🌹The Rose & Skull: Love & Death in Literature ☠️
Lovers in a Dangerous Time
Introduction
This section deals with two novels: Graham Greene’s The Quiet American (1955) and Christopher Koch’s The Year of Living Dangerously (1978). I analyze the structure and themes of the novels, do close readings, and supply samples of paragraph and essay-length analysis. The section ends with four comparative essays written by students in 2020 and 2021 (when my courses were online during the pandemic).
The comparative aspects of the novels is striking: both novels feature Western journalists who go from Anglo homelands (England & Australia) to major cities in Southeast Asia (Saigon & Jakarta) at dangerous moments in history during the Cold War (1952 & 1965). For information on the Cold Wart in the two novels, see the next page, Colonialism & the Cold War. Both journalists also find themselves in personal danger because of communist groups (Viet Minh & PKI) and agents (Mr. Heng & Vera) who align themselves with China & Russia against the West, especially the U.S. Both fall in love (with Phuong & Jill) and make friends who approach the problems of the country in a different way (Pyle vs. Vigot & Kumar vs. Billy). While both protagonists are somewhat addicted to danger, they also escape from it by going to exclusive hotels that cater to Westerners (The Continental & The Hotel Indonesia). Both journalists sympathize with ordinary people, lose their detached journalistic perspectives, and become involved in the country's problems, symbolized by pedicabs (trishaws & betjaks) and their drivers.
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