Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene

Connor writes:

In the second part of Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene, Henry begins to change dramatically. After his brief trip to Brighton with his aunt Henry returns home. A few weeks later he is then invited to accompany his aunt to Paris and then Istanbul traveling by the orient express. He learns more about his aunt and her unconventional methods. On their way to Paris she packs an entire suitcase full of cash, which is entirely illegal and relies on the logic that a loader will not bother opening a cheap looking suitcase without a lock, because it most likely has nothing of worth in it. Once Henry arrives home again he finds that he cannot stand living in his quiet neighborhood gardening for the rest of his life. The traveling blood that he was told runs through his veins has been awakened. Henry accepts his Aunt’s request to join her and her lover down in South Africa and begins a new life there. As the story progresses the once boring and suburbanite bank manager finds himself surprised at what his life has become. He has traveled across Europe, moved to South Africa, and even fids himself in jail for sneezing into the national emblem. While residing with his Aunt he met a young woman, much younger than himself, who shared many interests with her and finds himself falling for her. Something he never would have thought possible while still living in England. These changes were all brought on by the attraction that drew him to his aunt. The main reason he followed her around was the fact that she retained some forbidden knowledge about his birth and who his real mother was. As the story continues he finds himself to truly care about her and they form a deep bond. Their bond is strengthened when the identity of his birth mother is revealed. The character of Henry Pulling goes through a metamorphosis starting in the very first page of the book and ending in the very last.

Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene was a very interesting read. The flow and rate at which events seemed to happen was always changing. There were instances in the book when events went along slow and a whole conversation could last a page, and there were other times when Henry was walking along the street and then all of a sudden he was being arrested. I found the slower parts particularly difficult to get through, and would not recommend this book to a person with a small attention span. I found myself often dozing off during parts. Even though I found majority of the book slow by the end I thought it was a great book and had a strong plot that was always changing and introducing new variables. Ever person you meet at the beginning of the book comes out a different person. If you had only read the first chapter you could not have guessed in a million years what the conclusion or even what happens in the middle of the book could have been. It was this element of the book that I found most appealing. This novel is a very good read for someone who has a lot of time on their hands to devote to dissecting the book piece by piece.