The Quiet American

The Quiet American

by
Graham Greene

published	1957 by Penguin (Non-Classics)
first published	1955
binding	Paperback
isbn	0670000191 (isbn13: 9780670000197)
date added	01-05-07 edit book

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Martine rated it:

(review of isbn 0143039024)

06/30/08

bookshelves: british, film, historical-fiction, modern-fiction, war

Read in June, 2008

The Quiet American is a short novel (180 pages), but it packs a punch, both emotionally and politically. A masterful study of male rivalry and political engagement set in 1950s Vietnam, it pits against each other two very different men: Thomas Fowler, a jaded, world-weary, ageing British war correspondent, and Alden Pyle, an earnest and idealistic American who has just arrived in Vietnam to work at the Economic Aid Mission and hardly knows anything about the country except what he's read ...more The Quiet American is a short novel (180 pages), but it packs a punch, both emotionally and politically. A masterful study of male rivalry and political engagement set in 1950s Vietnam, it pits against each other two very different men: Thomas Fowler, a jaded, world-weary, ageing British war correspondent, and Alden Pyle, an earnest and idealistic American who has just arrived in Vietnam to work at the Economic Aid Mission and hardly knows anything about the country except what he's read in a book. Early on in the story, in a scene whose absurdity belies the increasingly dark tone of the rest of the book, Pyle informs Fowler that he's in love with Fowler's mistress Phuong and intends to have her for his bride, since, let's face it, he has more to offer her than does Fowler. Amazingly, Pyle then goes on to insist on being Fowler's friend, seemingly unaware that the other man sees him as a rival and doesn't really want anything to do with him. So their stories keep weaving in and out of each other, until Pyle is found dead. The question is, who killed him, and why?

The Quiet American is first and foremost a splendid portrait of an unlikely friendship between two men who are not what they seem. Adulterous, opium-smoking Fowler doesn't come across as very likeable at first, but as the story develops, the reader discovers that his cynical exterior hides an all too human heart. For his part, Pyle, whose innocence and naïveté seem delightfully absurd at first, turns out to be a dangerous character who is playing with forces he doesn't understand, with potentially dire consequences for many people. Greene expertly handles the strange relationship between the two men, adding just the right amount of wonder and bitterness to the proceedings. At the same time, though, he tells a story that is much bigger than a bizarre love triangle. Having been a foreign correspondent in Indochina in the early 1950s, Greene obviously knew Vietnam quite well, and it shows in his depiction of the country, a wonderfully vivid place where Communist forces are fighting for freedom, French bureaucrats are trying desperately to hang on to their colonial dreams and war correspondents like Fowler are not sure whether to remain impartial observers or to get involved in the fracas. In spare, minimalist prose, Greene shows what happened in Vietnam when the Americans got involved, and what generally happens when well-intending but badly-informed people start messing in other countries' political problems -- a lesson which over fifty years later still seems frightfully topical. Along the way, he tackles such universal themes as goodness versus selfishness, action versus laissez faire, moral conflict, and the nature of love. Initially, the writing may seem a little too detached to move the reader, but the carefully plotted intrigue, well-drawn explosive atmosphere and powerful ending more than make up for it, making this a well-told story with a message which hasn't lost any of its power in the half century since it was written.
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Richard rated it:

(review of isbn 0143039024)

03/19/08

Read in August, 2007

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

The Quiet American really is the best of Graham Greene’s novels, despite “The Power and the Glory” being widely held as his masterpiece. In typical Greene style, the local of Vietnam of the mid 50’s is painted vividly in its pages. The story is told through the eyes of Fowler, a British journalist covering the war in Vietnam when the only western powers involved was a crumbling colonial France.

Fowler is a vestige of what Rumsfield might have called “old Europe”. He is old, tir...more

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Karen rated it:

(review of isbn 0143039024)

12/11/07

Read in April, 2008

As a critique of American intervention in foreign affairs, the story was excellent. The "quiet" American (he never shuts up) steps into a world he knows nothing about and creates havoc.

