The Quiet American

Rating:
Summary: A Quiet Masterpiece
Review: Graham Greene's success has always rested on his ability to create real, three-dimensional characters and set them in the most precarious of situations. THE QUIET AMERICAN is among the best of Greene's works because it utilizes this strategem the most fully.

Set in Viet Nam in the mid-1950s, the atmosphere is one of confusion and forboding. The French invasionary forces in the country are suffering sorely because of native resistance, and things in general seem to be teetering on the verge of explosion. Englishman Thomas Fowler, enjoying his opium-induced haze, is a tough-as-nails but aloof war correspondent observing the chaos. His native-born and beatiful mistress, Phuong, is obviously caught up in the activity. Both are awaiting the arrival of the American, Alden Pyle. When he arrives, several fuses, some quite literally, are lit.

Pyle brings with him a kind of ingenuous patriotism for the U.S.A. and part of his mission is to spread the good news about democracy. Along the way, he falls in love with Phuong and, more importantly, he falls deeper into the quicksand of Vietnamese policy and belligerence. As other reviewers have commented, it is quite amazing that Graham Greene wrote this novel in the mid-1950s because he prophesized, in a way, the depths to which America's involvement in Viet Nam would be pulled for the next twenty years.

But THE QUIET AMERICAN is not an allegory about European/American entanglements in southeast Asia (although some of that is decidedly there). It is a story about real characters trapped in a milieu that is about to explode. And that makes THE QUIET AMERICAN a gripping, suspenseful novel and is one of Greene's masterpieces.

Rating:
Summary: "I don't like Ike."
Review: I can honestly say that I've spent more time thinking about the events of Graham Greene's THE QUIET AMERICAN than of any other book I've read in months. In short, this is the story of America's involvement in Vietnam, full stop. Astounding is the fact that this was written between 1952 and 1955, yet can serve as a metaphor for almost two further decades of US involvement in that region.

This is no simple tale, although it can be read as one. It works on many different levels. In its simplest form, this is a story about two foreigners in Indo-China: a middle-aged British reporter, and a young idealistic American. They involve themselves in two main plots: one concerning the French Army's battle with the Vietminh, and the second, concerning the two men's relationship with a native woman and the subsequent fight for her affections. On this level, THE QUIET AMERICAN works as an effective thriller. Who is the mysterious "third force" that Pyle, the American, is aiding? Why is he even there, and why is he providing aid to this group? Will Fowler, the British journalist, abandon his policy of neutrality and enter into the conflict? Who will end up with the girl at the end?

But there are all sorts of other subtexts and subtleties going on here. Pyle isn't just "the quiet American"; he is America -- at least as far as the US's involvement in Vietnam is concerned. And the difference in age between Pyle and Fowler is no random chance. Fowler is the older man; his country has already had its expansionist, colonial period. Fowler already knows what it's like to get one's fingers burnt interfering in other people's conflicts. But Pyle won't be told. He's the young inexperienced man who has to find out for himself -- to the detriment of everyone.

This isn't just a simplistic "America = idealistic, good-hearted, but naive" or "England = experienced, weary, and impotent" view of the world. While Greene builds on several stereotypes of the Old and the New Worlds, he goes much farther beyond that. Both men desire Phuong (the Vietnamese woman), but for starkly different reasons. The woman's own interests are kept to herself deliberately. We learn far more about Pyle and Fowler simply by the way in which they view the woman. On a purely personal level, the characterization is heart-wrenching. When looked at on a national level as far as what the two men represent, it is amazingly thought provoking.

After reading THE QUIET AMERICAN, I kept replaying and rethinking a number of its scenes and breaking down the characters as much as I could. There is a lot going on here, and much of what Greene wrote about wouldn't fully come into being for a number of years after the book's publication. There are many layers of subtleties occurring in this book's pages, and while I'm certain that I have not yet caught them all, it is not through a lack of interest. This is a very powerful book, and should be on everyone's "To Read" list.

