“I can’t say what made me fall in love with Vietnam - that a woman’s voice can drug you; that everything is so intense. The colors, the taste, even the rain. Nothing like the filthy rain in London. The smell: that’s the first thing that hits you, promising everything in exchange for your soul. You could be forgiven for thinking there was no war; that the gunshots were fireworks; that only pleasure matters. A pipe of opium, or the touch of a girl who might tell you she loves you. And then, something happens, as you knew it would. And nothing can ever be the same again.”

Oh, I loved rereading this book, which I originally read so long ago I had largely forgotten it. It’s a story narrated by English journalist Thomas Fowler about the end of French colonialism in Vietnam and the beginning of American involvement there leading to the Vietnam War. Against the political background of a country used as a punching bag by France, Japan, then France again, then the US, is a love triangle between the older Fowler, a young Texas CIA agent named Alden Pyle, and Phuong, a young Vietnamese woman.

“I shut my eyes and she was again the same as she used to be: she was the hiss of steam, the clink of a cup, she was a certain hour of the night and the promise of rest.”

The novel, written in 1952-55 and based on Greene’s own work as a war correspondent in Indochina from 1951-54, harshly critiques the American involvement in Vietnam in the fifties and uses the three main characters to in part make this critique. Pyle, the “quiet American,” can’t properly see the implications of what they are doing in that country, prefiguring the terrible, ignorant things that would happen there in the decades to come.

The “domino theory” that was the foundation of the US policy (that if Vietnam is lost to communism then all the others in the area would then fall) is seen in this dialogue between Fowler and Kyle:

"They don't want communism." [Kyle, the American]
"They want enough rice," I [Fowler] said. "They don't want to be shot at. They want one day to be much the same as another. They don't want our white skins around telling them what they want."
"If Indochina goes--"
"I know that record. Siam goes. Malaya goes. Indonesia goes. What does 'go' mean? If I believed in your God and another life, I'd bet my future harp against your golden crown that in five hundred years there may be no New York or London, but they'll be growing paddy in these fields, they'll be carrying their produce to market on long poles, wearing their pointed hats. The small boys will still be sitting on their buffaloes.”

Fowler is a cynic; “I was a correspondent: I thought in headlines;” he’s an atheist, he hates politics, and hates nation states that arrogantly pursue colonialist takeovers, so in response he pretends to not care:

“’I'm not involved, not involved,’ I repeated. It has 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.”

“’Ah,” he [a Vietnamese friend] said, “But you will be involved. You will all be involved some day.”

And so we were involved! And still are, in a sense, in making decisions about who on the planet gets protected and fed and who do not.

In the end Fowler does take a stand, raging to Pyle about a needless and horrific bombing incident “orchestrated” by the Americans that causes many civilian casualties. But it’s a novel, not a political tract. It’s an often powerfully written book that helps see colonialism in a personal context. Fowler wants Phuong, Pyle wants her, too; but what does she really want? It kind of reminded me in that respect of another great post-colonialist book by J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians, that sees colonialism and sexism as two aspects of the same condition.

Really impressive. I'm not even close to reading all his work - this being novel number five - but I have a feeling that Graham Greene didn't let standards slip in any of his novels. Makes me proud to be an Englishman knowing we have him as part of our literary history. I love how every book so far has been different from the others, and each taking place in a different part of the world. He is great at taking different geographic and social backgrounds to make his foreground activities seem ever more striking. Only here, it's more the actual national issues and interests of the time, that weren't fully taken into account before, that takes centre stage along side his characters. In this political parable, where the main characters themselves feel less like individuals and more like the representatives of their own nations' political camps, Greene takes us right into the heart of the first Indochina War and, in particular, the tug of war between two men vying for the same Vietnamese girl. Took a while to get going, but it grew on me like a bad rash, and I ended up reading most of the second half of it in one hit, as I was so engrossed and so eager to discover the truth surrounding the death of the idealistic young, quiet American, Alden Pyle: simply known as Pyle, who as well as being the love rival of British reporter Thomas Fowler: who really does let rip his hatred for Americans here, was also involved in a 'Third Force', which is against both the French Colonials and the Communists, and the badly timed public bombing that ended up killing mostly women and children. Greene delivers intrigue and counter-intrigue, resentment and the incoherence of war, and how other countries sticking their fingers knuckle deep into the pies of other countries only leads to more bloodshed and suffering. I'd put this on a par with The End of the Affair, with Brighton Rock still my fave & The Power and the Glory taking second place.

