Telex from Cuba - Rachel Kushner

 

Having discovered that Rachel Kushner's Italian translator is a lady I met, I decided to read another one of her books (and didn't have too many reservations about reading it in translation). 

While I greatly enjoyed the writing, I felt that the book spent too much time setting the scene and providing historical background - probably because I'm reasonably familiar with the history of the Cuban revolution, partly because I teach about it, partly because I have watched The Godfather Part 2...

Still, once the plot "gets to the point" the book shares a number of similarities with many of my beloved suburban middle-class American novels, and that's a huge selling point. Also, it ultimately does a really good job of explaining how monoculture in general (and United Fruit in particular) messed up a country and its people. 

The Quiet American – Graham Greene

The first Graham Greene I’ve read. The one that made me wish I could teach a course based on his writing about the early Cold War. Surely most historians of the Vietnam War probably cringe at the mention of a “Third Force” theory, but the book was written in 1955 and its insight is undeniable.

The book is about rich white Westerners playing god in the rest of the world (something we normally do oh so well…). Despite the fact that it’s clear that neither Fowler nor Pyle will die when they find themselves in the watchtower, those pages remain incredibly gripping and tense. Again, nether one of the two is likable – yet the reader (or, at least, the European leader) wants Fowler not just to survive, but to be happy wherever he is, be it Vietnam or the UK.

I am sure in real life Graham Greene must have been a snobby and stand-offish arrogant bore, but man could he write…