The Honorary Consul
Graham Greene, 1973
★ 3.80 from 5.9k ratings on Goodreads
A kidnapping gone wrong in a dusty Argentine river town, and the odd, decent, badly married men caught up in it. A dry, slow-burning story of heat and moral fog, told with wry wit and a steady undercurrent of unease.
Feels like unease, longing and melancholy. About faith, love and power.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy Graham Greene's brand of wry, sad, morally tangled storytelling set in a sweltering backwater. Be warned, though: some readers find the novel's angst heavy going and its middle stretch slow.
Why read it
It puts a kidnapping in a dusty river town to work on questions of faith, love and power, and leaves you with characters worth arguing with afterwards.
A page from the book
What the smell of an unnamed plant can do to a grown man.
It was an evening which, by some mysterious combination of failing light and the smell of an unrecognised plant, brings back to some men the sense of childhood and of future hope and to others the sense of something which has been lost and almost forgotten. What readers say
Readers often find the novel gripping and thought-provoking, with moral and political dilemmas, cynicism, and sadness. Some are moved by its characters and complexity; others find the angst excessive and the pace slow.
Graham Greene.Greene worked for MI6 during the Second World War, posted to Sierra Leone — the seed of The Heart of the Matter and of his lifelong fascination with compromised men on remote frontiers.
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Questions readers ask
- Is The Honorary Consul for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy Graham Greene's brand of wry, sad, morally tangled storytelling set in a sweltering backwater. Be warned, though: some readers find the novel's angst heavy going and its middle stretch slow.
- What is The Honorary Consul like?
- A dry, slow-burning story of heat and moral fog, told with wry wit and a steady undercurrent of unease. Feels like unease, longing and melancholy. About faith, love and power.
- What should I read after The Honorary Consul?
- If you liked The Honorary Consul, try The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco), The Racketeer (John Grisham) and The Exorcist (William Peter Blatty).
A taste of the feed
The most frightening evil is the kind that never doubts itself.
The Devil is not the Prince of Matter; the Devil is the arrogance of the spirit, faith without smile, truth that is never seized by doubt. The Devil is grim because he knows where he is going, and, in moving, he always returns whence he came.
The Name of the Rose · Umberto Eco
Some people are cold in a way no weather can fix.
The blaze of sun wrung pops of sweat from the old man’s brow, yet he cupped his hands around the glass of hot sweet tea as if to warm them.
The Exorcist · William Peter Blatty
The idea that a life has one crack running down it, decided in advance.
DOES SUCH a thing as “the fatal flaw,” that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn’t. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.
The Secret History · Donna Tartt
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