[4+] The Quiet American could be called "The Ignorant American" or "The Arrogant American" but the wry title sets the tone of the novel. Written in 1955, the novel is a searing look at the beginning of U.S. involvement in Vietnam through the eyes of a war-weary English journalist. If only we had heeded Greene's cautionary message! I'm glad my book club is going to discuss this novel because there is so much going on under the surface to talk about.

My first Graham Greene and it is brilliant. His writing is sparse yet descriptive. A less talented or more loquacious author might have taken 500 pages to deliver what Mr. Greene succinctly packed into these 168 pages.

I wish I could say more but am still struggling with writing. I'll let my five star rating speak for itself.

An absolutely brilliant book. I think it is a genuine masterpiece to be enjoyed on numerous different levels. It goes straight to my favorites ever list! Graham Greene employs the right tone for this book, cynical yet compassionate. Correspondent Fowler's non-commitment is the best attitude for the place and time of his assignment in Vietnam, but whether it is psychologically healthy cannot be said with certainty. Written in 1955, it is shocking to see how very relevant the book still is today, perhaps even increasingly so. The ignorance and misconception of the stereotypical American proves to be truly deadly. In his ignorant fanatism CIA agent Pyle stays convinced of his good intentions, even when witnessing with his own eyes the devastation he brings about. I thought a few times that the saying: “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread” was very applicable. And that is still applicable in the world today. A pity that this book was not a mandatory book to be read by the U.S. military when sending the first troops to Vietnam halfway the 1960s. Might have warned them for a hopeless endeavour.
I am so impressed by this book and decided to read more Graham Greene novels this year. It was purely coincidental that I read Greene for the first time when reading 'The End of the Affair' with its annoying catholicism and that is exactly what kept me from reading his other novels. I found out that this was just a phase in his life which he abandoned after he divorced his very catholic wife.

Well I pretty much hated the worldly weary opium smoking politically neutral smug bastard of a first person our-man-in-Vietnam reporter narrator who dolefully wraps his middle aged melancholia around himself and sprinkles mournful aphorisms into the languid air like ditsy bumblebees dressed up as badass hornets :

You cannot love without intuition (Yes you can)

Even an opinion is a kind of action (well, not really)

To be in love is to see yourself as someone else sees you (ridiculous)

When you escape to a desert the silence shouts in your ear (he must have found that in a Vietnamese fortune cookie)

Innocence is a kind of insanity (no it’s not)

and shacks up with a local woman named Phuong who is also pursued by a young go-getting CIA operative named Pyle so we have

a triangle in which each character represents a country which you may think is rather crude –

Fowler : ironic, cool, affectedly neutral but with a disguised moral compass deep within…. He represents Britain so he gets to dispense wisdom

Pyle : thinking he’s got the Answer to the messy communist insurrection, he’s making deals with a local warlord in the naïve belief that he can create a Third Force (independent nationalism) … in so doing he of course spreads death and destruction, he’s like a kid in a toyshop where the toys all explode and take your hands off, he has to be stopped. So Pyle gets to represent America.

