Members with This Book
Most Helpful Reviews
see all reviews
Liked It1 of 1 members found this review helpful “A gorgeously written novel that can be nearly any type you choose to read it as: an espionage thriller, a satire of two countries naively attempting to impose their wills on a country they both choose not to understand (Fowler as Britain cynically attempts to remain objective while Pyle, the...” see full review » see other reviews » |
Newest Reviews
see all reviews-
“I finished “The Quiet American” by Grahame Greene. It is a moving novel which explores the character of an English journalist, Thomas Fowler, and his relationship with his local beloved, Phuong and also his obsession with an American spy, Alden Pyle.
Amir wrote this review Thursday, November 26 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
Thomas Fowler, the protagonist of the novel, broods over a variety of public and personal notions. Fowler quotes on the colonized Vietnam and its people, the First Indo China War and destructive interventions of the United States in Vietnam’s affairs which makes the novel a political prophecy. Furthermore Fowler broods over a host of personal issues including the nature of his relationship with Phuong, old age, loneliness, duty, and God. That Fowler touches different issues on two levels of public and personal makes the novel much appealing to the reader.
Fowler, the unreliable narrator of the novel stands as a cynical European and a Sartrean existentialism. He has non-romantic and unconventional attitudes. Fowler is a cynical Englishman who hates colonialism and foreign intervention in political affairs of the third world. That is why during the course of the novel he insists on disengagement. Although he sympathizes with the local people, and even chooses a local girl as his beloved, he declares that he does not take sides. This turns out to be an irony later in the novel when he is involved in Pyle’s assassination. Although Pyle’s peculiar naivety is of great interest to him, he chooses to take side (against Pyle) later in the novel. This irony reveals that it is impossible not to take sides in a chaotic world where a naive virgin like Pyle acts like a destructive colonial machine.
On a personal level Fowler is a beautiful character. His cynicism does not only concern neo-colonization and the like. He is a deeply cynical man inside his psyche. He is apparently in love with Phuong. His feelings are extremely unconventional for he openly talks of the carnal nature of his affection and calls it love. However he yearns for his definition of love. He is desperately in love with Phuong and the appearance of Pyle as a rival makes him lose his mind and even cry. Phuong for Fowler is no ideal woman. She is not a shining star in Fowler’s life. She is a companion who should accompany him in old age and see him to his grave. Phuong, for Fowler, is an escape from loneliness, and this is what makes her so precious to him. He has had better women, but Phuong is the one whom Fowler “has not injured”; who is simple and obsequious; who is the only person who can see him aging and die. He is not alone with Phuong and therefore she is his true love.
Fowler is in contrasted Alden Pyle. Alden Pyle represents the idealistic American who works for the early neo-colonial United States that seek to intervene in national affairs of third world countries who are wearied by the old Colonial powers such as Britain and France. Pyle is an optimist American who acts as a CIA agent in Vietnam and represents his country as a “third force” that should establish democracy. This idealism stems from Pyle’s naivety. He acts like a prophet of an American religion. Sacrifices don’t matter to him as far as they contribute to the establishment of American democracy in the third world.
Eventually Fowler’s act of stopping Pyle could be investigated in different layers. Fowler could have been jealous of Pyle’s love for Phuong, or he could see him as a destructive yet stupid CIA agent whose ideas were in contrast with his. A mixture of both could describe Fowler’s final act against Pyle.
Whether you like novels full of acute characterization and touching internal monologues, or whether your are interested in historical and political novels, “The Quiet American” is a good choice.”
