posted on 26 Mar 2023

The Stamboul Train by Graham Greene

First published in 1932, The Stamboul Train (rechristened The Orient Express in the U.S.) was what you might call Greene’s ‘breakthrough’ novel. Written deliberately to have enough populist thriller appeal to interest a wider audience, this is, after all, Graham Greene and the dark underside of life is always there.

Set on a train journey from Ostend to Istanbul, Greene set about constructing a plot he hoped might be popular enough to be picked up for filming. Of course the setting of the Orient Express train is a perfect way of pulling off the the trick of gathering together a cast of characters who are, effectively, captured and forced to interact in a moving closed room environment – something Agatha Christie also deployed in Murder on the Orient Express which came along in 1934.

Christie’s populist instinct was, I think, more powerful than Greene’s and her plot was largely untroubled by character development or the intrusion of the real, political world outside the train. Although Greene had all the component parts for the writing of something more superficial, his instinct was always to probe beneath the surface and confront the dark side of his travellers.

Two key plot strands emerge as the passengers find their way onto the train. Firstly we are introduced to Carleton Myatt, a successful raisin and current merchant who is on the way to Istanbul to confront an agent he believes is cheating him. But Myatt is Jewish and this is pre-war Europe: Greene makes it clear that antisemitism is rife and shapes both Myatt’s own thoughts and the attitudes of the other travellers to him. Debate has raged over whether Greene’s depiction of Myatt is informed by his own negative attitudes towards Jews or whether his intension was to expose and depict the antisemitic views that were emerging in Europe during those years. It’s hard to judge which of these positions has the upper hand but I tend towards the latter although you will want to make decision for yourself.  

Myatt helps a cabaret dancer, Coral Musker who is travelling to Turkey in the hope of finding work there. She is travelling 2nd class and is clearly unwell – she collapses in a corridor and Myatt steps in to help her by buying her a First Class seat. The two become lovers and later in the novel Myatt attempts to save Coral from being arrested and cast adrift in Subotica.

Entangled in the Myatt/Coral story is the second main plot strand which involves a Communist Party leader, Dr. Czinner, travelling as a doctor on a forged British passport. Czinner has spent five years as a teacher in an English boy’s school but is now seeking to his native Belgrade to be the figurehead of a revolution. Czinner, who has a medical background attends to Coral and they form a bond.

Czinner’s presence on the train however has been spotted by an alcoholic journalist Mabel Warren, a lesbian journalist travelling with her companion, Janet Pardoe. Warren, thinking she has a major story to break, leaves the train to phone her story through and has her bag stolen by a thief and murderer, Grünlich, who takes her ticket and money and leaves the journalist stranded.

When the police board the train to arrest Czinner, they also take Grünlich and Coral, who Czinner has passed a letter to. In a hectic denouement Czinner dies, Coral ends up with Mabel Warren and Myatt with Janet Pardoe. 

Ultimately the thriller aspect of the book just about keeps the pace up and the complex story afloat but I was left with a more pressing impression – this was a story of outsiders. In Thirties Europe could there be a more concentrated collection of outsiders : a Jew, a working girl, a communist, a criminal, a lesbian, an alcoholic. There are no heroes here to save them – they hang together and they hang alone.

Paperback copies of the book are easily available in many editions and you’ll pay well under £5 for a second hand copy.

 

Terry Potter

March 2023