Rating: 
Summary: Excellent, Graham Norton at his best
Review: Graham Norton at his best. Even when trying to be strait he is didactically camp. lovely. This book is a joy to read and a fine work of poetry.
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Summary: A 20th Century Masterpiece - Gripping & Insightful!
Review: Graham Greene wrote one of the best novels of the 20th century with "The Quiet American." His straightforward, elegant prose along with ample doses of irony and humor, make this novel a masterpiece. Greene's characters are extraordinarily complex and passionate beneath their seemingly quiet exteriors. Published in 1955, during the waning days of French colonialism and the beginning of American intervention in Southeast Asia, the book foreshadowed the America War in Vietnam.
Thomas Fowler, Greene's narrator, is a cynical, veteran journalist for a London newspaper based in Saigon in 1952. The dispassionate Fowler has "gone native." He has fallen in love with Vietnam and with the lovely Phoung, a one-time taxi dancer who is young enough to be his daughter. Despite the turbulent political climate, Fowler is content with filing an occasional story and living a pleasurable, carefree life. His dream is to convince his Catholic wife, back in England, to divorce him so he can live out his days idyllically with Phoung and an opium pipe in Saigon.
Enter Alden Pyle, a seemingly innocuous, naive American who is supposedly part of a medical assistance delegation sent by the US government. Pyle is a passionate advocate of an American foreign policy theorist named York Harding, who has proposed that the solution to the problems in French Indochina is a "third force," other than the French colonial government and the Vietminh insurgents currently battling for control of the country. Pyle has really come to Vietnam to foster this alternative third player - a Vietnamese strongman who would lead an American-backed government.
Fowler and Pyle meet and improbably, the jaded, world weary Brit and the earnest, patriotic American form a friendship - until Pyle intrudes in the relationship between Fowler and Phoung. Pyle falls in love with Phuong, almost at first sight. He seduces her away from Fowler with promises of marriage and a life in America. Initially, Pyle's innocence and decency were endearing to Fowler. However, with the potential loss of his lover and the increasing evidence that Pyle is involved in violent clandestine activities, Fowler's feelings toward Pyle begin to sour and the friendship becomes strained. Still Fowler strives to remain objective about the political situation and proclaims, "I don't get involved. I just report what I see".
After a car bomb in downtown Saigon kills several innocent bystanders, Fowler traces the contents of the bomb back to Pyle. He realizes that Pyle, in his fervent adherence to ideological theories, has lost his humanity. He sees Pyle as the quintessential innocent and too simplistic: "'...I had better look after Pyle.' That was my first instinct - to protect him. It never occurred to me that there was greater need to protect myself. Innocence always calls mutely for protection, when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it. Innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world meaning no harm." And finally, Fowler is dramatically forced to take sides. He can no longer be a passive observer to the growing conflict.
Graham Greene quotes Lord Byron on one of the pages preceding the novel, "This is the patent age of new inventions/ For killing bodies, and for saving souls,/ All propagated with the best intentions." This novel is at once a powerfully prophetic commentary and a riveting thriller. Beautifully crafted.JANA
Rating: 
Summary: Choosing a side and making a stand..
Review: What makes Greene not a good writer but a great one is his ability to universalize his characters, representing expressions of general political and national views of a particular historical time. When this novel was first published in 1955, the Vietnam situation was no more than a tiny blip on the international radar. A French colony for many years, after the enforced removal of the Japanese at the end of the war, the French intended all to return to what the country was before, a French dominion. In fact, before WW2, South East Asia was predominantly a Dutch and French colony, and these European imperialists requested of the then newly formed United Nations to ratify their intentions for the region to remain under their colonial rule. But the Cold War was now in full swing, and the evil red menace began spreading her claws. They had to be stopped or so we were told. After Korea, Vietnam was the focus point for the U.S. to stop the spread of Communism. The 'Domino Theory' was given as a reason for U.S. involvement - if one country fell to the Reds, other countries would naturally follow suit. In hindsight, we now know this theory not to be entirely true. The political situation in Vietnam was much more complicated than the communists verses the free world, and this short though elegantly written novel explores some of these complications through its main characters. It would be redundant to launch into a detailed sketch of the main characters and the plot for that matter, however, what this story essentially examines, is that at some time or another, as human beings, we have to make a stand for what we believe in. Eventually we have to choose sides, take responsibility for our decision and cop the inevitable consequences. In this case, the narrator, a cynical, urbane, English atheist, Thomas Fowler, cannot remain in the middle of a major conflict, having created emotional attachments, and sit on the fence. It takes an event of tragedy to push him over the edge, but once moved, he acts. And as his subsequent actions are dire, there is no turning back. The real beauty of this novel is it straightforward, even style, giving the reader the option simply to enjoy the surface tale, or delve deeper into its important issues. ~The Quiet American~ is one of the great twentieth century novels.
