Author: | Graham Greene |
ISBN13: | 978-0434305582 |
Title: | The Quiet American |
Format: | mobi txt docx azw |
ePUB size: | 1995 kb |
FB2 size: | 1365 kb |
DJVU size: | 1994 kb |
Language: | English |
Category: | Genre Fiction |
Publisher: | William Heinemann & The Bodley Head; First Thus edition (1973) |
Pages: | 232 |
Dear Rene and Phuong, I have asked permission to dedicate this book to you not only in memory of the happy evenings I have spent with you in Saigon over the last five years, but also because I have quite shamelessly borrowed the location of your flat to house one of my characters, and your name, Phuong, for the convenience of readers because it is simple, beautiful. This is a story and not a piece of history, and I hope that as a story about a few imaginary characters it will pass for both of you one hot Saigon evening. Yours affectionately, " Graham Greene. I do not like being moved: for the will is excited; and action. Is a most dangerous thing; I tremble for something factitious, Some malpractice of heart and illegitimate process
I went to the American Legation and asked for Pyle. It was necessary to fill in a form at the door and give it to a military policeman. He said, ‘You haven’t put the purpose of the visit. He liked the smell, he said, he liked the sense of quiet at the end of the day, but in his profession relaxation could go no further. There were officers who smoked, but they were Army men-he had to have his sleep. We lay in a small cubicle in a row of cubicles like a dormitory at school, and the Chinese proprietor prepared my pipes.
The Quiet American is noted for its divergent from Greene’s ‘Catholic’ novels. But the existential issues are very much in the forefront. Fowler is a man of conscience, albeit aloof in his outward stance. The climax comes as he resolves a moral dilemma. Guilt is his nemesis, regarding his wife in England, regarding Phuong, and much more acutely at the end of the novel, regarding Pyle. The book ends with this line: I wished there existed someone to whom I could say that I was sorry. Thanks for hosting the Graham Greene Challenge. This is my first GG book albeit I’ve long been impressed by films based on his works or his own screenplay. I’ve two more lined up already, can’t wait.
The Quiet American book. What is The Quiet American all about, after all? Many see it as a mere allegory between the forces involved in the conflict portrayed by Greene. Others recognize it as just a war or spy novel. I prefer to read it as a love triangle where Fowley, the surly middle-aged British war correspondent; and Pyle, the young and naïve American spy; dispute the love and possession of the young and beautiful Vietnamese Phuong. Their tangled relationship could, of course, stand for the intricacies of the conflict that was ravaging Viet Nam and what was yet to come. But let’s just leave at that.
The Quiet American is a 1955 novel by English author Graham Greene. Narrated in the first person by journalist Thomas Fowler, the novel depicts the breakdown of French colonialism in Vietnam and early American involvement in the Vietnam War. A subplot concerns a love triangle between Fowler, an American CIA agent named Alden Pyle, and Phuong, a young Vietnamese woman.