January 8th, 2010
Let’s play a game.
I post a paragraph, and you tell me which novel it’s from.
When he left the aircraft with the other passengers he had resigned himself to the notorious purgatory of the US Health, Immigration and Customs machinery. At least an hour, he thought, of overheated, drab-green rooms smelling of last year’s air and stale sweat and guilt and fear that hangs round all frontiers, fear of those closed doors marked PRIVATE that hide the careful men, the files, the teleprinters chattering urgently to Washington, to the Bureau of Narcotics, Counter Espionage, the Treasury, the FBI.
Potent stuff, man. Could be the latest book to hit Jon Stewart’s nightstand, could be a far-future SF depiction of the American border hellscape, could be pulp, could be the intro to a good cop/bad cop smut scene. One thing holds true: it’s amazingly prescient, and therefore depressing. Any guesses?
Sounds like Graham Greene.
Close, but not quite!
I also thought of Ian Flemming but I can’t see 007 doing something so mundane.
Nailed it! It’s from Live and Let Die.
I’m sure it’s from The Wind in the Willows.