The Honorary Consul

"The Honorary Consul," apparently the 23d novel by Graham Greene, written rather later in his long career, might, perhaps, crassly be described as a bleak, slow thriller. But, of course, that leaves so much out. The book is set in a provincial Argentine town, in the late 1960's, early 1970's. The town is on one side of the Parana, a great muddy river; on the other side lies Paraguay, which, at the time, is suffering under the bloodthirsty military dictatorship of General Alfredo Stroessner. Argentina, on the other hand, has not yet experienced the bloody military coup that will leave it suffering under extraordinarily bloodthirsty tyranny for many years. The foreign colony of this provincial Argentine city is small. Principal among the residents is Dr. Eduardo Plarr, a physician, born in Paraguay to a local Latin woman: his English father has vanished into one of Stroessner's prisons. Charley Fortnum, the title character,the honorary consul,is a man of sixty-one who drinks heavily, and has just married Clara, a twenty-year old girl from Senora Sanchez's brothel, the town's only cultural center. Also important in the town is Saavedra, an Argentinean novelist, who sometimes appears to be speaking for his creator. However, the Argentinean publishes lugubrious works that mirror the Latin American obsession with "machismo" that impacts the entire town, and continent. Then there is Colonel Perez, the frightening, knowledgeable, efficient, intuitive local policeman with hooded, sunglass-hidden eyes. Throw in a radical priest or two, some terrorists, and Greene has created a vivid, accurate picture of Latin America at the time. Fortnum is kidnapped by Paraguayan revolutionaries who meant to take the American ambassador. However, the terrorists decide to make the best of the situation, and threaten to kill the Englishman anyway, if their demands for the release of political prisoners -- one of them Plarr's father--are not met. Needless to say, Plarr is torn, especially since one of the terrorists is an old school friend of his. And Plarr had become the lover of Fortnum's wife. Greene's writing is compact, terse, brilliant in its description of the physical and emotional landscape of his portrait of troubled people, time and place. The writer traveled widely, as a journalist, and to research his novels. He had great serendipity in his wanderings: many of them occurred at critical times. Obviously, he was in Argentina at a rather fraught time. His sojourn in Mexico produced two books, including the famous The Power and the Glory (Penguin Classics). The Cuban-set Our Man in Havana (Penguin Classics) was published in October, 1956; on New Years Day 1959 the revolutionary Castro came down from the Cuban mountains to sweep into power. Greene set his Vietnamese war novel, The Quiet American (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition), just before the important battle of Dien Bien Phu. He set The Comedians (Penguin Classics), in the last days of "Pa

In a provincial town 800 km north of Buenos Aires a group of revolutionaries kidnap by mistake Charly Fortnum, the Honorary Consul, instead of the American Ambassador. They request the liberation of 10 prisoners from Paraguay. The characters are brilliantly drawn and the prose is sparse and taught. Fortnum, sixty-one year old, living on whisky and his disputed status as an "Honorary" British Consul marries a young ex-prostitute from Senora Sanchez's brothel. Dr Eduardo Plarr whose deficient emotions form the heart of the novel. Although Plarr is Clara's lover and the father of the child she's expecting, he still envies Fortnum's love for her because it is a feeling he has never been capable of experiencing himself. Even the minor characters of the kidnappers, Aquino, Father Rivas and Marta are sardonically drawn and during the bungled kidnap, plenty is said among them about justice, faith, love and God during the 3-day confine in a dirty mud and tin hut.

This is a well-written story combining the elements of a political/spy novel with those of a Greek tragedy. Set in Argentina, Greene tells the tale of a botched political kidnapping which provides the context for an interesting character study. The ineptitude of Greene's kidnappers and their gradual self-destruction, to me, symbolized the disarray and tumult in the lives of each character. Greene's interesting cast of characters includes a chameleon-like prostitute who tailors her personality to accommodate the varying expectations and inadequacies of her clients, a fallen priest who cannot seem to shed his former skin, a marginalized novelist who is crippled by his pride, an emotionless doctor whose heart is as sterile as his instruments, and an inconsequential "honorary" consul who fails at everything except loving. This novel is by no means cheery, but I came away from it with an important reminder that life is lived in vain if lived without having loved--even if that love is unrequited.

I can't believe this book is out of print. It's one of Greene's best novels.

One of Greene's most spare and tension filled novels.