The Quiet American is an anti-war novel by British author
Graham GreeneHenry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
, first published in
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in 1955 and in the United States in 1956. It was adapted into
filmA film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
s in 1958 and 2002. The book draws on Greene's experiences as a
war correspondentA war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.-Methods:...
for
The TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
and
Le FigaroLe Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...
in
French IndochinaFrench Indochina was part of the French colonial empire in southeast Asia. A federation of the three Vietnamese regions, Tonkin , Annam , and Cochinchina , as well as Cambodia, was formed in 1887....
1951-1954. He was apparently inspired to write
The Quiet American in October 1951 while driving back to Saigon from the Ben Tre province. He was accompanied by an American aid worker who lectured him about finding a “third force in
VietnamVietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
”. Greene spent three years writing the novel, which foreshadowed US involvement in Vietnam long before it became publicly known. The book was the initial reason for Graham Greene being under constant surveillance by US intelligence agencies from the 1950s until his death in 1991, according to documents obtained in 2002 by
The GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
newspaper under the US
Freedom of Information ActThe Freedom of Information Act is a federal freedom of information law that allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the United States government. The Act defines agency records subject to disclosure, outlines mandatory disclosure...
.
Plot
Thomas Fowler is a British
journalistA journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
in his fifties who has been covering the
French war in VietnamThe First Indochina War was fought in French Indochina from December 19, 1946, until August 1, 1954, between the French Union's French Far East...
for over two years. He meets a young American idealist named Alden Pyle, who lives his life and forms his opinions based on the books written by York Harding, with no real experience in matters of south-east Asia at all. Harding's theory is that Communism or colonialism are not the answer in foreign lands like
VietnamVietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, but rather a "Third Force," usually a combination of traditions, works best. Pyle is young and idealistic. When Pyle and Fowler first meet, Pyle says he would be delighted if Fowler could help him understand more about the country. Fowler is much older, more realistic and more cynical.
Fowler has a live-in lover, Phuong, who is only twenty-years old and was a dancer at The Arc-en-Ciel (Rainbow) on Jaccareo Road, Cholon, until she met Fowler. Her sister's intent is to arrange a marriage for Phuong that will be of benefit to her and her family. The sister disapproves of their relationship as Fowler is already married and an atheist. So, at a dinner with Fowler and Phuong, Pyle meets Phuong's sister who immediately starts questioning Pyle about his viability for marriage with Phuong. Towards the end of the dinner Pyle dances with Phuong, and Fowler notes how poorly he dances.
Fowler goes to the city to cover a battle there. Pyle travels there to tell him that he has been in love with Phuong since the first night he saw her, and that he wants to marry her. They make a toast to nothing and Pyle leaves the next day. Fowler gets a letter from Pyle thanking him for being so nice. The letter annoys Fowler because of Pyle's arrogant confidence that Phuong will choose to leave Fowler to marry him. Meanwhile, Fowler's editor wants him to transfer back to England.
Pyle comes to Fowler's place and they ask Phuong to choose between them. She chooses Fowler, her lover of two years. She does not know that he is up for a transfer. Fowler writes to his wife to ask for a divorce in front of Phuong.
Fowler and Pyle meet again in a war zone. They end up in a tower, and their discussion topics range from their sexual experiences to religion. As they escape, Pyle saves Fowler's life. Fowler goes back to Saigon where he lies to Phuong that his wife will divorce him. Pyle exposes the lie and Phuong moves in with Pyle. After receiving a letter from Fowler, his editor decides that he can stay in Indo-China for at least another year. Fowler goes into the midst of the battlefield to cover the unfolding events.
When Fowler returns to Saigon, he goes to Pyle's office to confront him but Pyle is out. Pyle comes over later for drinks and they talk about his upcoming marriage to Phuong. Later that week, a car bomb is detonated and many innocent civilians are killed from the blast. Fowler puts the pieces together and realizes that Pyle is behind the bombing. Realising that Pyle is causing innocent people to die, Fowler takes part in an assassination plot against him. Although the police believe that Fowler is involved, they cannot prove anything. Phuong goes back to Fowler as if nothing had ever happened. In the last chapter Fowler receives a telegram from his wife in which she states that she has changed her mind and that she will start divorce proceedings. The novel ends with Fowler reflecting on his first meeting with Phuong, and the death of Pyle.
Major characters
Thomas Fowler is a British journalist in his fifties who has been covering the French war in Vietnam for over two years. He has become a very jaded and cynical man. He meets Alden Pyle and finds him naïve. Throughout the book Fowler is often caught in lies and sometimes there may be speculation that he is lying to himself. Fowler is also used as a metaphor to describe the character. The word foul is relatively similar to his last name and connections can be made about the character's actions in the book.
Alden Pyle is the "quiet American" of the title. Pyle is thoughtful, soft-spoken, intellectual, serious, and idealistic. He comes from a privileged East Coast background. His father is a renowned professor of underwater erosion who has appeared on the cover of
Time magazine; his mother is well respected in their community. Pyle is a brilliant graduate of Harvard University. He has studied theories of government and society, and is particularly devoted to a scholar named York Harding. Harding's theory is that neither Communism nor colonialism is the answer in foreign lands like Vietnam, but rather a "Third Force", usually a combination of traditions, works best. Pyle has read Harding's numerous books many times and has absorbed Harding's thinking as his own. Pyle is also a member of this "Third Force". The Pyle character is partly modelled on US military counter-insurgency expert
Edward LansdaleEdward Geary Lansdale was a United States Air Force officer who served in the Office of Strategic Services and the Central Intelligence Agency. He rose to the rank of Major General and was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in 1963. He was an early proponent of more aggressive US actions in...
