The Ultimate Chronicler of the Believer and the Sinner

            Author William Golding once described Graham Greene as “the ultimate chronicler of twentieth century man’s consciousness and anxiety.” You know an author has done something special when he not only has entertained you, but has managed to invigorate your life with new wisdom, when his protagonist confronts with such moving sincerity his own anxiety and inspires your faith by his example. The power of the novel is incontrovertible when a character’s consciousness and struggle transcends the boundary of the written word in a way you never before witnessed in literature. Graham Greene did just that for me with his whiskey priest in my reading of The Power and the Glory.

            Greene time and time again crafted my initial perception of a character or theme only to take hold of it, shake it repeatedly, and ultimately leave me understanding that same character or theme in a whole new way. The whiskey priest initially appears sinful in his disengagement from the teachings of the institution he represents. It is the pious woman and the lieutenant who wear their badges on their sleeves, seemingly “engaged” with the religiosity and justice they claim to espouse. But through the prison scene and his characterization of Coral Fellows, Greene highlights how “the sinful” man and the young girl with no religious affiliation ultimately have the richest, most admirable understanding of humanity.

The course is over, the man himself rests in peace, but
his lessons persist

            Greene’s protagonist isn’t saintly or glamorous, but he nonetheless serves the will of God in a way that far surpasses the pious woman pigeonholing people with premature judgments. For someone struggling with my own faith at times, Greene gives me a character who breaks down at points but then does not give way to despair and ultimately makes some of the most compassionate and heartrending observations about humanity. The man who sins is far from lost. His failure to meet the expectations of the church knocks him down, his sinfulness holds him back from God, but he keeps going, keeps wrestling with the important questions, keeps holding on to his faith despite all the failure. The whiskey priest inspired me: feeling guilt, but never letting it hold him back for too long; feeling doubt, but never relinquishing his role. I took it all as a message to keep toiling along the path, to recognize that doubt can serve me well by keeping me engaged and asking questions. The priest showed how with doubt can come humility, and then it with this humility that comes the ability to see the people of the world in a benevolent, impassioned way.

            The Power and the Glory does not make faith easy, but a life of faith oughtn’t be. It shook me out of complacency at points, challenged me to dig deeper, to go beyond that “easy” love and find the will to love the “half-castes” and the “prisoners”. While I was inspired, I was also awakened to my own faults, an awakening that can undoubtedly be unsettling. But when a novel has the power to move you in that way, to inspire you to revolutionize your values, the author is doing something special. I’ll be forever grateful for Greene’s insights on what it means to be a struggling believer and hope to hang on to his words as a continuing source of inspiration for my own faith. 

No End To This Affair

In our very first class, Mr. Kiczek asked us about “The Most Interesting Man in the World.” At first I thought, “How in the world does a Mexican beer advertisement relate to a British author?” As I look back on the course and my great (though brief) experience with Graham Greene, I know exactly what Mr. Kiczek was trying to show us. In fact, I was not surprised when we learned yesterday of his three volume biography. His work covers so much, so brilliantly. When we were assigned a short-story mimesis, it took me a while to come up with a story line: we read something by Greene that made my ideas plagiaristic. I felt a tinge of jealousy with every page, every new paragraph, and every insight.

Some of the most important (and my favorite insights) came from The Power and the Glory. That I was able to use it in other courses is still remarkable to me; it shows how truly overarching Greene’s writing is. I think this novel especially has helped me to think of the human side of things. The Whiskey Priest is a paradoxical character, yet his devotion to his vocation and his people reveals him to be a saint. His outlook on his duty and his people has changed my way of thinking. Perhaps we can never really understand other people: they have miseries and joys we may never know. Yet we must try to see them as human beings “with a saint’s eye” (130). There are never really different from us. Hating others results from our imagination’s failure. We fail to see God in others; we fail to see the good in others; we fail to see the love of others. The Whiskey Priest is one of the greatest characters I have ever encountered in literature. He is wonderful because he can be a real person. Humans are sinful and sometimes inadequate. However, even sinners can be saints – a message I think the world today ignores. Love is a painful struggle, but that does not make it worthless.

