My one-week vacation gave me a chance to finish off some books, mostly during the travel to and fro.
I picked up The Quiet American by Graham Greene in a used book store on Polk Street in San Francisco, while killing time a couple of weeks ago. I knew very little about it, beyond the general respect accorded the book and the author.
To be honest, I bought the thin volume in part because it was a thin volume. It’s harder to commit to an unknown if it’s going to be a lengthy commitment. I know very little about Greene, and as I type this, I haven’t yet read the introduction to this paperback edition tied to Greene’s birth 100 years ago (from the date of re-publication in 2004, for the 1955 original). I didn’t want to bias my view of the book by learning more, much as I try to avoid reviews of movies I want to see.
What a stunning book. I found all of the following in 180 brief pages: intelligence, voice, plot, turn of phrase, outlined characters whose foibles and fears and depths stain the book as it reveals its surprising (yet inevitable) conclusion, and a sense of tragedy and resignation.
Set in Vietnam in the 1950s, as the French are fully enmeshed in “Indochina” (but already with a sense of loss), The Quiet American reports through the eyes of an almost nameless English journalist, Fowler. His portrait of the American idealist (Pyle… a reference to Gomer?) trying to manipulate political events with a cheerful arrogance and certainty of purpose. While not quite a mystery in tone, Greene (through Fowler) plays with time and sequence wonderfully. It never hurts to start with a murder… and then educate the reader about who died, and why.
This is also a deeply personal story. Fowler exposes a glimpse of his unfortunate history with women in an exchange of letters with his ex-wife, but there’s only a brief flash of his love, shown only by his regret and visual memory of the woman he loved and left.
The Vietnamese girlfriend Phuong embodies the practical nature of the country in her relationships with Fowler and Pyle, simply trying to adapt between past colonial leaders and the engagement of the new world power, the United States. The parallels between personal and political are clear, but subtly shared, only telling in the overall story. One wonders if political methods have changed. I think the United States has become less subtle about its interventions abroad — which is good, given the example presented in this book. But I fear our political intentions are not clearly considered from the “recipient’s” point of view. Think of Pyle’s certainty of purpose as we endeavour to spread democracy. It’s never quite that simple, of course, but clearly some themes are lasting.
I will read the introduction to this book, and learn a bit more about Greene. I believe this novel is his best known, so I’m not sure whether I should jump in anew — but I can’t ignore how much I enjoyed this book.
I see from Wikipedia that two films have been made from the book. Any considered opinions out there on either of them?