Rating:
Summary: As superbly written as it is insightful
Review: Only the great Graham Greene could have written a story that is as wry and understated as it is prophetic. "The Quiet American" captures several different attitudes during Vietnam's transition from French colonial occupation to American "involvement". In this novel the French do what they do best, namely they undertake a hopeless struggle and experience painful defeat. The Americans enter the scene with grandiose plans, tons of money, and utterly no sense of reality. The Vietnamese are, of course, hard-edged and practical, while the lone Englishman-God bless him-is the epitome of dying yet dignified colonialism.

For those of you who haven't read the book, its both an odd love story and a metaphor for American involvement in Vietnam. The hero, Fowler is a washed up, middle aged, English war correspondent, content with his opium pipe and his Vietnamese mistress, Phuong. His world is gradually disrupted by the arrival of an American covert operative named Pyle who is both a zealous ideologue and a naïve optimist. Things get complicated when Pyle steals Phuong away from Fowler, yet attempts to remain friends with him. The normally indifferent Fowler soon becomes morally repulsed by Pyle's seemingly well intended terrorist activities, and gradually becomes politically involved. By the time Fowler helps to engineer Pyle's murder it is unclear even to him whether he is doing so to help the Vietnamese people or to win Phuong back.

"The Quite American" explores several different concepts. Like many of Greene's novels and short stories it examines the peculiar morality of love. Fowler and Phuong form a strange symbiosis. Fowler is estranged from is English wife, and is old enough to be Phuong's father. His affection for her is unabashedly sexual and certainly not made for day time TV in the U.S. Phuong's attachment to both Fowler and Pyle is based more on practical reasons than on love. Greene never passes judgement any of the trio. And when Fowler wins Phuong back in the end, he is left-like so many of us-with a lingering doubt about his motives and actions.

Equally interesting is Greene's exploration of the politics of Southeast Asia in the 1950s and particularly, the shifting balance of power from European colonialism to American military and economic involvement. Pyle, who is probably based on the real life American operative, Landsdale devoutly worships the books of an intellectual whose thinking bears strong resemblance to that of George Kennan. As the French wrap up their losing streak, the Americans enter the scene with blind stupidity, you can't help but cringe at disaster to come.

I loved this book for its intelligent grasp of love and politics. Like many of Greene's other works, this one contains a genius for characterization.

Rating:
Summary: It Leaves You In A Quandry
Review: Set during the French War in Vietnam, "The Quiet American" is a multifaceted story told in the words of Thomas Fowler, a cynical British correspondent and one of the novel's two main characters. The story involves a struggle between Fowler and Pyle, an American undercover operative and Fowler's romantic rival. Pyle and Fowler hold opposing views of the war, love, God, democracy, whatever matters to man, they disagree about. Fowler, whose vision of reality stifles his belief in ideals, emerges as a romantic and ideological rival of Pyle, whose ideals blind him to reality. America's Cold War policy in Southeast Asia is critically presented in the person of Pyle. Masterfully written, Graham Greene confronts us with two flawed, stereotypical characters and leaves us to determine the hero and the villain. I still have not made up my mind. A work which can leave the reader in such a quandary is a great work of art. Read and form your own conclusions.

Rating:
Summary: A must-read book.
Review: This novel written between 1953 and 1955 has been made into a new film, which has been recently released by Miramax. This is the story about the early stages of the American involvement in Vietnam. Although simplistic, it captures the essence of the political turmoil of Vietnam in the fifties: the French trying to hang on to their colony, the Americans trying their hands in a new country, the "third force", the communists, the peasants, and so on.

It deals with an American idealist, Pyle, who without knowing its true colors tried to help the "third force" fight the communists in Vietnam. Fowler, a seasoned English reporter questioned Pyle's real motives. He suspected, like the British had done in Burma years earlier, the Americans would soon get tired of the involvement, leave the natives fight for themselves, and let them be slaughtered by their enemies. This was a fascinating prediction, which came to be true 30 years later. How Graham Greene could predict that event back then still puzzles me? The plot, however, thickened as Pyle tried to lure away Fowler's Vietnamese mistress.

I have to concede the novelist had more insight than many of our politicians. Since the novel raises important issues, it should be a "must read" book for many Americans.