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Summary: One of the Greatest 20th Century Novels
Review: This slender, gripping tome about the waning days of French colonialism in Vietnam is also a fascinating meditation on American conduct in Indochina. Without having any foresight on his part, Graham Greene's "The Quiet American" offers us an excellent literary prediction of American involvement in Vietnam and the rest of Indochina. On one level this novel works as a gripping thriller, hurtling the reader with questions regarding the enigmatic Pyle and his seemingly fanatic interest in creating and nuturing a "third force" in Vietnam. It is also an elegant study in contrasts between, the older, indeed cynical, Englishman Fowler, and his seemingly naive, brash American counterpart, Pyle. A study in contrasts that is exemplified by their relationship with Phuong, the Vietnamese woman whom Fowler regards as his own, before she is seduced by Pyle. And this triangle becomes more intense, more fascinating as the novel hurls towards the end, highlighting Pyle's drastic transformation from a "quiet" American to a crafty manipulator willing to condone the deaths of innocents. Without question, this is one of the finest novels written in the last century.
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Summary: A solid case against 'good intentions'
Review: Graham Greene is a master story teller. In his concise and elegant prose, he exposes the ethical and moral quandary of two men against a backdrop of love and war, each driven by diametrically opposing impulses. Certain passages are graphic, but that is the unfortunate reality of war. Greene uses the right dose of irony and humour throughout his story; and even if the context could have called for it, he never allowed his characters to indulge in self-pity.
Rating:
Summary: I learned a lot
Review: The story involves three characters, Fowler, a seasoned British war correspondent in Vietnam in the 1950s; Phuong, his beautiful Vietnamese mistress; and Pyle, a young American. There is the proverbial "love triangle" of sorts, but the story is told from Fowler's point of view, so things appear differently than you would expect because of his wisdom and experience. I learned a great deal from this book about the history of European imperialism in SE Asia, a subject that I really have never studied.
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Summary: Prophetic
Review: This is a short book but to readers of Graham Greene, yet another star in his galaxy of literary output. It gave me a good historical perspective of the Vietnam war and filled in some blanks but it is still Graham Greene's writing and analysis of human nature and motives that rise above the setting of the book. This book does not particularly flatter American motives but does not denigrate them either. So, it is not 100% correct to say that this work does not flatter America. Greene has a remarkable talent to see good in the sordid and (seems to me, anyway) that he is forgiving of a lack of moral clarity not because as a Catholic one must but from an intellectual standpoint that even the best of us err all the time. Indeed, the very concept of moral right being the best is questioned sometimes, in this as well as several of his books. Teaches one a lot of humility when it comes to judging others. Arun Mahajan, Palo Alto, California
Rating: 
Summary: war story with love trouble
Review: The story plays in the Vietnam war in 1954. A british journalist, Fowler, lives with his mistress Phuong in Saigon. Everything goes the right way until Pyle enters the story. Everybody calls him the quiet American. Fowler and Pyle become friends, but then there is a problem. Pyle falls in love with Phuong and wants to marry her...
The story contains interesting characters. It is the story about a friendship of two completely different men who love the same woman.
First I didn't like to read the story, because it's a difficult language with all the special "war expressions". At the end many things become clear. The love story I don't find very special, but interesting. I recommend the book to people who like love stories with historical background.
Rating:
Summary: A intensive story
Review: At the beginnig I didn't understand much about the story, the people and the circimstances at this time. But going on reading I suddenly understood the connections and the correlations in the story. The characteres in the book are very interesting but also unfathomable.(That`s what the title tells with "The quiet American")
Their acts and statements are not always according to their right opinion and views. Not until the end will you see the true faces of the people. The story starts with a murder, and the whole story actually deals with the preconditions of this event. While you read the book you can always guess who is the murderer. But for me the solution was very unexpected!
I also learnt a lot about the circumnsances and the war at this time in Vietnam.
Rating:
Summary: To Vietnam with love
Review: It is interesting to read books by an author in the reverse order, last to first. We can see any profound transformations especially when it comes to religion. In "The Quiet American" our protagonist is an atheist,unlike others who follow in Graham Greene's later great works, like, The Heart of the Matter, The End of an Affair and The Honorary Counsel. Fowler, a middle age journalist for a British newspaper, is in love with a girl, set in 1955 Vietnam. The French were fighting to keep control of this far east colony and Americans were arriving to strike a balance between the colonial power and the communists. Enter Pyle, the quiet American, a kind hearted Harvard graduate, with good intentions, working as a liaison for American Economic Council, a cover. Fowler is taken in by Pyle's innocence, his youth, enthusiasm, at the same time totally disappointed and upset that he is in love with his girl. When a bomb goes off, with Pyle's complicity, and kills innocent people, he tells Fowler they died for a good cause, democracy, a precursor to those famous words spoken by an American commander in 60's " We had to destroy the village in order to save It.". Fowler is outraged at this atrocity. When the conspirators approach Fowler, who had been a neutral observer all along, now is torn between friendship and the courage to take sides for a cause. His French colleague had once told him "You are here and you have to take sides sooner or later." A great read. Greene exposes the hypocrisy of West's mind set.
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