“The Quiet American is a novel that has many impressive qualities to it, and furthermore, it's one of the finest novels I've ever read. The location is Vietnam, and it's the 1950s, just prior to the involvement of the American military. The involvement of the Americans, the oft-referred-to "Third Force," is a central point to the plot of the novel. The story follows Thomas Fowler, a British journalist (one of the few stationed in the area,) and his relationships with, for one, a beautiful young South Vietnamese woman named Phuong, and two, an American contractor and political assistant named Alden Pyle, the man who tries to take Phuong away from Fowler. The events recounted in the novel are those leading up to Pyle's murder, and Thomas Fowler's recollections of the period prior to it. Through his recollections, we recognize a few things. First of all, we see Pyle's covert connections to a renegade General, and the violent political protests that he stages--Pyle's connections are through his connection to a plastics manufacturing venture in the country. We also see the viciously competitive conflict between Fowler and Pyle, and the guise of friendship that Pyle operates under, which seems to infuriate Fowler to no end. What we see, overall, though, is a horror-of-personality of sorts, one which follows the undoing of two people due to their relationships, their flaws, and their secret fascinations. There are many details I could reveal which would ruin the story for a prospective reader--but what's important is how the book is written. This novel works on multiple levels, all of them done with incredible depth and subtlety. It's a progressive political novel, just as much as it is a gripping mystery story, just as much as it is a deeply-moving romance. The characters are all written with real, convincing emotion and believable subtlety of speech and behavior, and some of the images--I won't provide more detail here--are deeply shocking and upsetting. However, everything in the novel, both the beautiful and the ugly, the humorous and the saddening, the enlivening and the disappointing, are purposefully done, and as one of the finest novels I've ever read by far, I cannot recommend it enough, to anyone.”
JONATHAN O wrote this review Tuesday, November 10 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“The British journalist betrays the American spy over love and denies any responsibility for his act. Graham Greene addresses this conflict of morality.”
Jane H wrote this review Friday, October 9 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Vietnam setting at the beginning of the American involvement. The movie is great too.”
Barry C wrote this review Sunday, September 20 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Stunning writer. Greene has a way of fleshing out characters without telling you much about them at all. You sort of know who they are, but don't really understand them. Kind of the way we all are in real life ”
Rebecca J wrote this review Wednesday, August 26 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
1 of 2 members found this review helpful“Perhaps my favourite Greene work. This speaks about imperialism by an accidental colonialist. It is a distillation of the twentieth century in numerous ways - gender politics, imperial politics, individualism and denial, love and loss and losing, authenticity and nominalism.
Julian S wrote this review Thursday, May 28 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
I first read this - along with Greene's other as a young teenager and it is fair to say that probably more than Orwell or Dostoyevsky, on par with Shakespeare and Levi, most lastingly affected my thinking. Initially it was Greene's catholic agonistics which impressed me (though not so much in The Quiet American) but after years I realised that it is Greene's account of imperial rule and the nature of imperial power that has most influenced my thinking.
I know *exactly* how Fowler thinks, and why expresses himself and relates to Pyle in such an English way. I know *exactly* what Greene has in mind in his portrayal of Pyle and 'quiet Americans'. These are two real and powerful characters in contrast to the absent-presence of Phuong. And inadvertently perhaps Greene's use of Phuong says so much about the real gender plitics of the time and the colony, as well as Greene's own gendered narratives.
Great story. (Incidentally, the film is 'adequate' as a film but a poor rendition of the book). ”
“Provides some insight into how America would become tragically involved in Vietnam. When we look in the mirror that Greene provides us, we see the senselessness of trying to project our own ideas about governance on another country.”
muque and shylock tomes wrote this review Tuesday, May 12 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“This was my first finished Graham Greene (I started another one about four years ago, but my dog ate it before I could finish it). I really enjoyed this one. If this is a war book (and I MIGHT call it that, but not really) it is the best I've read (keeping in mind that I generally don't like books or movies that center around war). I believed the naivete of the eponymous character, and the semi-defeatist attitude of the British narrator who knew what the score really was, but was too selfish (and maybe too cynical) to do anything about it before it was too late. I almost saw the American as a character that would have fit in Candide (almost).”
CCase wrote this review Wednesday, April 29 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“"And did you understand her either? Could you have anticipated this situation?" Time has its revenges, but revenges seem so often sour. Wouldn't we all do better not trying to understand, accepting the fact that no human being will ever understand another, not a wife a husband, a lover a mistress, nor a parent a child? Perhaps that's why men have invented God-a being capable of understanding. Perhaps if I wanted to be understood or to understand I would bamboozle myself into belief, but I am a reporter; God exists only for leader-writers."
Jenya wrote this review Monday, April 20 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
Graham Greene”
