The Quiet American
One of Graham Greene's best works. The story is set at the time of the French war against the Viet Cong and tells the story of liberal British journalist Thomas Fowler, his mistress Phuong, and their relationship with American idealist Pyle. The latter is an earnest young man indocrinated with geo-political theory and whose attempts to shape the world to American ideals ends in his own personal tragedy and drastically alters the lives of the other two participants. Written before the US involvement in Vietnam this is a strangely prophetic work and seriously encapsulates the British viewpoint towards that conflict. A beautifully written book and highly recommended.
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- Graham Greene's The Quiet American has a similar feel. About an American spy in Vietnam.
Edit: Also, Mick Heron's Slow Horses series, based on a group of outcaste MI5 spies in London. (The first book was made into a TV series on Apple TV).
- I’m no spy, but I believe your description of agents has always been true. Note that, outside fiction, “intelligence agent” is distinct from “intelligence officer.” The latter is a professional spy who recruits and handles the former from among regular people who might be leveraged, paid, or ideologically keen.
Only in popularizations are the two roles confused - though I suppose there are rare circumstances in which an officer goes undercover in order to directly pilfer secrets, as opposed to recruiting someone who can. Hard and rare one expects: language, culture and competent counter-intel have made recruiting someone already inside easier and wiser.
Also I don’t think competent professional spies have ever used “movie inspired” anything, but the generous interpretation of your comment assumes you meant the reverse.
But still a poor assumption to think the fiction ever got it right, starting with the confusion over what an “agent” is but including everything else.
Excepting Graham Greene’s “Our Man in Havana” and “The Quiet American,” which I suspect nailed the respective damnfool incompetence and arrogant ignorance of a certain type of mid-century patriot keenly. “Harlot’s Ghost,” though mystical, may also speak bizarro truth.
- They can be quite difficult to get into, particularly for those who haven't had similar experiences, but I think they are worth the effort. They are also stylistically brilliant and contain some great character sketches so they are worth approaching from that angle too.
They will give you great insight into the sense of unease felt by functionaries in a dying empire who can sense the end, and react in various ways to this (disillusion, cynicism, outrage, despair). He's also big on doomed or failed relationships which never quite seem to end (in particular catholic marriages), and of course the books shed light on the relationship of a lapsed catholic to God, who pops up when you least expect him. As you may be able to tell from that summary, they are not often light reading, though he does spice the stories with little jokes. A sense of doom and unease just comes with his world view I think and you can never escape that in his novels.
Our man in Havana is quite fun without being too heavy, so that might be a good place to start. The Quiet American is also good and concerned with the end of another empire (the French colony in Vietnam), and the sharp end of the US intervention there.
- Just to add to the recommendation of The Quiet American: my edition includes a collection of Greene’s screenplay treatments, which is basically a master class in plot development.
- I mean, if you want to know about the inner workings of Graham Greene's life, you're probably better off just reading his novels (the dividing line between his serious novels and his entertainments isn't as clear-cut as he made out).
Some personal favourites:
England Made Me: Interestingly enough for a novel written in 1935, about multinationals.
Brighton Rock: A vicious little tale of a small-town thug.
The Power and The Glory: A very, very catholic novel, but also a cracking thriller.
The End of the Affair: Another very catholic novel, but also very different.
The Quiet American: Hard to express exactly how good this one is. Vietnam, spies, and a huge indictment of "decent people".
Monsignor Quixote: Life after fascism, and a ridiculous priest who may, in fact, be a saint.
- While on the topic of Graham Greene - I recommend his novel Quiet American. Written in the mid 50s it shows amazing insight into the future of American foreign policy and regime change. And does so through a great story.
