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The Quiet American

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Graham Greene's classic exploration of love, innocence, and morality in Vietnam

"I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused," Graham Greene's narrator Fowler remarks of Alden Pyle, the eponymous "Quiet American" of what is perhaps the most controversial novel of his career. Pyle is the brash young idealist sent out by Washington on a mysterious mission to Saigon, where the French Army struggles against the Vietminh guerrillas. As young Pyle's well-intentioned policies blunder into bloodshed, Fowler, a seasoned and cynical British reporter, finds it impossible to stand safely aside as an observer. But Fowler's motives for intervening are suspect, both to the police and himself, for Pyle has stolen Fowler's beautiful Vietnamese mistress.

First published in 1956 and twice adapted to film, The Quiet American remains a terrifiying and prescient portrait of innocence at large. This Graham Greene Centennial Edition includes a new introductory essay by Robert Stone.

180 pages, Paperback

First published December 1,1955
Places
vietnam, saigon, southeast asia, ho chi minh city, 

This edition

Format
180 pages, Paperback
Published
August 31, 2004 by Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions
ISBN
9780143039020
ASIN
0143039024
Language
English
Characters More characters

More editions

About the author

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graham greene

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Henry Graham Greene was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century.
Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a reputation early in his lifetime as a major writer, both of serious Catholic novels, and of thrillers (or "entertainments" as he termed them). He was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times. Through 67 years of writing, which included over 25 novels, he explored the conflicting moral and political issues of the modern world. The Power and the Glory won the 1941 Hawthornden Prize and The Heart of the Matter won the 1948 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Best of the James Tait Black. Greene was awarded the 1968 Shakespeare Prize and the 1981 Jerusalem Prize. Several of his stories have been filmed, some more than once, and he collaborated with filmmaker Carol Reed on The Fallen Idol (1948) and The Third Man (1949).
He converted to Catholicism in 1926 after meeting his future wife, Vivienne Dayrell-Browning. Later in life he took to calling himself a "Catholic agnostic". He died in 1991, aged 86, of leukemia, and was buried in Corseaux cemetery in Switzerland. William Golding called Greene "the ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man's consciousness and anxiety".

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99 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Zerofuku_
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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The Quiet American tells the tale of a love triangle between a young Vietnamese girl Phuong, her older English lover Thomas Fowler (who is also our narrator, and who bears more than a passing resemblance to Greene himself, who was – like Fowler – a foreign war correspondent in French Indochina during the early 1950s), and the naive, idealistic “quiet” American Alden Pyle. The book also portrays the early days of America meddling in Vietnam for geopolitical power and influence, flexing their newly earned global influence in the afterglow of victory in WWII, with no attention paid to the devastation caused by their actions. So, The Quiet American tells two stories. Or, is it only one…?
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meowingrat
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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من خصائص الساذج أنه أحياناً يحدث الضرر من حيث يقصد المنفعة. وعندما يتكرر أذاه تجد نفسك أمام خيارين لا ثالث لهما، إما أن تعاقبه على ذنبه بصرف النظر عن مقصده، أو أن تبتلع كل ما يبدر منه انطلاقاً من تفهمك لنيته.

الأمريكي الهادئ رواية لجراهام غرين تجري أحداثها أثناء الاستعمار الفرنسي لفيتنام وإرهاصات الحرب الأمريكية الفيتنامية. تختبر الرواية تلك الفترة من الناحية الاجتماعية والإنسانية عن طريق تسجيل الانعكاسات على شخوص الرواية. عندما نتحدث عن شخصيات الرواية، فإننا نتحدث -تقريباً- عن شخصيتيّن رئيسيتين تتميزان بدرجة عالية من التعقيد. وذلك، من وجهة نظري، هو مصدر قوة الرواية.

الأمريكي الهادئ، ذلك الموجود في كل زمان ومكان، تمتزج لديه الأفكار المثالية مع المعلومات المغلوطة، الرغبة في إحداث تغيير إيجابي مع التغاضي عن الكثير من السلبيات التي تواكب تلك المحاولة. في بعض الأحيان ينشط ضميره حد إثقال كاهله، وفي أحيانٍ أخرى يخلد إلى سبات على ترنيمات المنطق وتغليب المصلحة. في الزاوية المقابلة، لدينا الصحفي البريطاني، ذلك العبثي المكتئب الذي لا يؤمن بشيء ولا أحد، ومع ذلك فهو يبذل قصارى جهوده لئلا يؤذي أي إنسان. يكمن إبداع غرين في تصوير الطبقات المتعددة لهاتين الشخصيتين بكل تعرجاتها وتناقضاتها وثقوبها في مثل هذه الرواية القصيرة.

