A problematic novel: Stamboul Train

Yesterday I finished reading Graham Greene's Stamboul Train, published in 1932. Yes, it’s been criticized for its antisemitic stereotypes. But no, it didn’t prevent me from appreciating the book. Greene calls it “entertainment”, but it’s a far cry from the infantile formula of fast-paced adventure, wholesome heroes, and villains who get what they deserve. Clearly, the book is not anti-semitic in a conventional sense, despite what some commentators seem to claim. The Jewish character, Carleton Myatt, is sympathetically portrayed; he is certainly not a caricature, but a complex character that one gets to know as one keeps on reading. Possessing conscience and acting as decently as anyone can expect, he is a better man than most. Furthermore, Greene consistently portrays anti-semititism as a trait of unlikable characters, while the good and sympathetic ones are free from it.

Yet the book is problematic. Metaphorically it fuses anti-capitalism, a sort of anti-semitism and Orientalism on the one hand, and Christianity and socialism on the other. Let me start with Orientalism, which may not be very foregrounded but which is metaphorically present in the journey itself, which takes the passengers from Ostende to Constantinople. This journey, I suggest, is a descent into Hell. Each trainstop marks a new and deeper hellish circle. Occasional moments of happiness – mostly connected to the squalid love story of Myatt and the sickly dancing girl Coral Musker – only serve to thicken the sense of impending calamity. Clear premonitions tell the reader that the girl’s dreams of happiness will be dashed. Meanwhile increasingly repulsive people board the train. The vicious and hateful journalist Mabel Warren boards the train in Cologne, only to be replaced by the cold-blooded murderer Josef Grünlich in Vienna.

The book is pervaded by the squalor, insecurity and restlessness of the interwar years. But above all, it’s pervaded by a Catholic sense of sinfulness. This sinfulness, I suggest, is key to understanding the book as well as one of its central characters, Dr Czinner (pronounced “sinner”). Czinner is an emigree revolutionary, a former medical doctor brought up by poor parents who devoted himself to helping the poor in the slums of Belgrade before turning to communism. Five years ago he barely escaped the police and has been living in exile in Great Britain ever since. Now he is tormented by guilt and is returning incognito to his homeland. Along the way he learns that the revolt in Belgrade he had hoped for has failed but he nevertheless decides to continue his journey and stand trail (a good sentence here: “I am afraid, he told himself with triumph. I am afraid”).

Please stop reading here if you don't want spoilers. Mabel Warren recognizes Czinner in Cologne and by telegraphing the news brings about his arrest at the bordercrossing of Subotica. Czinner’s trial and death are clearly modelled on those of Christ. His self-doubt and vacillation bring Getsemane to mind. He bears his verdict with serenity and relief ("There was no need to decide anything. He was at peace... He was powerless now and happy" ). Two “Roman” soldiers accompany him as witnesses. Grünlich, who is imprisoned together with him, is a Barabbas-like figure who gets away unscathed. There are even faint suggestions that the doctor’s political message might spread despite his death in almost total obscurity, since one of the soldiers seems receptive to it and since Coral, who was with him before he died, will be interviewed by miss Warren who wants “exclusive” rights to the story.

After the horror of Subotica, the book ends with a seemingly incongruous idyllic chapter on Constantinople. Here Myatt, who during the entire journey had been the victim of anti-semitic slurs, is at home. Excelling at money and negotiations, the despised Jew turns princely. Fortune smiles at him. He resolves his businesses successfully and finds a beautiful prospective wife, Janet Pardoe, who unlike Coral is a lady of “genuine worth”. This last chapter is the most lighthearted in the book and at first sight offers a happy ending. Yet in terms of the book’s structure, it is the culmination of Hell, its innermost pit. The happy ending is made possible by forgetting. Myatt forgets Coral, just as Janet forgets her previous attachments to miss Warren and the writer Savory (whom she had met on the train). If the train ride was suffused by squalor and insecurity, here the narrative emerges into a sunlit zone of capitalist triumph. The happy ones are the rich gathering at the luxury terraces of Pera Palace, joined by the murderer Josef who is seen waving his hand from one of the tables. If there is anti-semitism in the book it consists in the metaphorical designation of this blissful and faithless paradise, clearly a fallen world, as a Jewish world. Here Greene taps into an ancient anti-semitism, which is not racist in a modern sense but has religious roots: the Jew is the one who closes his ears to God and enjoys life as usual – despite the crucifixion and despite the suffering of the poor going on around him. Myatt forgets his entire journey and by doing so merges metaphorically with the Orient as well as with Hell and capitalism. Yet in condemning this forgetfulness, the novel commits its own. Despite its seeming anti-capitalism, it displaces the object of its criticism, capitalism, from its home in the west to its geographical and cultural Other.