Travels with my aunt; a novel

by Graham Greene

Hardcover, 1969

Status

Available

Publication

New York, Viking Press [1969]

Description

Henry Pulling, a retired bank manager, meets his septuagenarian Aunt Augusta for the first time in over fifty years at what he supposes to be his mother's funeral. Soon after, she persuades Henry to abandon Southwood, to travel to Brighton, Paris, Istanbul, Paraguay, hoping it will help Henry come alive after a dull suburban life.

Media reviews

This marvelous line firmly establishes the mood of the book, which is unmistakably the work of the author whom the French call "Grim Grin."...... The book unmistakably turns its back on the Orphic preoccupations with the hereafter that characterized Greene's Catholic novels, and wholeheartedly
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embraces a Bacchic emphasis on the here and now. It is a remarkable change of emphasis to have made, and one which seems to deny the very works on which the novelist's reputation is conventionally supposed to rest. Greene makes the point with great wit, but it is clearly intended no less seriously for not being made with solemnity.
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User reviews

LibraryThing member BookAngel_a
This book was...interesting. I liked it a lot, but sometimes I had no idea what was going on - much like the main character.

Henry Pulling has spent his whole life trying to be a respectable English gentleman. He's about 50, retired from the bank, never married. At his mother's funeral he meets his
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Aunt Augusta. She is eccentric and doesn't care one bit about being respectable. She tells him some things about his father and mother, and Henry, intrigued, wants to further their acquaintance.

Next thing he knows, his aunt Augusta is booking him as her companion on travels to other countries. He wants to say no so he can stay home and take care of his flowers, but he doesn't know how to get out of it. So he goes along.

They have adventures together, and stiff Mr. Pulling begins to know his aunt, and himself, a little better.

Aunt Augusta tells long rambling stories and never fully explains anything...which often leaves Henry (and the reader) a little confused. But I think this is exactly what the author wanted to do.

This book is not going to be for everyone...but I'm pretty sure that if you liked Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson, you are going to like this book as well.
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LibraryThing member TheAmpersand
I'd be pretty easy, not to mention tempting, to classify "Travels With My Aunt" as a novel about the comic collision of British middle-class conformity (Henry Pulling) and British eccentricity (Aunt Augusta). It's also one of those novels drawn from that period in late sixties or early seventies in
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which people who'd been heretofore immersed in utterly unadventurous British culture were forced to reckon with new, strange cultural youth movements (Tooley). The passage of time seems to weigh heavily on Greene in this one: not only is much of the book about Henry Pulling's evolving relationship with his long-dead father, but the Europe he seems around him also seems to be transforming in unpredictable ways. The Orient Express is a ghost of its past self, while the Europe he sees from his train window is full of both bucolic scenes and new radio towers and apartment blocks. Currency restrictions still seem to be in place, though.

You could call it one of Greene's "entertainments," except that a fair amount of evil lurks around the novel's edges. It's not just that Aunt Augusta has a colorfully shady past, it's that her whims might have taken her into the orbit of some historically unpleasant people. Meanwhile Henry gets involved in businesses he wouldn't have touched as a bank manager in a comfortable London neighborhood, and his former potential paramour slowly gets used to a new way of looking at racial relations after she moves to South Africa. There's a part of me that thinks that "Travels With My Aunt" has something to say about how easy it is to slide into moral hazard when one escapes the cultural confines of a comfortable, well-regulated British existence. By the novel's end, Aunt Augusta is nicely settled and Henry has settled into a sort of peaceful retirement that he never expected. This book may not be as light as it seems, but I think it represents a pleasant blend of Greene's lighter and heavier themes.
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LibraryThing member Eyejaybee
Graham Greene will never be remembered as a great comic novelist. He was certainly adept at creating potentially humorous situations. In 'Our Man in Havana', for example, Wormald, an impecunious vacuum cleaner salesman is recruited as a low key agent to forward reports to MI6 about life in Castro's
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Cuba. Realising that he might be able to generate a decent income from this, Wormald pretends to have recruited his own sub-network of agents and submits fictitious reports, only to be appalled to find that the events he has imagined began really to happen.