Phuong : a terrible sexist cipher, the graceful silent male fantasy sex machine, she lays out Fowler’s opium pipes each night before laying out her own young tender flesh if he can be bothered after his drug of choice. After Pyle decides he’s in love with Phuong, she gets passed back and forth like a parcel. She doesn’t say much. Apparently she does not have a brain that works :

She’ll suffer from childbirth and hunger and cold and rheumatism but she’ll never suffer like we do from thoughts, obsessions – she won’t scratch, she’ll only decay.

says Fowler the wise Englishman – I’m not sure how much we are supposed to nod along with this guff or to think Fowler is a creature of his time or what but anyway, So Phuong represents Vietnam being fought over by various Outside Powers and having little or no say in its own destiny.

When you’re about to consign this saggy not much of a plot novel to the 2 star bin then it moves up a gear and you get to the strongly anti-colonialist part, and this does go a long way towards justifying the love this novel gets.

But I didn’t enjoy my time in this guy’s rancid mind, I didn’t like his elliptical conversations with philosophical cops, his pearls of wisdom got old, and by the time we find out (no surprise) that his heart is in the right place it’s pretty much too late to care.

2.5 stars

(Book 499 from 1001 books) - The Quiet American, Graham Greene (1904-1992)

The Quiet American is a 1955 novel by English author Graham Greene which depicts French colonialism in Vietnam being uprooted by the Americans during the 1950's.

The novel implicitly questions the foundations of growing American involvement in Vietnam in the 1950's and is unique in its exploration of the subject topic through the links among its three main characters - Fowler, Pyle and Phuong.

The novel has received much attention due to its prediction of the outcome of the Vietnam War and subsequent American foreign policy since the 1950's.

Graham Greene portrays a U.S. official named Pyle as so blinded by American exceptionalism that he cannot see the calamities he brings upon the Vietnamese. It was adapted as two different movies, one in 1958 and another in 2002.

The book uses Greene's experiences as a war correspondent for The Times and Le Figaro in French Indochina 1951–1954.

He was apparently inspired to write The Quiet American during October 1951 while driving back to Saigon from Ben Tre province. He was accompanied by an American aid worker who lectured him about finding a "third force in Vietnam”.

آمریکایی آرام - گراهام گرین (خوارزمی) ادبیات؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش روز هشتم ماه دسامبر سال1984میلادی

عنوان: آمریکایی آرام؛ نویسنده: گراهام گرین؛ مترجم: عبدالله آزادیان؛ تهران، ؟، سال1344؛ چاپ دیگر مشهد، بوتیمار، سال1395؛ در350ص؛ شابک9786004043243؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان بریتانیا - سده 20م

عنوان: امریکایی آرام؛ نویسنده: گراهام گرین؛ مترجم: عزت الله فولادوند؛ تهران، خوارزمی، سال1367، در259ص؛ چاپ دوم سال1370؛ چاپ سوم سال1389؛

نمیدانم چگونه کسی این کتاب را دوست نداشته است؛ رمانی از «گراهام گرین»، نویسنده بریتانیا، که نخستین بار به سال1955میلادی انتشار یافت؛ نویسنده، در پی مانش خود در «مالزی» و «هند» و «چین»، از دیدارهای خود به عنوان خبرنگار جنگی سود برده، و در اثری خنده دار، رمان را با واژه های خویش آراسته اند؛ وی با طنزی محترمانه و بیانی درخشان، چگونگی اندیشه ی «امریکایی» را به دادرسی ­کشیده است؛ چهره ­های داستان: یک روزنامه­ نگار «بریتانیا» به نام «فاولر»، که نقش بینش­گری آسان­­گیر و بی­غم را دارد؛ «فوئنگ»، معشوقه ی زیبای «ویتنامی» خبرنگار است؛ و «آلدن پایل»، جوان «آمریکایی» اهل «بوستون» در جبهه ی جنگ «ویتنام»؛ که باور دارد آدمی هرگز برای خرابیهایی که به بار آورده، چنین انگیزه ­های خوبی نداشته است؛ «پایل» درصدد برمیآید «فوئنگ» را از چنگ «فاولر» به در ­آورد، و ...؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 10/10/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 23/08/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

A classic short novel about several shaky personal decisions in the midst of rather more shaky governmental and military decisions.

