Doctor Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party

This novella reads more like a sketch for a Graham Greene novel than a Graham Greene novel. All the elements are there, but nothing is fleshed out. 140 pages provide barely enough space in which to scratch at the surface of what this book might have been, had it been written by a younger Greene. At the end, so many issues seemed unresolved. What about the Oedipal nature of the relationship between Jones and Anna-Luise? Why did Greene deprive Jones of a hand? It serves only fleetingly as a means of Fischer mocking Jones, and a superfluous source of self-consciousness for Jones when under the circumstances his age and station might have been enough. These and other things are never explored, as I might typically expect of Greene. The characters are hastily pinned together. We are never drawn into the depths of the greed and motivation of the Toads in accepting the humiliations of Fischer. Every now and then a sudden phrase or paragraph that echoes Greene's former power leaps of the page, but for the most part he phones this one in, and I'm left with a great sense of unfulfilment. I had a similar feeling reading “The Human Factor”, his previous novel from two years before, and it starts to strike me that as Greene slipped into great old age, his quality was declining along with his quantity. Greene at his best is beyond my inarticulate ability to praise him. But by his late seventies, whilst still active, he was offering nothing to enlarge and enhance his remarkable canon. Greene is known to be an early hero of John le Carre's, but le Carre states somewhere his disappointment that Greene ended his career with a series of “low energy novellas”. I think he hit the nail bang on the head there.

A novella from Graham Greene - always a good way to spend a couple of hours.

Set in Switzerland, our main character, Alfred Jones, is a humble clerk for a chocolate company. He meets and marries a young woman, Anna-Luise, and therefore crosses paths with her father, Dr Fischer.
Dr Fischer is incredibly wealthy, having invented a popular brand of toothpaste, but is a depiction of disconnected arrogance, and as portrayed by Jones -evil.

Dr Fischer and his daughter Anna-Luise have an estranged relationship - he shows no interest in her life, and in return she wants nothing to do with him or his toadies - who she refers to a toads. These people, who he regularly hosts at his ritual dinner parties, faun over Dr Fischer, while he makes scathing jokes at their expense, while offering gifts to satisfy their greed. His research in to greed, he calls it.

There are many features to the plot, and this book covers off a lot in its 150 pages, but I would prefer not to offer up spoilers for a relatively fast moving plot. It is probably not a novella to offer deep thought - it is fairly obvious in its plot. However it is a little dark, a little twisted, and a little entertaining.

4 stars.