My problem with the book was a problem common to many similar authors (DeLillo, I'm looking at you): it was very male-centric and I got annoyed. Phuong, the love/lust/possession interest in the book, was never given a character, described as innocent, childish, a sexual object, and a caretaker i...more

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3 comments

Alger rated it:

(review of isbn 0143039024)

09/08/07

Read in October, 2004

recommends it for: The intelligent and the aware

Graham Greene is an artist of sarcasm and loathful protagonists. 'The Quiet American' follows in that tradition, but delves into what that means and turns the whole thing on its head. The main character, Fowler, is as foul as his name implies; swearing, drinking, smoking opium, and cheating on his wife with a nubile young Vietnamese girl. Conversely , we are shown the eponymous 'Quiet American', Pyle, who is quiet in that he is sweet, naive, doesn't drink, doesn't do drugs, doesn't forni...more

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Aaron rated it:

(review of isbn 0143039024)

04/24/08

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in April, 2008

recommends it for: suzanne, drew

this novel deals directly with american foreign policy, and vietnam fiasco. it was also referred to in mike davis' book buda's wagon". the promise of an in depth exploration of one of the world's great car/bike bombers, lured me in (even though it is a fictiononal account). the plot line works along a thinly veiled metaphor, describing the great war in indochina. greene's narrator plays the world weary english man who has seen colonialism run its course. his lover phuong is the beautif...more

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Duluoz rated it:

(review of isbn 0143039024)

06/29/08

bookshelves: novels

Greene's text is a prophecy of the destructive consequences of American political idealism (aka, the imposition of democracy) on other countries. Alden Pyle is the quiet American of the text's title. He's also simultaneously naive and crafty, gathering all his knowledge of the complexities of Vietnam from books but also organizing secret terrorist bombings that advance the American cause as "third-party interventionists." Pyle believes in the infamous Domino Theory that justified Ameri...more

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6 comments

Becca rated it:

(review of isbn 0143039024)

06/17/08

Frighteningly prophetic, this brief but biting novel chronicles the life of an aging British journalist in French-ruled Vietnam in the 1950s. Selfish, hedonistic and jaded, Thomas Fowler is in self-imposed exile from his native England. While the French slowly lose their colonial grip on the feuding nation and foreign nationals begin to map out their vision for a new Vietnam, Fowler is content to sit back and smoke opium with his young native lover, priding himself on not taking sides.

It is...more

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Ruth rated it:

(review of isbn 0143039024)

12/25/07

bookshelves: recently-read

Read in October, 2007

Reading this book did not make me feel cheery, especially in these days when I'm struggling with a lung infection & low energy.

I didn't like either of the two main characters, Pyle & Fowler, but Greene did make me care about them. The book is talky, lots of debates exploring colonialism & North-South relationships way back before the U.S. was deeply involved in Vietnam. The points of view are exclusively those of British, U.S. & French outsiders in Vietnam (Fowler is a Britis...more

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Beth rated it:

(review of isbn 0143039024)

05/21/08

bookshelves: currently-reading

This book set in Vietnam in the 1950s provides a brilliant and achingly subtle characterization of the American character in Pyle, the "Quiet American". It's told from the first person point of view of a somewhat jaded, opium-smoking English correspondent in Saigon whom Pyle preemptorily adopts as his new best friend. Pyle then goes on, in the most naive and straightforward manner, to steal the narrator's sweet, conventional Vietnamese mistress in the interest of making an "hone...more

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Ben rated it:

(review of isbn 0143039024)

07/08/08

bookshelves: recentreads

This is the story of the quiet American, Pyle, a young, naive, idealistic, "innocent" man who is dispatched to Vietnam, directly from graduate school, during a time of war with the French. Pyle meets Fowler, a rabidly neutral British reporter who has been there and done that. Pyle's only real understanding of Vietnam comes from what he has learned in academia, and he adheres to the romantic, idealistic vision of spreading democracy and combating communism. When Pyle begins to put hi...more

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Sarah rated it:

(review of isbn 0143039024)

10/23/07

Easily one of my all-time favorite books, but it's hard to explain why. A naive American CIA operative, fresh from Yale, arrives in Vietnam and promptly steals the narrator's Vietnamese lover/prostitute, then gets himself and several Vietnamese killed. The narrator is a cynical British war correspondent who is a) addicted to opium, b) desperately in love with the Vietnamese prositute as only a drug-addicted war correspondent can be, c) wise enough to see the Yalie's folly and d) a surprisingly...more

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Tom rated it:

(review of isbn 0143039024)

07/10/08

During a symposium on Vietnam hosted by our campus years ago, I had the opportunity to have dinner with George Herring, a prominent US historian of Vietnam war. When I mentioned Greene's novel, he commented, "It's all right there. Amazing how Greene understood back in the 50s what would happen!"

