re:mote voices

Title: Travels With My Aunt
Author: Graham Greene
Publisher:Vintage

Henry Pulling is settling down for a comfortable retirement from the bank where he has worked his entire life. With his mother's funeral he expects that all comittement will be behind him. But that is where is Aunt Augusta turns up, almost instantly upsetting his status quo with the bomb shell that her sister was in fact not his mother. From there a series of journeys begin, Henry pulled into Augusta's reality, one which is just that little bit different from that of a retired bank manager.

Over the course of the book Henry travels to Brighton, Istanbul, and Paraguay. Each taking him that step further into a world of conmen, druggies, aimless students, CIA agents and war criminals. In the process we follow the progression of his seduction, his aunt's regales him with stories of this world, which put his staid retirement in a new life.

Travels With My Aunt is a novel about transformation, which isn't really a million miles away from something like Thomas Pynchon's The Crying Of Lot 49, which is perhaps a more explicit journey. Henry and Augusta are extremes, describing a period during the 1960's, and how experiences provide contrast to how people have ended up. Henry is his mother's son, somewhat stuffy and restrained, while his mother's sister has gone off and travelled the world. Henry is colourless grey, while Augusta is a vibrant rainbow of experience.

Part of my interest in Travels With My Aunt comes from reading John Gimlette's The Tomb Of The Inflatable Pig, a travel book and history of the South American country of Paraguay. Throughout The Tomb Of The Inflatable Pig, Gimlette makes a number of references to Travels With My Aunt and the details of Paraguay that Greene provides in this novel. While Gimlette's work covers the period as the past Greene is coming from a time when it was the present, which creates a curious contrast. Though to read Greene's Paraguay with Gimlette's in mind creates a vivid picture - the mini tank memorial, the police behaviour, the use of the language of Guarani, the presence of war criminals and the dictatorship.

Perhaps it is a little disappointing that Paraguay only comes up in the last third of the novel, given pre-conceptions. However the journey to Istanbul on the Orient Express, and the like, provide enough character to make up for any pre-conceptions. Despite being 30-40 years old, and clearly being a contemporary novel of that time, Greene remains readable and fresh - his mix of characters and the way they fit into a world wider that just Britain holding a definite appeal.