The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen
"The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen" is a short story written by Graham Greene in 1965.
Plot
The story takes place in Bentley's, a restaurant in London (perhaps the same as the current Bentley's, 11–15 Swallow Street). The narrator is sitting at a table, alone, and observes a group of eight Japanese gentlemen having dinner together, and beyond them a young British couple. The Japanese speak quietly and politely to each other, always smiling and bowing, toasting each other and making speeches in Japanese which the narrator doesn't understand and describes in patronizing, derogatory terms. Seven of the Japanese gentlemen wear glasses. They eat fish and later a fruit salad for dessert. They provide a mildly farcical and carnivalesque background to the main focus of the narrator's attention, the couple.
Although they sit farthest away, the narrator catches their conversation. The pretty young woman is a writer, about to be published for the first time. She's describing her plans to her fiancé, how Mr. Dwight, her publisher, lauds her talent, and how she wants to travel the world, especially to France, so as to feed her inspiration. She also wants to marry her young fiancé the following week, being convinced that their financial future is settled thanks to the inevitable success of her first book, The Chelsea Set.
Her fiancé is much more cautious and doubts that they should rely exclusively on the young woman's professional prospects and talent. His uncle could help him get into the wine trading business, a duller, but also safer life choice than to be the husband of a traveling author. The young woman, aggressively self-assertive and bossy, is angry at her fiancé for being lukewarm about her projects. She, on the other hand, has no doubts about her powers of observation and her future success.
Throughout the story, the narrator, who, the reader gathers, is himself a writer, makes sarcastic or cynical comments about the young woman's ambition and youthful enthusiasm. He sounds embittered, being probably in his forties or fifties, and certainly past his days of glory. He knows about the publishing business and is aware of the gap between a young author's expectations and the harsher, down-to-earth realities of a literary career. He is both jealous of the girl, because she is at the beginning of something and still has the ability to dream her future, and sympathetic, because she's young enough to be his daughter and he would like to communicate his experience to her so as to preserve her from disappointments. She is, after all, only a superficial, self-deluded arriviste. Lastly, the Japanese gentlemen's presence, and the elaborate formality with which they communicate with one another and celebrate, contrasts sharply with the ferocious discursive dispute that opposes the young woman and her fiancé, and which she wins, at least rhetorically but fails to fulfill her supposed "powers of observation" by failing to notice the presence of the Japanese gentlemen as her fiancé does.
Televisation
"The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen" was one of several Greene stories adapted for the 1970s British television series Shades of Greene. Denholm Elliott, starring Royce Mills and Celia Bannerman.[1]
References
- ^ "IMDB profile for The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen".
- v
- t
- e
- The Man Within (1929)
- The Name of Action (1930)
- Rumour at Nightfall (1932)
- Stamboul Train (1932)
- It's a Battlefield (1934)
- England Made Me (1935)
- The Bear Fell Free (1935)
- A Gun for Sale (1936)
- Brighton Rock (1938)
- The Confidential Agent (1939)
- The Power and the Glory (1940)
- The Ministry of Fear (1943)
- The Heart of the Matter (1948)
- The Third Man (novella; 1949)
- The End of the Affair (1951)
- The Quiet American (1955)
- Loser Takes All (1955)
- Our Man in Havana (1958)
- A Burnt-Out Case (1960)
- The Comedians (1966)
- Travels with My Aunt (1969)
- The Honorary Consul (1973)
- The Human Factor (1978)
- Doctor Fischer of Geneva (1980)
- Monsignor Quixote (1982)
- The Tenth Man (1985)
- The Captain and the Enemy (1988)
- No Man's Land (2005)
- Journey Without Maps (1936)
- The Lawless Roads (1939)
- In Search of a Character (1961)
- Getting to Know the General: The Story of an Involvement (1984)
- A Sort of Life (1971)
- Ways of Escape (1980)
- Getting to Know the General: The Story of an Involvement (1984)
- A World of My Own: A Dream Diary (1992)
- The Living Room (1953)
- The Potting Shed (1957)
- The Complaisant Lover (1959)
- Carving a Statue (1964)
- The Return of A. J. Raffles (1975)
- The Great Jowett (1981)
- Yes and No (1983)
- For Whom the Bell Chimes (1983)
- Twenty-One Stories (1954)
- A Sense of Reality (1963)
- May We Borrow Your Husband? (1967)
- The Last Word and Other Stories (1990)
- "The End of the Party" (1929)
- "Proof Positive" (1930)
- "The Basement Room" (1936)
- "Across the Bridge" (1938)
- "Alas, Poor Maling" (1940)
- "The Blue Film" (1954)
- "The Destructors" (1954)
- "A Shocking Accident"
- "The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen"
- "The Last Word"
- Orient Express (1934)
- The Future's in the Air (1937)
- The New Britain (1940)
- 21 Days (1940)
- This Gun for Hire (1942)
- Went the Day Well? (1942)
- Ministry of Fear (1944)
- Brighton Rock (1947)
- The Fallen Idol (1948)
- The Third Man (1949)
- The Heart of the Matter (1953)
- The End of the Affair (1955)
- Loser Takes All (1956)
- Saint Joan (1957)
- The Quiet American (1958)
- Our Man in Havana (1959)
- The Comedians (1967)
- Travels with My Aunt (1972)
- The Human Factor (1979)
- The Honorary Consul (1983)
- Monsignor Quixote (1985)
- The End of the Affair (1999)
- The Quiet American (2002)
- Brighton Rock (2010)
- Brighton Rock (play)
- Shades of Greene
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/96/Symbol_category_class.svg/16px-Symbol_category_class.svg.png)