On the last few train rides home from school with my friend, I began to discuss this class. There is something about Greene himself that encourages you to tell almost everyone you know about him. My friend asked, “I wonder what books of his would be good to read outside the classroom.” Now that I think about it, besides the quizzes, papers, and classroom discussions (which I appreciated), I always read the assignments without academics crossing my mind. I appreciated Greene for what he is: an outstanding author. I have never read another author like him before. I will most likely never read an author of his magnitude again. I decided to take this course because of one story (“The Hint of an Explanation”). I wanted to explore an author I barely knew of. I am glad I did. Greene has contributed so much to my ideas and love of literature. Although the class is coming to an end, there is no end to “my affair” with Greene, to use a terrible play on words. I hope to continue to explore the Most Interesting Man in the World knowing that my exploration started here.

Thank you to Mr. Kiczek for offering the course and sharing his love for Greene. Unfortunately, I am not Greene, and thus my true appreciation cannot be expressed in words.

“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.” – Greene, The End of the Affair

Not What It Seems

            When I look back on my Graham Greene experience during this trimester, I find the character that resonates the most with me is Harry Lime of The Third Man.  I love the character of Harry Lime because he is both likeable and an antagonist at the same time.  He sells illegal penicillin that ends up deforming and killing children, but the way he deals with Martins is near comical as well as the situations he is present in are very out of place for a supposed villain.  He flashes a mischievous grin upon being discovered by Martins, and then runs away only to reappear at a Ferris wheel later to talk with Martins very jokingly and colloquial.  Harry Lime seems to me to be the classic example of the cool kid growing up.  He always knows what to say; he knows how to play people so they do what he wants, and he can charm a girl really easy.  Lime does all of this and more, while Martins can barely sell his books.  Lime seems to be the ideal character that fell in with the wrong crowd, but still maintains that boyhood innocence and charm that makes you want to like him despite his obvious faults and flaws. 





                                

            I think the reason I like Harry Lime and other characters like him is reflective of a certain kind of writing style of Greene that catches my eye and pulls me in, his affinity for characters that do not fit the mold you expect them to.  Harry Lime is the cheery villain who sells illegal drugs.  Yusef is the friendliest criminal you will ever meet.  T. is a regular young kid who just so happens to like destroying things for no good reason other than “because.”  These characters all make you think about what they should be and how that sharply contrasts with what they actually are.  This is one of Greene’s many uses of paradox in his writing and I think it provides for excellent story lines and character development.  It is also the chief reason why I would recommend Greene’s works to anyone who likes to read stories that are both serious and entertaining at the same time.  I do not believe there is a clear distinction between Greene’s more serious works and his so-called entertainments.  I think you can find serious themes in his more entertaining works and certainly entertainment value in even his most serious stories. 

            Overall, I would say that I have had a positive experience with all of Graham Greene’s works.  I did not know much about him prior to this class, and now I leave it with a growing knowledge of him and his works.  Whether it was comedy, passion, anger, loyalty, or betrayal, all of Greene’s themes and works made me want to read more and more.  I will certainly call to mind my experiences with Greene’s works in other literature settings in the future.  

Thanks For The Memories

      Graham Greene is without a doubt, now my favorite author. The unihibited, brash brilliance that Greene inserts into his novels and short stories is innovative, ironic, comical and admittedly cynical, but that's what makes Graham Greene the most interesting man in the world.