For all his popularity and acclaim, I think it must be said that Greene was not a great literary artist on the order of a Faulkner or Ellison, to name a few, but he did have a rare gift for...more

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Deborah rated it:

(review of isbn 0143039024)

01/20/08

Read in June, 2007

Set in 1950s Vietnam, Graham Greene’s The Quiet American is startlingly (and sadly) relevant today. The novel’s title character is a well-meaning idealist from Boston who plays the dangerous game of promoting a “Third Force” in the collapsing French colony. This “Third Force” would, of course, espouse American democratic principals, ensuring a safeguard against evil Communism—the otherwise obvious consequence of the colonialists’ defeat. (Of course, the reader knows this i...more

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Elizabeth rated it:

(review of isbn 0143039024)

07/17/08

I love the writing style of Graham Greene! I found this book enjoying for a number of reasons. One, I love history. Two, it had some romance. Three, sometimes it was confusing. Four, I love surprise endings (especially when they are not really a surprise, but you were just hoping that it wasn't going to turn out that way).
It is not a very pleasant novel. The subject matter ranges from the gruesome to the nasty. However, many lessons may be learned from this novel. First, that relatio...more

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Noah rated it:

(review of isbn 0143039024)

06/18/07

bookshelves: currently-reading

Read in June, 2007

recommends it for: People who like modern classics

"The Quiet American" has gone on to do quite well for itself since it was written. It is set in Vietnam during the 1950's when the French are loosing their war against the Communists. Narrated by a British Journalist, he comes into contact with an American working for the Economic Aid mission, he is Pyle, "The Quiet American" and the focus of the novel, opening with his murder and revealing how it happened through a series of flashbacks.

The book was made into a movie and ...more

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Tim rated it:

(review of isbn 0143039024)

07/02/08

Read in July, 2008

In addition to what everybody else will tell you (the great political story, the intriguing and scarily prescient events, the great humor, etc...) I feel the need to point out how well structured this novel is. It jumps around time but in a way that never had me confused. I also really enjoyed the way most of the chapters, while connected to the previous and following chapters, worked as short stories by themselves. This is especially true of the early chapters, and breaks down a little near the...more

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Pa rated it:

(review of isbn 0143039024)

12/31/07

Oh, how can I not love Greene for all his prescient and astute observations of the American blundering in Vietnam. 50 years on his insights into the American eagerness or overzeal to meddle in other countries' business are still dead on. The love triangle of a British journalist, an American diplomat, and a Vietnamese woman served as a brilliant metaphor for Europe-America-Vietnam relations of the time, and the writing is pitch perfect-- it's elegant, concise, yet beautiful and at times poetic...more

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John rated it:

(review of isbn 0143039024)

01/27/08

bookshelves: classics

Read in January, 2003

I love Graham Greene -- for his language, for his keen sense of observation, even (perhaps especially) for his tortured Catholicism. I've been rediscovering him ever since we moved overseas a few years back, and, given how many of his protagonists are expatriates trying to make sense of surrounding that they will never fully understand, living overseas is the ideal context in which to read him. The Quiet American, in addition to offering up his usual meditations on social displacement a...more

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Axel rated it:

(review of isbn 0143039024)

10/07/07

Read in October, 2007

A vendor on the streets of Saigon pressured me into buying a copy of this book; I had previously watched the movie with Michael Caine but enjoyed this easy read. Set in Vietnam towards the end of the French War, a young idealistic American, Pyle is sent in by the CIA to arm a 'third force' to fight both colonial French and the communists in order to give democracy to the people. The story is told from the perspective of Thomas Fowler, a seasoned British journalist, who sees through Pyle's naiv...more

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Adam rated it:

(review of isbn 0140185003)

02/27/08

I don’t know why Greene divides his books into “entertainments” and “novels”, when the novels are so entertaining. But I guess some are more light weight and only meant to entertain, while this book is packed with ideas. Mixing an absurd spy farce, a cynical “love” story, and prophecy of U.S. involvement in Vietnam which was set and written ten years before the hoi polloi of America could probably find Vietnam on a map. Filled with demented nuggets of Greene thought such as “Inno...more

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