Travels with My Aunt

This book follows the story of Henry Pulling, a single, very square early retiree of the British persuasion as he reconnects with his aunt at his mother's funeral, and is soon thereafter pulled into her wild life of international travel and crime.

While I did enjoy the characteristically dry and somewhat absurd British humor, I couldn't stay engaged with the writing or the plot. There's a decent twist at the end.

This was probably the most amusing of the Graham Greene novels I have read.

The blurb says “Henry Pulling, a retired bank manager, meets his septuagenarian Aunt Augusta for the first time in over fifty years at what he supposes is his mother's funeral.Soon after, she persuades Henry to abandon Southwood, his dahlias and the Major next door to travel her way, Brighton, Paris, Istanbul, Paraguay... through Aunt Augusta, a veteran of Europe's hotel bedrooms, Henry joins a shiftless, twilight society; mixing with hippies, war criminals, CIA men; smoking pot, breaking all the currency regulations... coming alive after a dull suburban lifetime.”
And is sums it up better than I would.

It is a fairly light hearted work, very readable, and very funny, with twists and turns to the plot - some of which can be seen coming, others not so much. My impression is Greene didn't take this one too seriously - and had a lot of fun with it, and I think the same.

Aunt Augusta is a laugh a minute, with great stories, and a sordid history, all the better to contrast Henry, a conservative and straight laced ex-bank manager.

There were some great quotes from both of them in this book:
“I have never planned anything illegal in my life,' Aunt Augusta said. ‘How could I plan anything of the kind when I have never read any of the laws and have no idea what they are?”“Politics in Turkey are taken more seriously than they are at home. It was only quite recently that they executed a Prime Minister. We dream of it, but they act.” “I like to change my clothes as little as possible. I suppose some people would say the same of my ideas, the bank had taught me to be wary of whims.”

Who in the world could use a big shake more than the stodgy Henry Pulling? Henry never married and spent his life locked up behind the safe and tedious walls of a bank. Then, at his mother's funeral, Henry met his Aunt Augusta and he was sent spinning out into a world he never knew existed.

Graham Greene is that Graham Greene, he of The Power and the Glory and Our Man in Havana and The Quiet American. So Travels With My Aunt is a totally different Graham Greene. Every chapter had me. I now have a new gloriously inspiring role model for my last years.