The story mirrors an affair between a Vietnamese woman and an older English reporter and a younger American attaché against the whole backdrop of the First Indochina War, mimicking the same indifference and passion and mistakes of a love-triangle writ large.

It's pretty damn awesome. :)

In a lot of ways, I was impressed to see so many carryovers between this and The End of the Affair. The theme was different, but the interplay was rather on-target and rather spooky.

Even so, on its own, it reads almost as if it should have been either a romance or a spy thriller. :) Maybe there really isn't a difference.

Greene's acclaimed modern classic… set in Indo-China / Vietnam in the time of unrest the followed the World War II. The book centres around three main characters - Fowler the orator, a journalist who is representative to a degree of the 'old colonial' French and British in this book; there's Phuong, originally Fowler's partner, an 18 year old Francophone Vietnamese woman, to a degree representative of the 'New World', in this case Vietnam; and finally there's the 'Quiet American' Pyle, fresh in the 'Nam with almost fundamentalist political beliefs, who falls in love with Phoung the moment he sees her. Going back and forth over a period of a about a year, Greene peals away the layers of these characters and their tale... and leaves the reader fully satisfied. 8 out of 12.

Published in 1955, Greene presciently critiques America's imperialist policies vis-à-vis Vietnam. America thought they were spreading democracy; America thought they were not a colonial power; and America thought they would win. America was wrong. America advanced its neo-colonial empire through napalm and ultimately lost "with honour". The delusion of liberal-American militarism was briefly rekindled with victory in the Cold War but has diminished once more post-Iraq/Afghanistan. Liberalism must be hard won by a nation's citizens, not imposed by a foreign power. Greene recognised this 70 years ago. That is why this book is a classic.

Introduction

--The Quiet American

My first experience with reading a Graham Greene novel has left me unable to put thoughts together to form a proper review. I finished this days ago and it is still sitting here in my head lingering and marinating. It was a rewarding read and one that I am glad to have read since I didn’t live through this era. But to just come out and tell you what this book is about by summarizing the plot, wouldn’t do it justice. This is a book that you just have to experience.

It’s difficult to even define the genre of this novel. Is it a mystery, thriller, love story, war or political novel set amidst the backdrop of the Vietnam War? I suppose the easiest thing would be to just outline a few of the words and phrases that come to mind and hopefully that will be enticing enough for anyone who is considering this novel.

Loyalty, Friendship, Jealousy, Lies, Betrayal
The dangers of Innocence and Idealism - when what you believe in becomes more important than any harm that belief brings no matter how well meaning.

Impartiality: Can one remain neutral politically and morally - without choosing sides? Not getting involved but able to be objective? Is this realistic for a reporter?

”‘I’m not involved. Not involved.’ I repeated. 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 could 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 is the cynical British journalist who just doesn’t believe in getting involved. He’s happiest with his fact-filled reports and when his Vietnamese lover, Phuong is making up his opium pipes every night. He’s happy to have her in his bed every night and thoughts of marriage never enter his mind until he realizes that he might lose her.

Pyle is the American working for the Economic Aid Mission who is enthusiastic about the ideals that he believes in and the righteousness of them. He’s picked up his beliefs from books he has read and espouses only good intentions despite his innocence. Pyle has fallen for Phuong.

He didn't even hear what I said; he was absorbed already in the dilemmas of Democracy and the responsibilities of the West; he was determined – I learnt that very soon – to do good, not to any individual person but to a country, a continent, a world. Well, he was in his element now with a whole universe to improve.

Greene has written loads in such a short novel. There is much to think about and discuss and makes for an excellent group read. Greene’s account with Fowler was semi-autobiographical and enhances the parts of the war descriptions that he wrote from his own perspective. This is haunting and perplex but worthwhile and rewarding. I am now looking for more to read about the Vietnam era, a time period that I am hugely lacking in knowledge.