So close and yet so far! We’re closing in on the end of session, having gotten through two major deadlines in the past month, but the part that’s left is the most brutal bit.
In Books…
- The Quiet American: This is the story of two men and a woman, and also of two different philosophies and a country, and Graham Greene was clearly not much interested in trying to make the symbolism less obvious. Thomas Fowler is an older man, a journalist, living in Vietnam and covering the First Indochina War. He has a cozy little set-up going on with his own apartment, easy access to opium, and a beautiful and much younger lover, Phuong. And then Alden Pyle comes along. A young American CIA agent, he’s unlike his loud and brash colleagues. He’s ignorant, and innocent of that ignorance. He’s very sure that there’s a Third Way possible for Vietnam, neither colonialism nor communism but a democratic client state, and his surety is rooted in books rather than experience. He falls in love with Phuong almost immediately after meeting her, despite sharing no common language and therefore being unable to communicate. He’s determined to take her from Fowler, to marry her and bring her back home with him. Fowler, who cares for Phuong but has never considered her to be much more than a diverting experience, finds himself suddenly possessive of her. Phuong is never a real character with her own agency. She’s representative of her country/region and the conflict between the Old World and the New. That conflict comes to a head as Pyle allies himself with a military figure who he’s convinced will be the leader he’s looking for to put the Third Way into action. The novel, written and set in the 1950s, is notable for its prescience on what will become of American involvement in Vietnam. There’s a remove to it, it’s very concerned with religion and political philosophy but precious little with emotion and feeling. It was good, I enjoyed reading it, but I didn’t find myself feeling strongly about it.
- Carmen and Grace: I love stories about deep female friendships, so this book seemed like it would hit in the sweet spot of something I know I like while also introducing me to a world I don’t normally explore. The titular pair are cousins, who consider themselves more like sisters, and the book traces their involvement in a New York City drug trafficking ring run by Doña Durka. It’s told from the perspective of both Carmen and Grace, and really suffers from the choice to start with Carmen’s perspective. While theoretically it makes sense, she’s a passive, reactive presence, and I found it challenging to get engaged with her story. Things pick up significantly when we get to Grace, but it’s not until about a quarter of the way through the book and I was already kind of checked out. I also never felt like we got the kind of exploration of the friendship I was hoping for. I’ve seen some mentions of the untranslated Spanish as an issue for readers, but I didn’t find it all that problematic. Most of it felt possible to get the gist of through context and there’s really not all that much of it. All and all, this isn’t bad, but not really especially good.
- Henry VIII, The King and His Court: For a 500-page biography of Henry VIII/history of early Tudor-era court life, this moved relatively quickly (it still took me about two weeks to read). Alison Weir’s works are some of my favorite royalty books to read, because while she doesn’t neglect details like how tennis was played in Henry’s time and how all of the people at court were fed and where they slept and what decor would have looked like in a great hall, she also keeps in mind that she wants actual people to read her books. Her prose is engaging and her evident curiosity about her subject is infectious. Obviously the wives are covered, but if what you’re really interested in is more detail on them, she has a standalone book on the subject that I rather enjoyed. This is also an enjoyable read, but probably best for those already interested in the subject at hand.
In Life…
- Session plugs along: If you go back and look at all the archives of this blog in odd-numbered years, you will notice that I’m super boring in the springtime because literally all I do is legislative session. I’ll be in a person again in June.