       Starting with his short stories was not only a practical, but also appropriate introduction to the most compelling course I have ever experienced. In "The Destructors," Greene takes the audience back to a very strange and impactful time in a person's life: their childhood. We get a view of a small gang of young punks, just looking for something to do. Their only worry is making plans that will be entertaining and adventurous. The conclusion to this dilemma is something quite common that all children should try before the age of ten: strategically dismantle a lonely adult's house while he is away. While the story itself is seemingly ludicrous, Greene offers that "Destruction is just a form of creation." That quote spun my mind in circles and it is so paradoxical, but true, that it can be called nothing short of genius. Greene is one of those authors that offers so many mind-blowing insights that I actually had to re-evaluate everything I thought was complete fact and prepare myself for Greene to cause me to doubt them all. I admit that I may seem to view Greene just as Pyle views York Harding, but Greene has yet to convince me that killing innocents is an acceptable behavior, so keep calm (and carry on).

    I would love to sit here and go through each and every incredible page, paragraph, sentence, word, and semi-colon that Greene wrote, but I would be doing those who have not read his works a disservice. Instead, let me take a moment to explain why Graham Greene is the most interesting man to never appear in a beer commercial. How many authors predicted the Vietnam War in frighteningly vivid detail? Greene did. How many authors can say that they believe "Hate is just a lack of imagination?" Greene can. Finally, how many authors can be compared to Batman, Casablanca, AND Assassins Creed? I think you see where this is going. Greene's unique perspective, political commentary, permanence, and similarity to pop culture beyond his time is remarkable. Graham Greene is...

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Note: I just want to take a second to thank Mr. Kiczek for offering this course and for introducing us all to Graham Greene. Although I took the time to constantly badger Mr. Kiczek about keeping up with the blog and various other shenanigans, it was all in good fun and I want to thank him for all he does as a teacher and for making this course my most memorable one at Regis.

For various reasons, I thought that to say on this one night and one more blog post,

Greene's Masterwork

I am on my third read now of The Quiet American, so I've used this time to think more carefully how the novel is plotted. I'm trying to open up this tightly wound clock and see how it ticks.

Three of the four "parts" of the novel begin with Fowler after the death of Pyle; Phuong has returned to our narrator, and he appears to have stumbled upon the life he only dreamed of. However, with each interrogation of Fowler by the French detective Vigot, we see that Folwer is actually racked by guilt and even grief for his still-mysterious role in Pyle's death. Once Greene establishes the opening interrogation scene, each part of the novel skips back to the development of his relationship with Pyle. The tension of the relationship -- a tension between two world powers, between bleary cynicism and quixotic idealism, between old and young -- catalyzes the central shift of Fowler.

Pico Iyer said, of The Quiet American, "[The novel] is much more about the difficult, treacherous love between the two male rivals than about the love either feels for Phuong." While I agree wholeheartedly with this notion, I'd add on to this that it is even more about the change in Fowler, which results from Pyle's meddling, than it about this relamtionship between the two. Fowler avows his disengagement repeatedly in the novel, but as Mr. Heng says, "one must get involved to be human."

Unlike The Heart of the Matter, there is no excess of emotion here, no prolonging of the protagonist's suffering. Like Scobie, Fowler might be comprised of 'two halves' -- his commitment to his neutrality eventually clashes with his hatred of violence -- but rather than retreating into the pain of his contradiction, Fowler goes out and acts on it. That is, he seeks more and more dangerous assignments and relationships as a means of distracting himself from his own pain.

This means, for the reader, that we get to experience several scenes of suspense and intrigue: strange parades, abandoned military posts, haunted spaces, vertical bombings. The novel's most important moments are episodic -- there is far less fixity of place and conflict from what we are used to in Greene -- yet this, perhaps paradoxically, seems to grant the novel a greater power.

All this is to say that the novel moves in such an efficient and expertly plotted way that I think it might be one of Greene's best. The Power and the Glory  is a young novelist's groundbreaking work, yet The Quiet American is a novelist working at his fullest powers.