شخصية الفتاة الفيتنامية "فونج"، عجيبة بالفعل. ربما هي تمثل الأنثى الآسيوية التي تتماشى مع الظروف وتقبل بالموجود دون نزعة نحو التمرد. ولا يُقصد أن هذه الصورة النمطية الوحيدة لفتيات فيتنام، خاصة إذا ما قورنت بشقيقتها الحاذقة والطموحة.

أحداث الرواية مسلية وحواراتها عميقة في الغالب. يتوثب السرد ما بين الأحداث الحالية والماضي القريب. كما هو متوقع، ثمة صور من وحشية الحرب وعبثيتها. يوازي الكاتب ما بين المأساة الإنسانية الممثلة بالحرب مع الصراع الشخصي المجسد بالحب بين أطراف متعددة، تاركاً القارئ متحيزاً لطرف دون آخر أو متعاطفاً مع الجميع.
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Whalelala
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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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.
The Quiet American is Greene's exploration of relationships and politics against the backdrop of the conflict in Vietnam in the early 1950s.

Thinking about it, this is really an amazing book and shows Greene's ability to observe current affairs - and look behind smokescreens. The "amazing" aspect of the book is that it was published in 1955, a decade before the conflict in Vietnam would become so prominent in the social and political agendas of not only the US but many other western countries.

Greene's novel tells the story of three characters - each a symbol for a distinct interest group - a Vietnamese woman torn between a cynical Brit and a "quiet" American. "Quiet" because Greene contrasts him to a brash compatriot, another CIA agent whose task is to undermine the Communist "renegades".

Without going into the story and revealing too much, this is a tense but slow read with one of the best endings of a Greene novel that reflects on the futility of political martyrdom and sacrifices made for the greater good.

‘Yes. They killed him because he was too innocent to live. He was young and ignorant and silly and he got involved. He had no more of a notion than any of you what the whole affair’s about, and you gave him money and York Harding’s books on the East and said, “Go ahead. Win the East for Democracy.” He never saw anything he hadn’t heard in a lecture-hall, and his writers and his lecturers made a fool of him. When he saw a dead body he couldn’t even see the wounds. A Red menace, a soldier of democracy.’
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Ayano_4man
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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The Quiet American (1955) by Graham Greene is a superb read and another Greene masterclass.

This prescient novel implicitly queried the growing American involvement in Vietnam in the 1950s and draws heavily on Greene's experiences in Indochina as a war correspondent. I was thoroughly absorbed in this hardbitten, cynical, and sardonic tale. Greene again pulls off the clever trick of combining personal dramas with broader issues (e.g. geopolitics, war, and love).

Greene's characters are flawed, not very likeable, and yet they still induced intrigue and sympathy. The conclusion pulls everything together very elegantly and in a powerful and satisfying way.

65 years after first publication, the novel still inspires significant levels of devotion. In 2007, an article in TIME magazine detailed the journey that some Greene fans take to Saigon where they follow the paths of the characters. The Vietnamese government and local businesses have taken advantage of Greene-fuelled tourism, and street vendors vendors on the Rue Catinat, the setting of Fowler's flat in this novel, sell hundreds of copies of The Quiet American every week. No surprise though, this is a powerful and enduring classic.

5/5

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Asocil
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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آمریکایی آرام بود ظاهراً اما خیلی موزمار بود. داستان جایی شروع میشه که معشوقه‌ی جوان و سابق یک جاسوس انگلیسی در حال آماده کردن بساط دود و دم هست که پلیس دنبالشون میاد تا خبر از مرگ آمریکایی آرام بده. از اینجا به بعد به گذشته میریم تا ببینیم این آمریکایی آرام که بود و چه کرد و چه شد که ریغ رحمت رو سر کشید. به نظر میاد که سه نقش اصلی کتاب یعنی جاسوس انگلیسی، آمریکایی آرام و معشوقه‌ی ویتنامی نماینده‌ی نمادینی از کشورهاشون باشن در این رمان. استعمارگر پیر و استعمارگر جوان و مستعمره‌. این رمان ضد جنگ و ضد آمریکایی هست و خیلی هم روان و زیبا نوشته شده.ه

پ.ن: لعنتی یه طوری از تریاک تعریف کرده انگار باقالی‌پلو با ماهیچه ست.ه
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-Toko
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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I know I’m not alone in loving this book, but even if I were, I would still love it. Graham Greene’s writing style is so beautiful: his prose is often poetry. And although The Quiet American is a gripping story about murder, love, and war, it is also an exploration of the basic existential question of what it means to be human.