In 'Travels With My Aunt' Greene comes closest to achieving genuine humour. The novel opens with the funeral of Angelica Pulling who has died aged eighty-seven. The principal mourner is her son, Henry, who has recently retired from his post as manager of a provincial branch of a bank. Henry's has not been an eventful life, as evinced by his ambitions to pass his retirement rearing dahlias. He is not the sole mourner, though. Among the small group of friends and neighbours and those assorted waifs and strays that crop up at funerals is Augusta, Angelica's younger sister and Henry's aunt. Hitherto unaware even of her existence, Henry is gradually dragged into Augusta's inchoate life which is peopled by a heady melange of shady characters.

Henry finds himself going through some belated rites of passage, meeting a selection of his aunt's friends and acquaintances (though perhaps accomplices might be a more appropriate term for some of them). After an initial overnight jaunt to Brighton, where Henry has his fortune read in tea leaves by a former associate of his aunt, they then venture further afield, taking the Orient Express to Istanbul. While he may not have been the deftest of comic novelists, travel writing was a filed in which Greene did excel, and he imbues the story with glorious local colour.

Greene does succeed in setting up some comic scenarios, though somehow he never quite pulls them off. This is not particularly surprising - the principal attribute of most of Green's works is barely suppressed melancholia, with characters often oppressed by the burden of the aimless tedium of their existence. There are, after all, very few buskers or streets performers roaming the byways of Greeneland. The melancholia is at least held at bay here - the humour may not be of a kind to induce rampant guffawing, but some of the customary clouds have dispersed. Within Greene's own parameters, formed perhaps in a more austere tradition than pertains now, 'Travels With My Aunt' might almost constitute pure farce. Wodehouse might have rendered sheer comedy gold out of the set pieces that Greene constructs, but he would not have managed, nor even attempted, to plumb the depths of his characters in the way that Greene manages so effortlessly.
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LibraryThing member AlexTheHunn
This book delights and entertains as one may reasonably expect from Graham Greene. He spins a tale of a stodgey, middle-aged man who meets his Aunt Augusta at his mother's cremation at which event she informs him that she was once present at a Premature Cremation. Horrified and fascinated, he must
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know more. Eventually they travel throughout Europe and Africa and he gradually comes to believe that there may be much much more to his aunt than he originally thought. The movie, while fun, did not do justice to this book.
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LibraryThing member Jaguar897
5 stars for giving me the best sleep ever!!!

Seriously, I would read 3 pages and zzzzzzzzzzzzz. Since this book was part of a group read I was participating in I gave it my best effort but I only managed about 50 pages before I had to throw in the towel. I did like the first chapter. It was
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promising and I found myself chuckling at the chemistry between Aunt Augusta and Henry. After the first chapter it became boring and down right weird. Aunt Augusta's mood changes varied from paragraph to paragraph. I didn't find her as amusing as the first chapter and by the third chapter I wanted to stab her in the face. Henry was so freaking boring and his following Aunt Augusta about was seriously out of character for him. His personality was just bland. Wordsworth (Aunt Augusta's lover/drug supplier) was another character that needed a good facestabbing for sheer annoyingness. Then came the weird 1960's drug references. I won't even get into that. That was the point where I just had to stop. I couldn't take one more of Augusta's mood swings or weird reminiscent past stories or Henry's bland assessment of the whole situation. So in short, this is one that I don't plan on picking up every again and it has seriously turned me off of Greene's writing.
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LibraryThing member annbury
Graham Greene divided his works into two categories -- serious fiction, and entertainments. This is definitely one of the latter. It tells the story of Henry Pulling, a very dull retired bank manager, who is pulled out of his suburban torpor into the orbit of his Aunt Augusta. His aunt is neither
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dull nor suburban. She is a lady with many men and a good deal of chicanery in her past, and, indeed, in her current activities. Together, this oddly matched pair set off on a series of trips which range further and further from England and English respectability, I didn't fall in love with this book the way I did with another of Greene's entertainments -- "Our Man in Havana". The structure is a little imbalanced, and the characters aren't always easy to like. But Greene's prose makes reading fun, and the book is indeed entertaining.
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LibraryThing member snash
A little bit travelogue, a little bit humorous, a little bit mystery, a little bit philosophical, and a whole lot entertaining.
LibraryThing member Eyejaybee
Graham Greene will never be remembered as a great comic novelist. He was certainly adept at creating potentially humorous situations. In 'Our Man in Havana', for example, Wormald, an impecunious vacuum cleaner salesman is recruited as a low key agent to forward reports to MI6 about life in Castro's
Show More
Cuba. Realising that he might be able to generate a decent income from this, Wormald pretends to have recruited his own sub-network of agents and submits fictitious reports, only to be appalled to find that the events he has imagined began really to happen.