, who was stationed in Vietnam 1953-1957.
Phuong, Fowler’s lover at the beginning of the novel, is a beautiful young Vietnamese woman who stays with him for security and protection, and leaves him for the same reason. She is viewed by Fowler as a lover to be taken for granted and by Pyle as a delicate flower to be protected, but Greene never makes clear which, if either, of these views is actually the truth. Pyle's desire for Phuong was largely interpreted by critics to parallel his desire for a non-communist south Vietnam. Her character is never fully developed or revealed. She is never able to show her emotions, as her older sister makes decisions for her. She is named after, but not based on, a Vietnamese friend of Greene’s.
Vigot, a French inspector at the
SûretéSûreté is a term used in French speaking countries or regions in the organizational title of a civil police force, especially the detective branch thereof.-France:...
, investigates Pyle's death. He is a man torn between doing his duty (pursuing Pyle's death and questioning Fowler) and doing what is best for the country (letting the matter go). He and Fowler are oddly akin in some ways, both faintly cynical and weary of the world; hence their discussion of
Blaise Pascal Blaise Pascal , was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen...
. But they are divided by the differences in their faith: Vigot is a Roman Catholic and Fowler an atheist.
Literary significance and reception
After its publication in the U.S. in 1956, the novel was widely condemned as anti-American. It was criticized by
The New Yorker for portraying Americans as murderers, largely based on one scene in which a bomb explodes in a crowd of people. According to critic Philip Stratford, “American readers were incensed, perhaps not so much because of the biased portrait of obtuse and destructive American innocence and idealism in Alden Pyle, but because in this case it was drawn with such acid pleasure by a middle-class English snob like Thomas Fowler whom they were all too ready to identify with Greene himself”. However, it was popular in England and over the years has achieved notable status, being adapted into films in 1958 and
most recently in 2002The Quiet American is a 2002 film adaptation of Graham Greene's bestselling novel of the same name. It was directed by Phillip Noyce and starred Michael Caine, George Henry Hsu, Brendan Fraser, and Do Thi Hai Yen....
by Miramax, starring
Michael CaineSir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....
and
Brendan FraserBrendan James Fraser is a Canadian-American film and stage actor. Fraser portrayed Rick O'Connell in the three-part Mummy film series , and is known for his comedic and fantasy film leading roles in major Hollywood films, including Encino Man , George of the Jungle , Dudley Do-Right , Monkeybone ,...
and earning the former a Best Actor nomination.
Allusions and references
- Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal , was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen...
's PenséesThe Pensées represented a defense of the Christian religion by Blaise Pascal, the renowned 17th century philosopher and mathematician. Pascal's religious conversion led him into a life of asceticism, and the Pensées was in many ways his life's work. "Pascal's Wager" is found here...
, specifically "The WagerPascal's Wager, also known as Pascal's Gambit, is a suggestion posed by the French philosopher, mathematician, and physicist Blaise Pascal that even if the existence of God could not be determined through reason, a rational person should wager as though God exists, because one living life...
" - “Let us weigh the gain and the loss, in wagering that God is, let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.”
- Fowler claims that he is not a Berkeleian, a reference to the ideas of George Berkeley
George Berkeley , also known as Bishop Berkeley , was an Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism"...
.
- Fowler quotes part of Arthur Hugh Clough
Arthur Hugh Clough was an English poet, an educationalist, and the devoted assistant to ground-breaking nurse Florence Nightingale...
's poem "Spectator Ab Extra" to Pyle, and Clough's "Amours de Voyage" is included in the preface.
- The novel is set during the First Indochina War
The First Indochina War was fought in French Indochina from December 19, 1946, until August 1, 1954, between the French Union's French Far East...
and lists cities such as Saigon, Haiphong, also Haiphong, is the third most populous city in Vietnam. The name means, "coastal defence".-History:Hai Phong was originally founded by Lê Chân, the female general of a Vietnamese revolution against the Chinese led by the Trưng Sisters in the year 43 C.E.The area which is now known as Duong...
, and HanoiHanoi , is the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city. Its population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts, 6.5 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction. From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam...
. Though fiction, it mentions and involves actual people and groups, such as the Vietminh and Trinh Minh TheTrình Minh Thế was a Vietnamese nationalist and military leader during the end of the First Indochina War and the beginning of the Vietnam War.-Biography:...
. The book contains a detailed description of the syncretic Cao DaiCao Đài is a syncretistic, monotheistic religion, officially established in the city of Tay Ninh, southern Vietnam, in 1926. Đạo Cao Đài is the religion's shortened name, the full name is Đại Đạo Tam Kỳ Phổ Độ...
religion of Tay NinhTây Ninh is a town in southwestern Vietnam. It is the capital of Tay Ninh province, which encompasses the town and much of the surrounding farmland....
province.
- Allusion to Oedipus' bleeding eye, as an analogy for a conflict within Pyle's "knowledge". (Oedipus by Sophocles)
- Allusion to the lovers Francesca and Paolo, a pair of adulterers who are suffering within the second circle of hell in Dante's Inferno. "Dante never thought up that turn of the screw for his condemned lovers. Paolo was never promoted to purgatory."
Adaptations
- The Quiet American (1958)
- The Quiet American
The Quiet American is a 2002 film adaptation of Graham Greene's bestselling novel of the same name. It was directed by Phillip Noyce and starred Michael Caine, George Henry Hsu, Brendan Fraser, and Do Thi Hai Yen....
(2002)
- ABC Australia documentary Graham Greene: "The Quiet American"
External links