Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Tongue-in-cheek spy novel that gets a bit dark and more exciting as it goes on. Graham Greene is a confusing author for me because he wrote one of my favorite literary works, The End of the Affair, but his writing isn't limited to literary fiction, and The Third Man, for example, is just some noir nonsense. This was sort of in between but I did enjoy it.

I was especially interested in the pre-Castro Cuban setting. My family is from Cuba, and around this time my grandparents would have been in their 20s. My paternal side moved to Santa Clara at about the time of the story (the main character James Wormold goes there on vacation). My maternal side moved to Havana shortly after the time period of the novel. All Cuban-Americans are devoutly anti-Castro but the sacrilegious question is always whether the dictator that preceded him, Batista, was also a bad guy. This makes the character Segura particularly interesting to me, especially since Greene doesn't make him as one-dimensional as it initially appears.

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The Quiet American by Graham Greene

The Quiet American by Graham Greene
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This novel is great. There's so much to it that I'm not sure how to review it.

[Full disclosure: Graham Greene's The End of the Affair is currently my favorite book ever, and has been for 10 years, and probably 500 books. But The End of the Affair is not an ambiguous book like this one.]

A huge part of the book is about the foreign involvement, diplomacy, and media in Saigon during the Vietnam war. To a small degree, it's also about the Vietnamese people at that time. It's more about religion and ethics, and the evils of relativism. It's about the inability to really know other people, and possibly even to know ourselves? It's about the different ways people understand - or misunderstand love. It's a crime mystery.

It's just very good! But The End of the Affair is still my #1.

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The Third Man by Graham Greene

The Third Man by Graham Greene
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The End of the Affair is one of my favorite books, but this doesn't move me as that did. As a mystery or moral tale, it's a good read.

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The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This novel has been my favorite novel for a decade now. I think Greene is a genius.

Outwardly, there is this passionate love story during wartime. The story itself is exciting and well-paced, but sentence by sentence, Greene is trying to convert you. I went along for the ride feeling entertained the whole way, and then suddenly I felt as though Greene has changed my insides forever. I'm due for a reread, but I carry this book inside me all the time anyway.

[Reviewed in 2017.]

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