Life Is Like A Box Of Chocolates

        

   From what we have read, Fowler claims to see the world as it really is. His words are cynical and often pessimistic. He hates Pyle’s idealistic view of the world, yet he makes the same error that Pyle does: he makes the world one color. Fowler believes that one thing is bound to happen. With this outstanding cynicism and Pyle's outstanding idealism in mind, we must wonder what Greene is trying to convey to us about life. Ultimately the ending of The Quiet American is, in the words of Phoung, “very sad” (178).  She states that she “likes films with happy endings best,” which is a sentiment I would say most people agree with (178). Even Fowler himself agrees with it: “I like happy endings too” (179). We must ask ourselves, “Is life real enough to allow those happy endings?”

Fowler at first declares, “no life is charmed” (174). He has experienced life and its blows for many years. His cynical view suggests that life will always have you bleeding at the eyeballs as Oedipus was, no matter how happy you thought you were. Fowler experiences this very pain after Pyle’s death. Without Pyle, Fowler probably would not have been as engaged as he is. In fact, he does not differ much from Pyle: his “foot [is] thrust in the mess of life” (the blood of innocent people) “before [he] sees the pain” life presents (177). Fowler cannot help but remember Pyle after he dies. Although Pyle is gone Fowler knows he lies when he says, “life is like it used to be” (179). Life can never be the same. What’s worse is that Fowler is granted what he has wished for when Pyle was around: marriage to Phoung. It seems like an egregiously cruel act of fate. Now that his life is ruined, Fowler gets what he wants.

 However, the resolution to Granger’s heartbreaking experience with his son provides us with a completely different story. Maybe life has purely happy endings. That Granger “has something to celebrate” even though life can be as terrible as it is in the movie and as it is for Fowler, suggests that perhaps luck does last (179). It may take the decision of  “that Somebody” who seems very distant in demanding times, but the future can be altered (172). Fowler’s cynicism blinds him to the reality he claims to see. Life has its fair share of trials and celebrations. There may be no whole answer to this question Greene poses. There are two sides to every story even if we “like happy endings best” (178). Just like Fowler and Pyle, life can be contradicting and paradoxical. Perhaps we must not look at life in the way Fowler does, full of endings. Instead, life gives us the choice. We may “never know what we’re going to get,” but we can certainly choose how we see them.

The Quiet Assassin

            Just a fair warning, I am probably going to gush a little bit during this post. Today in class, as we discussed one of the passages we looked at, I noticed that it has a striking resemblance to themes in the Assassin’s Creed series. Pyle also has similar motives as the most recent protagonist in Assassin’s Creed 3, Connor Kenway. For those of you who have never heard of Assassin’s Creed, go out and buy yourself all five games because you have been missing out on one of the greatest stories ever told.

            Okay, so a little AC backstory here that the video doesn’t get into. The plot of every game is split into two time periods. One is set in 2012, with the protagonist Desmond Miles. Desmond enters a machine called the Animus, which taps into his DNA, allowing him to relive the lives of his Assassin ancestors. The series has remained historically accurate, but taken liberties where appropriate. For example, it is speculated that Pope Alexander VI did not actually die, but was poisoned by his son, Cesare Borgia. Therefore, in the third installment of the series, Cesare does poison his father. They never do anything that changes history, but they take different spins on it. They have made games that take place during the Crusades, the Italian Renaissance, and, most recently, the American Revolution. Throughout the AC history, the Assassins have been in a struggle with the Templars. However, both of them claim to believe in the freedom of all people, but seek this differently. The Templars believe that men do not possess the ability to govern themselves, and need to be controlled in order to be truly free. The Assassins, on the other hand, believe that the Templars are not truly seeking freedom, but seeking domination. They believe that all people should be free to govern themselves and do not need anyone to rule them. It’s comparable to the differences between Theodore Roosevelt’s 1916 Progressive Party and the Populists of the 1890s.

