The Honorary Consul

The Honorary Consul: A Novel | Graham Greene

Book haul from the second hand bookshop. This has become my favourite second hand bookshop - pity it is four hours drive from where I live! @CarolynM I bought this 1974 hardback of The Honoary Consul to remember our buddy read and eventually read it again! The Noel Streatfield is from 1969 and has gorgeous endpapers and The Land of Wales is from 1943 and has black and white photos. (But I‘ll give this to #hiselderliness )⬇️

Centique The Seuss book is for my husband but it will probably be me that reads it - and the other 3 were all on my TBR for this year. I‘m still looking for some good Rumer Goddens and Lawrence Durrells but they are hard to find! 3y

LeahBergen Yay! You got Lives Like Loaded Guns. 👏🏻👏🏻 I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. And I love that Streatfeild edition. 😍 3y

TrishB What a great selection 👍🏻 3y

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readordierachel A fabulous haul! 👏🏼 3y

CarolynM Lovely! I really liked the Hollinghurst and Patchett books you've got there too🙂 3y

batsy Gorgeous Streatfeild edition. 3y

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Centique

The Honorary Consul: A Novel | Graham Greene

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Thank you for the buddy read @CarolynM I‘ll put some thoughts under spoiler tags in the comments for you.

I‘m happy to discover Graham Greene this year. His writing has a simple elegance to me. Beautiful descriptions but with restraint. Compared to other classics I‘ve read this year he has more pace, a balance of brevity to style. There is a sense of the ridiculous but this is much much darker than Our Man in Havana. Extremely thought provoking

Centique I thought in the end that Plarr was purposefully repugnant in many of his actions. Fortnum was presented to us as a fool and Plarr as the intellectual observer but by the end we had to reassess them both. Plarr had an emptiness, a perhaps amoral quality. He did some good in the world and some bad in the world - without really contemplating his own impacts. Fortnum was also damaged in some way but was perhaps able to resurrect himself 3y

Centique The world they‘re living in is both farcical and tragic. The decision makers and upper classes are ridiculous. The poor are tragic and driven to crime in order to be heard. Good people are shot. There is no fairness to be called upon. The police officer honestly tells Plarr he would shoot him if he needs to - and yet Plarr walks out to negotiate. He ends up making the same blunders of the activists. I wonder though if that isn‘t subconsciously... 3y

Centique ...to sacrifice himself for the sake of the child. He seems to go through this psychological crisis around his father and his fathers death - from feeling abandoned perhaps to feeling beloved - and maybe he is then drawn to emulate his father. He is an unusual protagonist in that his motives are quite hard to read - it seems like a psychological study in some ways. I do feel that Greene thinks the individual has few choices in a regime. 3y

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Centique In the end Plarr never recalls that Clara asked him if he could love her. He keeps asking himself the question as if the thought is rattling around inside his emptiness unable to be absorbed. And Fortnum ultimately misses his captors - who were more authentic, passionate and purposeful than the upper class he finds himself with at the end. Which is a dark ending - although there is some hope for this child which will have a “better” father. 3y

Centique Anyway that‘s just a splurge of thoughts for you @CarolynM Feel free to add or disagree - I‘m sure it‘s more enlightening to have different opinions anyway! 3y

CarolynM I can't find anywhere this has been remarked on so I may be off the mark, but I think Fatherhood is a central theme. Plarr's father is frequently on his mind in a number of ways, including as an influence on the relationship with his mother, he is worried about who will be the father figure for the unborn child. These issues go both ways, how the father's choices affect the child and how the existence of the child affects the father... 3y

CarolynM Then there's the defrocked priest - I don't think it's a coincidence that his wife repeatedly calls him father. And so the concept of God the Father - such an impact on the children of God how they perceive God's actions (or lack thereof). I think a lot of the religious philosophical discussion could be seen as analogous with a father's behaviour - no father is perfect, a child has to take the bad with the good... 3y

Centique @CarolynM I hadn‘t thought of the fatherhood theme including the priest. That makes a lot of sense! I did see that reviews around the time of publication focused on the religion quite a lot. I prefer your interpretation though. The absent father ... the search for God and meaning ... the dark side of God the priest opines about 3y

CarolynM I don't know about love in this book. I don't think Plarr was capable of loving anyone - beyond medical practice he seemed to only be interested in other people insofar as he could make use of them (don't get me started on his sexual hang ups) And since we saw the other characters largely through his eyes they seemed to me equally lacking in heart. In contrast, the love triangle in The Quiet American is very moving. 3y

