Rating: 
Summary: Best novel of the 1950s
Review: So slim yet such a nugget of gold. Manages to analyze Vietnam and show the stupidity of America's involvement with it, while ostensibly telling a love-triangle crime & punishment story complete with a French Raskolnikov. After one reading, you can read it again, taking Pyle for America's government itself, Phuong for the Vietnamese people (they make dangerous bedfellows :), and Fowler for Greene himself. The magnificent use of a few words to characterize people and places is world class. This book is maybe the best novel of the 20th century, certainly of the '50s. Must-read for any literate American. Too bad it didn't mention that Vietnam had been fighting China for 1000 years and could never become its puppet in a 'domino theory'; all the Viets wanted was to get the colonialists out, and mistook America for such. A neutral unified VN would have been accepted by Ho Chi Minh, as McNamara now admits, but nobody knew to propose it, because the VN assumed everybody knew their history and never talked about it :) Even today, America is VN's natural ally against Chinese imperialism.
Rating:
Summary: THE Vietnam novel
Review: I first read this book in the early 1960's as a college student before my year as a soldier in Vietnam (1968-69), and I think I have re-read it at least 15 times since then. It is a beautiful book as a work of fiction, and compellingly prophetic (it was written in 1955) about the future of America's expedition into this strange and beautiful country. You can read and enjoy it on several levels. A classic.
Rating:
Summary: Vietnamese take advantage of French education system
Review: The Quiet American is a fictional account that in many ways reflects its author's life. His romantic notion of everything occidental fueled his passion for life. As an example, Pyle's proclivity to put himself in harm's way embodies Greene's own disposition to reckless behavior . In nationalist terms, the love triangle of Pyle, Phuong and Fowler represents the best and worst of their cultures. Pyle represents the American newcomers to Southeast Asia and the beginning of the Cold War. His quiet persona offsets his cultural bigotry and ignorance of anything non-American. Fowler symbolizes not only Europe but also, more specifically, Great Britain and its failed colonial enterprises. Pyle's demise at the hands of Fowler is symbolic reparation for the colonies' defeat of the King's redcoats. Lastly, Phuong exemplifies the status quo in Vietnam. She, like her country, was willing to do what ever it took to survive. More importantly, she typifies the Vietnamese who used the French education system to oust the colonials. Greene's cold warrior is a characterization of Colonel Edward G. Lansdale. According to Michael Hunt, Lansdale arrived in Vietnam as an "outgoing cold warrior bursting with fresh ideas." Lansdale was a successful advertising executive in San Francisco who sought the excitement of international espionage. He joined the newly formed spy operation, the Office of Strategic Services and, in 1945, his cold war efforts took him to the Philippines to dismantle the Communist led Huks who, like the Vietnamese, had worked to oust the Japanese during WW II. l Throughout his stay in Vietnam, Fowler sought to remain impartial and objective toward the war and his reporting of it, but his opium use contributed directly to the North's war coffers. The Viet-Minh's stake in Dien Bien Phu was opium which was pointed out by The Times (London) and Le Monde. The area according to The Times was the center of a fertile opium-growing district, which has been one of the Viet-Minh's most important sources of revenue. Le Monde said it was a major source of revenue for paying for arms, material and ammunition from China. The most important character in Greene's narrative is Phuong. She is the embodiment of the Vietnamese as they, like the mythical Egyptian bird, rose from the ashes of colonialism to reclaim their right to national emancipation. She is an Annamite who learned to speak French from the colonial schools throughout the country. Unlike the rigid examination system of the Confucian system, the French believed they could shape the people by controlling their language and literature. According to Benedict Anderson, the Confucian examinations were successfully abolished in Tonkin and Annam by 1918. The product of the effort would, therefore, be a body of civil servants that had participated in a French colonial education system. The second aim of educational policy was to produce a carefully calibrated quantum of French-speaking and French-writing Indochinese to serve as a politically reliable, grateful, and acculturated indigenous elite, filling the subordinate echelons of the colony's bureaucracies and larger commercial enterprises.
Rating:
Summary: Sharp, prophetic, deep and a terrific read
Review: Graham Greene lambasts both the old colonialism of the French and the British and the naive paternalism of the Americans.....The narrator is a caustic British cynic observing the crumbling of the French regime with indifference. The eponymous American is an energetic idealist convinced that Indochina is a less civilised Nebraska in need of a dose of American redemption. He sets about changing the world with disastrous effect. This book is an absolute classic. An ascerbic and prophetic analysis of Vietnam, strong engaging characters, a sarcastic wit and a scintillating story to boot.
Rating:
Summary: The greatest work of Graham Greene's career.
Review: The Quiet American is the quintessential Graham Greene. This book succeeds on a myriad of levels: as a thriller, a romance, a political statement. Never have I read a book that is so brief in length, yet with such character development, such depth of plot, and such vivid description of locales. Greene's characters are tough, sensitive, wistful, imaginative and interesting. The dialogue is sharp and to the point, yet reveals the true essence of the characters. A fascinating look into the Southeast Asian culture, the clash between British and American culture, and a love that transcends all three.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent novel!
Review: This may well be my favorite novel. Wise and deep on many levels-as a political novel, as a love story, as a pessimistic appraisal of the human condition. The first chapter reads like a great opium-induced recollection. It is fiction, but when read with Greene's assesment of Vietnam in "Ways of Escape," one sees how true much of his burnt-out views on that country, its people, and his opium use must have been. An under-appreciated novel.
Rating: 
Summary: A prophetic Look at the U.S. in Indochina
Review: On second reading 42 years after original publication, Graham Greene's short and masterful novel "The Quiet American" seems profound and prophetic. (To many of us it seemed arrogant, stereotyped and anti-American in 1956). Alden Pyle, the quiet American,has been said by Greene biographers to be in part a takeoff of U.S. CIA officer Colonel Edward Lansdale, the model for Colonel Hillandale in William Lederer's "The Ugly American," a favorable account of America in Asia written contemporaneous with Greene's novel. Today Alden Pyle could be seen as a character based on the Robert McNamara, Maxwell Taylor, Henry Cabot Lodge or Robert Komer of the 1960s. Greene's moral vision is as keen here as in any of his novels.
Rating:
Summary: Favorable
Review: Graham Greene's masterpiece, the Quiet American provides and interesting perspective upon Vietnam during the decline of the French presence in Indochina. The characters are well presented and the plot in which they exist is dynamic and easily holds one's attention throughout the book's short length. The Quiet American is an exiting, tumultuous, and provocative look into the turmoil and chaos that was Vietam
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.
|