            So, how does this relate to the Quiet American? Well the line that specifically caught my attention is during the argument between Fowler and Pyle. Fowler says, “Oh, I know your motives are good, they always are… I wish sometimes you had a few bad motives, you might understand a little more about human beings. And that applies to your country too, Pyle” (124). Both Pyle and Connor Kenway are idealists. They both have certain beliefs about people and nations that they think are infallible. In the case of Pyle, it is his idea of this Third Force that will solve all of the problems in Vietnam. Pyle feels that this Third Force is the only chance to push out the French and Communists from Vietnam. This is similar to the way that Connor views freedom. He equates the idea of democracy with freedom of all. He believes that it will push out the British from America, and allow every man, woman, and child to be completely free of rule. There is a certain innocence in this belief, in that they view it as a simple problem with one clear-cut solution. However, in the video I posted above, Connor watches as the British leave America. When he turns around, he sees several slaves up for sale, and he cannot help but wonder if the ideals that he gave his life up for were for naught.

           This brings us to the views of the Templars. Now, one thing I have to say is that, for the first time in any AC game, I felt bad for killing every single Templar in Assassin’s Creed 3. The ideas that these men presented made just as much sense to me, if not more sense, than those that Connor and the Assassins presented. In a way the Templars have a more mature view of things. They do not see a solution to humanity’s problems, so they wish to control these problems, contain them, and aim for peace and safety. This is, in some ways, similar to Fowler, who views the innocence and idealism of Pyle as idiotic. In his mind, the only way to end these conceptions of innocence and idealism is to control them. Fowler does not see any substance in the Third Force, viewing it more as a concept that Pyle got out of books and fairytales than something of actual worth.

In the video clip above, there are plenty of quotes available for analysis, but there are two I’d like to call attention to. John Pitcairn says, “And we should live forever on castles in the sky. You wield your blade like a man, but your mouth like a child.” I think that this perfectly captures the idealism of both Connor and Pyle. They are strong enough to enforce ideas, but they are young and they are outsiders. Pyle is a full-blown American, new to Vietnam. He may like to act like he really understands everything that is going on, but how can he claim to when he has not been there and lived through it for himself? Connor is half British and half Native American, and does not declare a side in the Revolution (instead preferring to be on the side of freedom). He’s killing the men that he believes to be against this, but when it comes down to the moment of their deaths they maintain true to their ideals, and often seem to understand things more than Connor.

In the death of Thomas Hickey, he says, “I’m the type of guy who likes to have a beer in one hand and a titty in the other. Thing is, boy, I can have what I seek – had it even. You, your hands will always be empty.” Hickey is a great representation of a realist. He does not care about any visions of the future, or grandeur views of nations. He cares about himself and what he can gain from the situation. He does not delude himself. Between Fowler and Pyle, though, who is the realist? On one hand, Pyle is an idealist, but he seems to have a true belief in his views. So, in his mind, perhaps he is a realist. Fowler, on the other hand, thinks that when it comes to politics and people, he is much more realistic than Pyle. However, even he admits that, in regard to Phuong, he “was inventing a character just as much as Pyle was” (124). When it comes down to it, perhaps Hickey is right about both of them. Maybe neither can get what they want, and they’ll both leave empty handed. 

The character speaking here is Haytham Kenway, Connor’s father and leader of the Templars in America. This speech is, in my mind, one of the greatest speeches ever given in video games. First and foremost, what wonderful voice acting for Haytham Kenway’s character. This is a dense speech. It’s political, it’s emotional, it’s ideological, and it’s powerful. I’ll leave the majority of the speech for your interpretation, but one of my favorite lines is when Haytham says: “Oh, they might have dressed it up with pretty words, but that does not make it true.” Fowler and Pyle can come up with all these ideas that they want, create all these visions, quote Harding and Pascal and make everything sound absolutely wonderful. In the end, is either of them right? Do either of them believe in the one absolute truth?

Okay, last video, I promise. Tell me that this trailer is not epic. I dare you. One line in this trailer really speaks to me, though. “In your haste to save the world, take care you don’t destroy it.” The motivation behind Pyle’s ideals is to save Vietnam, to save Phuong, and to do good. That does not mean that the results will be favorable.

[DISCLAIMER: Ubisoft did not pay me to advertise this game... but buy it anyway.]