May We Borrow Your Husband?: And Other Comedies of the Sexual Life (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) [Paperback]

Graham Greene (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 7, 1992 | Series: Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics

Affairs, obsessions, grand passions and tiny ardours are illuminated in this collection of 12 wryly humorous tales of love. Whether depicting the innocence and corruption of a honeymoon couple or the frustration of missed sexual opportunities, the stories expose a range of human frailties.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (July 7, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140185372
• ISBN-13: 978-0140185379
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,705,701 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars A Mixed Dozen, September 29, 2011

By 

John Fitzpatrick (São Paulo, Brazil) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: May We Borrow Your Husband?: And Other Comedies of the Sexual Life (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) (Paperback)

This collection of a dozen stories which focuses on relationships between couples was first published in 1967 and is a mixed bag that highlights Greene's strengths and weaknesses as a writer.

The best stories - May We Borrow Your Husband, Mortmain, Two Gentle People -combine the light touch of books like Travels With My Aunt with the darker side seen in Greene's novella Dr Fischer of Geneva.

The title story foreshadows Dr Fischer, published in 1980, and is a narrative by an older man who falls for a woman who is much younger than him.

In Dr Fischer, the narrator marries the girl but she conveniently dies leaving him to melancholy and sad musings.

In May We Borrow Your Husband, the narrator "loses" the girl he barely knows as she heads off to a life of domestic misery with a husband she does not realize is a homosexual.

The story is set in a hotel in Antibes and Greene skillfully portrays the cast of English characters - the plodding narrator whose own marriages have failed, the predatory caricature homosexual interior designers stalking the young man and the innocent lovebirds on their honeymoon.

Greene resists the temptation to turn the situation into a farce and the ending is abrupt and unsentimental.

The final story - Two Gentle People - is even bleaker. It also features a woman whose husband is a homosexual and a man whose wife is a drug addict. The couple meet, are attracted to each other but in the end know they must resist the temptation to start an affair and return to their partners and their loveless domestic lives.

Unfortunately, about half the stories are second rate farcical attempts at humor - The Over-Night Bag, A Shocking Accident, The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen. I am surprised that Greene even allowed them to be published.

3.0 out of 5 stars Kind of creepy yet interesting, January 11, 2011

By 

Scott Peterson Belanger "Camp 66" (Ocean Park Maine) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: May We Borrow Your Husband?: And Other Comedies of the Sexual Life (Mass Market Paperback)

More of a tragic comedy than anything. A series of short stories all with a twist into the lives of humanity.

5.0 out of 5 stars Delicious end of summer comedy, September 12, 2007

By 

Ventura Angelo (Brescia, Lombardia Italy) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: May We Borrow Your Husband?: And Other Comedies of the Sexual Life (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) (Paperback)

The main story giving the title to the collection is absolutely exquisite. The narrator (Greene?) a writer who lingers in an Antibes hotel at the end of the summer to work quietly finds his peace unsettled by the arrival of a young newlyweds couple, whose male component is coveted by a couple of gay seducers. We see their unrelenting siege with the resigned eyes of the narrator, who tries to face the wolves with lame results.The characters are superbly depicted, but it's interesting to note that's one tale of seduction where we never see or hear the POV of the seduced.