Unmasking Graham Greene

I am a big fan of GG but some of his books I find just too dry, almost literally in some senses, where the arid African climate seems to just pour out of the pages onto you, and also permeates the contents ; The Heart of the Matter, A Burnt-Out Case, are examples that come to mind. Don't let your first impressions turn you off from this genius. Some of his other books are quite different. Had I started with one of these ^ I might not be able to recommend those ->

I have loved ; The Human Factor, The Captain and the Enemy, The Honorary Consul, Our man in Havana, The Tenth Man ...

Based on an Aug 11, 2016 comment of yours, maybe you would like to start with The Captain and the Enemy, which also happens to be where I started. After that I started reading everything GG although I'm not quite done. I currently have The Ministry of Fear waiting to be loved. Myself I love the Penguin editions, perfect format and the smell ... the ones from the 70's I mean.

Graham Greene is also my favorite writer. Many of his books fantastically explain moral dillemas of people in extreme situations, and force you to think how you would behave under extreme circumstances. I see the value in his books not in the stories he tells, but in the soul searching that he provokes.

Brighton Rock is one that can read a lot like a noir gangster thriller.

I do think that to really 'get' Greene's writing, you should have experienced the cognitive dissonance that comes from religion.

I was introduced to his writing by an English teacher who saw that in me. Truly a teacher who influenced my life's trajectory.

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.

Much in the way that I would recommend to anyone struggling with "Moby-Dick" to try starting with Melville's much shorter novella "Bartleby, the Scrivener" to get a taste for the authors' style, wit, and use of language; I would suggest a volume of Greene's short stories. In a few or a few dozen pages it is easier to see how he draws a character, uses dialogue, employs irony and humor to make a point or cause the reader to reflect. Once you have a feel for what Greene finds funny (or distasteful) it is easier to see how his commentary takes shape over the course of a longer novel.

A few stories that come to mind that might make good examples are "When Greek Meets Greek" and "The Destructors."

I'm a fan of "The Comedians" (1966) which is about Haiti under the regime of the populist dictator "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his feared secret police the "Tontons Macoutes". Despite the grim subject, it is an enjoyable read.

I first came to Greene via his novel, Monsignor Quixote. It was billed to me as, “Don Quixote is a Catholic priest and Sancho Panza is a communist.” As a 14-year-old fascinated by Catholicism and Marxism, that was enough to hook me. What catches my interest is the narratives of people on the margins of belonging/belief (which is something which has carried through into my own writing).

Many people have a book they read in their teens that changed their outlook. For some it's 1984. For me it was Greene's "The Power and the Glory". It, and the questions it raised, are still with me.

Monsignor Quixote I can also recommend. The others I read I have forgotten, except for Brighton Rock which I didn't like.

As a sibling commenter has said, if you have any form of religious background or have seen that world, his books speak with a depth I think it would be difficult to grasp without that.

Not the OP, but there is also a brief mention of Esperanto in "The Power and The Glory". As to why, I'm not sure of any direct connection of Greene to Esperanto or other constructed languages, but he was a friend of George Orwell, whose aunt was the girlfriend of Eugene Lanti, an Esperantist who was one of the creators of the standard Esperanto dictionary (PIV). Lanti (whom Orwell didn't care for) may also be the reason Orwell had 1984's "Newspeak" use terms like "ungood" which model Esperanto usages.