CarolynM And I think you could relate Plarr's coldness back to being abandoned by his father. Maybe that's also the reason he is the one character who will openly admit a lack of religious belief - no father, no God. Anyway, make of all that what you will. It's a very interesting book, I'm extremely glad I read it. 3y

Centique @CarolynM great points! Yes I don‘t think he was capable of love either but in the end maybe he recognised that about himself. Hard to know - there certainly is a lot of room here to interpret it in different ways - it would be a great book to write essays on at uni. Thanks so much for brining it to my attention 😘 3y

CarolynM 😘 3y

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CarolynM

The Honorary Consul: A Novel | Graham Greene

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In a small Argentinian town a group of Paraguayan rebels kidnap a British honorary consul in mistake for the American Ambassador. What will they do when no government will negotiate for the release of their hostage? It's billed as tragi-comedy, but, while there was plenty of absurdity, I'm not sure I saw much comedy in it. There's a lot to unpack - politics, religion, love, sex, loyalty, friendship, masculinity, fatherhood. I'm still processing👇

CarolynM I want to say so much about this book, but I'm just not sure how to express all the things I feel about it. Thanks for the buddy read @Centique Maybe I'll sort through my thoughts a bit better in the next few days. 3y

Cathythoughts Stacking ! A book that makes you think , I need to read more of those 👍🏻❤️ 3y

CarolynM @Cathythoughts It's good. Definitely worth reading. 3y

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Centique

The Honorary Consul: A Novel | Graham Greene

This post contains spoilers

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Don‘t you just want to slap him sometimes @CarolynM ?!! Very much enjoying this - it has more pace and plot than my Simone de Beauvoir read (although that‘s still very good too)

CarolynM I always think those sorts of things tell you a lot about the character. Obviously you have to take the mores of the time of writing into account, but in the end, if a character has those thoughts (whether or not they are also the thoughts of the author) he's pretty shallow, emotionally repressed and deluded about his own worth. 3y

Centique @CarolynM yes I have some thoughts already about his psychology and where it might stem from! I think Greene is playing up his coldness thus far and his attitude to women - there‘s a purposeful contrast to Fortnum I think? I‘m enjoying how entangled Plarr is getting and how there might be some kind of moral awakening for him coming. 3y

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CarolynM

The Honorary Consul: A Novel | Graham Greene

That's an interesting twist on the classic smashed avo. I might have to try it some time.

Centique

Josee.lit.a.lu.et.lira 😋 3y

TrishB Sounds fun 🤩 3y

Centique I‘ve just got up to the mashed avocado! 3y

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Centique I just finished it tonight Carolyn. Wow, I‘m very impressed. Let me know if you‘ve finished it too? 3y

CarolynM @Centique I've got about 100 pages to go. Hopefully I'll finish tomorrow. 3y

CarolynM @Centique Just finished, still processing 3y

Centique @CarolynM I‘m not sure I‘ve finished processing either! 3y

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CarolynM

The Honorary Consul: A Novel | Graham Greene

A day late, but getting started on my buddy read with @Centique

LeahBergen It looks so lush and green there! 💚 3y

Centique Oh you‘re so good! I‘m picking it up from the library tomorrow! 3y

Cathythoughts Lovely garden 😍 3y

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Mistermandolin

The Honorary Consul: A Novel | Graham Greene

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I read The Power and the Glory at school and devoured everything else by Greene shortly thereafter. Picked this up second-hand recently, started on The Honorary Consul for the first time in over thirty years, and guess what? Yep: diamonds turned to dust. Arrogant, sexist; even clumsy. What do they say? ‘Never go back‘? Absolutely. Seems like you really can‘t jump in the same river twice.

Vansa I re-read The Third man and some of his essays last week, those were still excellent! I never liked The Honorary Consul much as a book! 4y

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SaintUrsula

The Honorary Consul: A Novel | Graham Greene

"When I was a young priest, I used to try to unravel what motives a man or a woman had, what temptations and self-delusions. But I soon learned to give all that up, because there was never a straight answer. No one was simple enough for me to understand."

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SaintUrsula

The Honorary Consul: A Novel | Graham Greene

Grrr!

charl08 Yikes. 8y

the_hibernator Wow 8y

SaintUrsula @charl08 @the_hibernator it's actually a pretty good book but that one was a doozy. Women are definitely on the sidelines but that quote just came right out with it I guess. 8y

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SaintUrsula

The Honorary Consul: A Novel | Graham Greene

Life isn't like that. Life isn't noble or dignified... Nothing is ineluctable. Life has surprises. Life is absurd. Because it's absurd there is always hope.

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