In 'Travels With My Aunt' Greene comes closest to achieving genuine humour. The novel opens with the funeral of Angelica Pulling who has died aged eighty-seven. The principal mourner is her son, Henry, who has recently retired from his post as manager of a provincial branch of a bank. Henry's has not been an eventful life, as evinced by his ambitions to pass his retirement rearing dahlias. He is not the sole mourner, though. Among the small group of friends and neighbours and those assorted waifs and strays that crop up at funerals is Augusta, Angelica's younger sister and Henry's aunt. Hitherto unaware even of her existence, Henry is gradually dragged into Augusta's inchoate life which is peopled by a heady melange of shady characters.

Henry finds himself going through some belated rites of passage, meeting a selection of his aunt's friends and acquaintances (though perhaps accomplices might be a more appropriate term for some of them). After an initial overnight jaunt to Brighton, where Henry has his fortune read in tea leaves by a former associate of his aunt, they then venture further afield, taking the Orient Express to Istanbul. While he may not have been the deftest of comic novelists, travel writing was a filed in which Greene did excel, and he imbues the story with glorious local colour.

Greene does succeed in setting up some comic scenarios, though somehow he never quite pulls them off. This is not particularly surprising - the principal attribute of most of Green's works is barely suppressed melancholia, with characters often oppressed by the burden of the aimless tedium of their existence. There are, after all, very few buskers or streets performers roaming the byways of Greeneland. The melancholia is at least held at bay here - the humour may not be of a kind to induce rampant guffawing, but some of the customary clouds have dispersed. Within Greene's own parameters, formed perhaps in a more austere tradition than pertains now, 'Travels With My Aunt' might almost constitute pure farce. Wodehouse might have rendered sheer comedy gold out of the set pieces that Greene constructs, but he would not have managed, nor even attempted, to plumb the depths of his characters in the way that Greene manages so effortlessly.
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LibraryThing member wrichard
Bank clerk Henry Pullen has lived a very quiet life- but then meets his exotic aunt...
LibraryThing member bettyjo
so funny...the aunt and the nephew are great characters.
LibraryThing member pinkmouse
Really enjoyed this book. The light wit which is distributed through the book hides the more serious notes in the book. I really enjoyed the exploration of the characters and the life of the narraters aunt unravelling. One of my favourite books by Graham greene.
LibraryThing member debnance
Who in the world could use a big shake more than the stodgy Henry Pulling? Henry never married and spent his life locked up behind the safe and tedious walls of a bank. Then, at his mother’s funeral, Henry met his Aunt Augusta and he was sent spinning out into a world he never knew existed.Graham
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Greene is that Graham Greene, he of The Power and the Glory and Our Man in Havana and The Quiet American. So Travels With My Aunt is a totally different Graham Greene. Every chapter had me. I now have a new gloriously inspiring role model for my last years.
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LibraryThing member g026r
Early late-period Greene and, as late-period Greene goes, not my favourite at that. Buoyed in parts by amusing set-pieces and witty dialogue, and dragged down in others by scenes and characters that are embarrassingly dated products of a bygone time and place. At its best its Greene at his
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funniest. At its worst its just downright offensive.
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LibraryThing member otterley
Mild mannered retired suburban bank manager meets zany lady with disreputable past for trips to Paris, Istanbul and the South American jungle. En route he discovers life, love, family and the joys of jewel smuggling. Light, humorous, but also touching, Greene's wonderful characterisation and razor
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sharp prose are at the service of pleasure rather than guilt in this book.
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LibraryThing member ccayne
This book was perfect as the shortest day of the year approached. It is lighthearted, funny and quirky. Henry Pulling's life veers in a wildly new direction when he meets Aunt Augusta at his mother's funeral. At first I thought it was going to be a compilation of their exploits but it turned out to
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have a more serious undercurrent. This book is another example of how to show without telling. Henry comes to realize, as does the reader, that is is our connections with others that give life to life. Much of the book is dated but it is charming nonetheless.
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LibraryThing member nicx27
Henry Pulling is a retired bank manager. At his mother's funeral, he encounters his long lost aunt, Augusta. She manages to talk him into leaving suburbia and his dahlias behind to travel with her to Brighton, Istanbul, Boulogne and Paraguay. Along the way, he encounters lots of unusual people, and
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unusual circumstances.

