180 pages
English language
Published 2004 by Penguin Books.
One of Graham Greene's best works. The story is set at the time of the French war against the Viet Cong and tells the story of liberal British journalist Thomas Fowler, his mistress Phuong, and their relationship with American idealist Pyle. The latter is an earnest young man indocrinated with geo-political theory and whose attempts to shape the world to American ideals ends in his own personal tragedy and drastically alters the lives of the other two participants. Written before the US involvement in Vietnam this is a strangely prophetic work and seriously encapsulates the British viewpoint towards that conflict. A beautifully written book and highly recommended.
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.