Set in Vietnam in the waning days of the French colonial presence and the beginning of American involvement, the story is narrated by British reporter Thomas Fowler. Fowler has been posted to Saigon for several years. He loves the city and his young Vietnamese mistress, Phuong. He affects a cynical detachment from the fighting and from the politics that underlies it. He prides himself on not being involved:

“It had been an article of my creed. The human condition being what it was, let them fight, let them love, let them murder, I would not be involved. My fellow journalists called themselves correspondents; I preferred the title of reporter. I wrote what I saw. I took no action—even an opinion is a kind of action.”

Fowler’s neutrality is challenged by events, however, after he meets the “quiet” American Alden Pyle. Pyle is an idealist who says he has come to Vietnam as part of an American economic mission, but his real mission may be different. He believes that America’s motives for intervening in Vietnam are altruistic and that he and his colleagues can help save Vietnam from Communism. Fowler thinks Pyle’s view is informed only by abstract theory and is dangerously innocent.

Pyle latches on to Fowler and tells him that he considers him his best friend. Unfortunately, he also falls in love with Phuong and feels bound by honor to get Fowler’s permission to love her. The resulting love triangle dominates the relationship between Fowler and Pyle. And it becomes intertwined with the unfolding political events in Saigon.

As a result, Fowler must ask himself whether neutrality—either in love or in war—is best, or whether it is even possible. As Fowler’s Communist acquaintance Mr. Heng tells him, “Sooner or later … one has to take sides. If one is to remain human.”
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chivopro12
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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“In to the intrigue and violence of Indo-China comes Pyle, a young idealistic American sent to promote democracy through a mysterious 'Third Force'. As his naive optimism starts to cause bloodshed, his friend Fowler, a cynical foreign correspondent, finds it hard to stand aside and watch.” Quoted is a part of the synopsis provided in the Vintage Classic edition I read. It gives a fairly good idea of what the story is about without spoilers. It is understood then that a political element plays an important role in the story.

The Quiet American is written in the backdrop of French occupation in Vietnam after the Second World War. An independence war was waged against the French governance by a communist organization called Viet Minh. In the midst of this chaos, Fowler, the narrator and the protagonist tries to stay neutral. But soon Fowler finds that he cannot be a spectator any longer when the lives of many innocents were irrationally taken to “promote democracy”. He must act and he does. The story ends there letting the readers to form their own opinions.

The characters Greene brings alive through his books are never likable. It is same in this novel. I believe it is because Greene never judges or justifies the characters. He plays at his characters being understood and appreciated for who they are; he wants them to be true and real.

The writing matches the voices of the characters. The protagonist Fowler is a cynic, so a major part of the writing was cynical. Greene has employed cynicism so strongly that at times it was apathetic. This tone matched the character well, but it also makes the story difficult to stomach, especially at the beginning.

The story has a love triangle. I say a love triangle for description sake, for it an obsession and possession than love. I wasn’t pleased at Greene making the woman a mere object to be possessed. In the story neither lover of the woman was, in my opinion, seriously concerned about her. But it crossed my mind that perhaps Greene created this “love triangle” for a symbolic purpose. The woman represented the country (Vietnam) which both the (British) and (American) lovers vied to possess and control.

Towards the end however underneath all cynicism and apathy, there was a touch of humanity. The decision of neutral Fowler to take a side prompts through humanity. The synopsis in this edition questions why Fowler abandons his position of neutrality. Is it for politics or is it for love? I think for neither. I think Fowler intervened for the sake of humanity.
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Alica87
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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The Quiet American by Graham Greene was a riveting look at the breakdown of French colonialism and early American involvement in the war in Vietnam carried on surreptitiously by what is alluded to as the OSS or the CIA. Narrated by British war correspondent Thomas Fowler, one explores the horrors of war. Threaded thoughout this narrative is the subplot of Fowler's love for Phuong, and complicated by an idealistic American Alden Pyle's yearning to marry Phuong. As Thomas Fowler begins to learn more about the purpose of Pyle's dealings in Vietnam and the role that his ideals of American exceptionalism play in his actions as it all comes together in a prescient tale of the foreshadowing of what was to come with American involvement in Vietnam. Published in 1955 in Britain to wide acclaim, The Quiet American met derision in the United States when it was published in 1956, many citing the book as Anti-American. And a few of my favorite quotations from the book:

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"That was my first intinct--to protect him. It never occurred to me that there was a 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."

"So much of war is sitting around and doing nothing, waiting for somebody else. With no guarantee of the amount of time you have left it doesn't seem worth starting even a train of thought."

"It's not a matter of reason or justice. We all get involved in a moment of emotion and then we cannot get out. War and Love--they always have been compared."
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