counterfather. Only twice does he even write to Greene's Antibes address — first with a frenetic confessional, then with an offer to interview him.
Greene declined politely, and 10 months later he died. Hopalong Cassidy, Red Connors and Johnny nelson rode across the searing inferno of the Staked Plains and challenged Kane—who dominated the country like A tale of kidnapping, politics, suspense-and rugby. When the agents of a foreign power are hunting a Scottish newspaper tycoon, exciting things can happen … and they do! Unusual and delightful Rugby three-quater here gets involved in kidnapping, violence … and romance.
Taut with suspense and high adventure are spiced with Buchan's characteristic warm humour. All our free Kindle and ePub ebooks have been optimized to work on smartphones and tablets, so you can be sure to have a the best, distraction free, reading experience. I'm an old man, and he's even older, but we've agreed make ourselves a thyrsus, to put on fawn skins and crown our heads with garlands of these ivy branches.
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The PDF books are set to open in your browser window. The load speed of each individual book depends on the size of the book file as well as your computer and connection speed. PDF Download has had 0 updates within the past 6 months. The Man Within is the first novel by author Graham Greene. It tells the story of Francis Andrews, a reluctant smuggler, who betrays his colleagues, and the aftermath of his betrayal. It is Greene's first published novel.
Two earlier attempts at writing novels were never published, but a book of poetry, Babbling April, was published in.
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