Assignment #2: Modernist Literature

01. Which 2 readings did you choose?

The Quiet American and Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

02. Compare (3) and contrast (3) the reading you completed with the ppts. on Modernist culture and literature.

The Quiet American: The story take major importance when caught the interest to become it into films. Greene writes and makes a strong case against American involvement in Vietnam. And he makes this case back in the 1950's towards the end of French involvement in Indochina.
The book is well written and easy to read. The story is not dated at all.

Greene's style combines simplicity and complexity, and the thematic relevance of this novel, render it a deserving read. Additionally, the chronologies and commentaries upon foreign involvement in Indochina/Vietnam are both valuable and blessedly concise, and the collected reviews and critcal commentaries upon the novel serve as valuable tool for understanding.


Our Man in Havana: This comic spy tale set in pre-Castro Cuba concerns an insignificant little man-a vacuum cleaner salesman to be precise-who, against his better judgment. this book is a satirical story and it deals with a theme that Greene has revisited on many occasions that of a spy in a foreign country. He says a few important things about social class, the Catholic Church, and the absurdity of international relations.

03. In your opinion, do you feel the readings you completed are very good or excellent examples of Modernist literature?

Greene in the Quiet American showed his life and he talked about his experiences, people said his writtens were prophecy because that heppened some years later. I think this book is a good example of modernits literature.

Greene in Our Man in Havana novel which established on rocky footing with Cuba’s revolutionary government in 1958. Fidel Castro failed to appreciate Greene’s self-branded "entertainment" novel which sees an absurd Cuban vacuum cleaner salesman foil the British Intelligence with a fabricated spy ring, set against the backdrop of the brutal Batista dictatorship.
“Alas, the book did me little good with the new rulers in Havana,” said Greene. “In poking fun at the British Secret Service, I had minimized the terror of Batista’s rule.” Despite Our Man in Havana’s political blunders, a film adaptation starring Alec Guinness was completed in 1959 and the book garnered international attention during the Cuban Missile Crisis when its depiction of a secret agent “taking aerial photos of strange machinery” rang startlingly true. I think this book also is a good example og modernist literature because the book is related with the events of this times.

04. Would you recommend these readings to your friends and/or family? Why/why not?

I recommend those books because they showed the reality lived in that times and the way relate the stories are very entertaining.