Saturday, August 3, 2013

Graham Greene - The Quiet American

"For a book that has an average rating of 4.06 stars, it sure was boring. Are people confused and rating this on a scale of 1 to 100? In which case, I think 4.06 is a very appropriate rating. I had heard about it on NPR and it sounded so intriguing. Even President Bush mentioned it in a press conference in December. So what happened? The only logical explanation is that I accidentally checked out the ‘Boring Edition’ from the library.

The Quiet American is supposed to be one of those thought provoking books that changed society. Well, it made me think a lot, things like: 'Hmm…I’d really rather be doing the dishes' and 'I bet there is some really interesting junk mail that I could be shredding' and 'Oh man, I really want to clean up that hairball on the living room floor!' So, in a way, it did change me: I really enjoyed housework because it was more fun than this book. I know I could have quit reading it at any time, but all the fantastic reviews lead me to believe that there would be some sort of redeeming factor and perhaps I had to wait until the end to see it. That page must have been missing from my copy."


"Stop. The emporer has no clothes. There is something of a story and plot here to keep you, but the dialogue is horrendous. There are kids in high school lit classes that can write better dialogue that this."


"Not much happened, so I can't imagine how they made it into a movie."


"I understand that criticism of America's mistakes during the Vietnam war is deserved. We made many sad mistakes. But I don't like Americans being criticized for their idealism, their innocence, virtue, or dedication to the spread of democracy ... Graham Greene was an angry, arrogant, well-educated British elite whose words are dripping with condescension toward Americans. I believe that though Americans have made many mistakes, America is still the best neighbor of any country on the planet. America's strength keeps many tyrants at bay."

No comments:

Post a Comment