This is a nice enough read, but I did find it all a bit silly. I didn't much like aunt Augusta's voice, which irritated me at times, and there were quite a few ridiculously coincidental meetings during the travels too.

This is not a book I would rave about, but pleasant enough if you like that sort of thing.
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LibraryThing member John_Vaughan
This book, the author claimed, “is the only one that I wrote for fun”.
It is.
LibraryThing member markfinl
Henry Pulling, is a retired bank manager who is leading what may be the most boring life ever when he meets his Aunt Augusta at his mother's funeral. Although Augusta is in her seventies, she is far livelier than Henry and soon he is traveling the world in her wake. This book is fun, funny and full
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of surprises.
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LibraryThing member omame
i am deeply. madly. crazily in love with graham greene after finishing this book.

more later.
LibraryThing member Schmerguls
tThis book published in 1970, is a far lighter book than Greene's great novels of his earlier career: The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter, and The
End of the Affair, but it is light-hearted and often funny as it tells of Henry Pulling, a retired English bank officer whose main interes
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t has been in dahlias. He meets his aunt, whom he has not seen in 50 years, at his (purported) mother's funeral and is drawn into traveling with her and coming to know her unconventional and exciting life, even though she is 75. The book is very well-written and is often funny and holds one's interest well, even though it at least to me, did not appear to be a serious work
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LibraryThing member dolphari
Although less profound than some of the author's other books, still entertaining. Henry Pulling, a retired bachelor, with a very organized and boring life, falls in with his 75-year-old Aunt Augusta when her young African butler, Wordsworth, stashes some marijuana in Henry's mother's ashes. Thus
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begins a zany adventure across the world. Wordsworth adores Augusta, who still holds affection for Mr. Visconti, who stole her money. In the end, Henry learns that Augusta is really his mother, but he was given to her sister to raise in a conventional lifestyle. Henry makes a new life in South America with his aunt/mother and Mr. Visconti, and marries a young girl.
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LibraryThing member nmele
Not my favorite Greene novel but rereading it after many years I was surprised to note that in this novel he begins to write like the Greene who wrote his later novels (Monsignor Quixote, The Bomb Party). Also, a priceless little episode while Pullen, the narrator is on a river boat toward the end
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of the book--only striking to a member of our family, however.
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LibraryThing member shanjan
Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene is a comedic adventure story of Henry Pulling, a man leading a settled life who first meets his mother's sister, Augusta, at his mother's funeral. Too polite to refuse her request to travel with her, he joins his aunt on the first of a series of journeys. At
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first Henry is shocked at his aunt's illegal financial dealings and romantic affairs, but after he returns to his life he quickly comes to the realization that that his settled life is actually quite mundane. He concludes that he has a taste for adventure after all and away he goes to track down his aunt and lead a life he never would have imagined he would live.

Aunt Augusta's unpredictable character is juxtaposed with Henry's very buttoned up British personality. Along the way they encounter many quirky and off-beat characters that enhance the zany quality of this novel.

This is not a multi-layered novel full of literary tricks and turns, and the main theme is a pretty straight forward "live life to the fullest" standard message, but Greene's comedic delivery had me smiling.

I am not lover of British humor, so my three star rating lies more in my own personal taste rather than Greene's execution of the novel, but if you enjoy British humor, you would probably love this book. I would categorize it as a good summer read.
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LibraryThing member bibliophile_pgh
I found this book in a used book store in Toronto. I was with a coworker and she had asked if I had ever read anything by Graham Greene. I had not and this was my introduction. I would probably say this was one of the best books I had read. It was laugh out loud funny in parts.
LibraryThing member yapete
Classic Greene. One of the funniest books I ever read.

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