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This month's selection for my library book group is Travels With My Aunt by Grahm Green. While I am sure that this novel will not make my top ten list for 2013, I am glad to have read it as I have never read any thing by this author before. Graham Green's writing style was hard for me to follow and the places that they went to visit were unfamiliar to me. It wasn't until toward the end of the book when they were in South America that I began to feel as if I could follow the environment in which the story was taking place. Part of the problem I think was that during much of the book the stories that Aunt Augusta is telling Henry are taking place in different places than where they are visiting. The story is about a shy retired man who lived his life in a very conservative way who meets an aunt he had never met before at his mother's funeral. They do some traveling together and he is exposed to drugs, smuggling and other illegal things. At first he is shocked but as time passes he finds going back to his more conservative life leaves him bored and unfulfilled. In the end he chooses the less conservative life style for his retirement. In reading about Graham Greene and learning that he was bipolar I have to wonder if this book is more than just a comedy novel for him. Perhaps it expresses two sides of himself that are in conflict and is a media that the manic side can win. Could that have been Graham's desire in his own life? The book has some amusing parts, such as when Henry unknowingly gets stoned on the train, but much of what was supposed to be funny in it I did not find amusing. Travels With My Aunt has been made into plays and movies. Enjoy THIS clip from one of the movies. And be sure and click on the title and author's name above to follow the links to more information.
