Paperback, 188 pages
English language
Published 1991 by Penguin Classics.
A thoughtful, sensitive novel written with real depth, but writing like Graham's—in this, anyway—always seems to have a film over it that mutes its energy and distances me from the action and the characters.
Typical Graham Greene set in the early CIA involvement in Vietnam, during the French period.
No heroes, just more and less contemptible anti-heroes consumed with fulfilling their own needs and compulsions through and at the expense of those around them.
I shouldn't read Greene, but perhaps Kennedy and Johnson should have.
Better upon a second read. First time around it felt flat, second time around a bit more depth.
