I’m listening to Graham Greene’s ‘The Quiet American’ at the moment.
It is only a short book-less than ten hours I think-but it packs a lot in with a spare, economic, clipped style of writing.
I have read ‘Brighton Rock’ and ‘The End of the Affair’ and Greene appears to have a particular, unique style.
His characters are real and the question of religion, and more especially the Catholic religion, has featured in ‘the End of the Affair’ and now ‘The Quiet American’.
There are bits of philosophy interspersed through the books I have read, too, and the word you would use to describe Thomas Fowler in ‘The Quiet American’ is cynical.
Fowler is a reporter in Vietnam during the Vietnamese war, a reporter who does not take sides, believes in nothing, smokes pipes of Opium and has a young Vietnamese girlfriend who prepares his pipes.
I am really enjoying ‘The Quiet American’ but am coming to the end now.
I will definitely read more of Graham Greene as his style is unornamented and accessible and the stories are entertaining and credible.
‘The Quiet American‘ is well worth your time.