Find the quotes you need to support your essay, or refresh your memory of the book by reading these key quotes. Test your knowledge of The Quiet American with quizzes about every section, major characters, themes, symbols, and more.
Go further in your study of The Quiet American with background information, movie adaptations, and links to the best resources around the web.
SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Greene himself witnessed a attack on a houseboat and even the senseless attack and assasination of innocent civilians. In the real Indochina conflict the.
It is highly probalble that Fowler is the equivalent to Graham Greene because there are a lot of similarities beween those two.
They are both english correspontents, they both share the opinion that the war is unnessesary. There is even a sense of interest for the enemy and for communism in the character of Fowler, same as it was in the character of Graham Greene. It is said that Greene was interested in communism as a political dispiline.
As Greene chooses Fowler to be the narrator of the story it is even more likely that he sees himself as Fowler. Fowler may be cynical, but he is not naive, he may be old, but he is experienced and that is what makes him beeing ahead of Pyle. The relationship between Pyle and Fowler is sometimes a little funny, this is were the reader gets a taste of Greenes humor. In some ways.
Pyle is from the american embassy but known to be CIA. In contrast to Fowler he is a rather naive character, unexperienced and in some ways very awkward. He is not very good in catching the irony of a man like Fowler. On one hand does not speak very much on the other hand he is very quiet at the end of the book because he is dead — killed on behalf of Fowler.
Pyle tries to adapt Hardings view on the Indochina conflict and causes the disaster by. It is likely that Greene met him in that period of time. Colonel Edward Landsdale might have had influenced the first movie adaptation of the novel, which made Pyle an american hero in Vietnam. Everyone from the cynical main character, Fowler; the alluring Phuong and naive Pyle all captivated my attention and I was sad to say goodbye to them as I closed the book. I plan on reading more Graham Greene in the future.
A solid 4 out of 5 from me. View all 4 comments. Jun 06, Michael rated it it was amazing Shelves: vietnam , fiction , espionage , books. I was pleasantly surprised how moving this story was and how strongly I warmed up to the humanity of the main character in the face of his generally detached outlook. Thomas Fowler is in a slump. As a British war correspondent working out of Saigon in French-occupied Vietnam, he gets a daily dose of duplicity and brutality in the world of ongoing guerilla conflict between the Viet Minh communist insurgents and French colonial forces.
And then he comes home to play house with his Vietnamese mistr I was pleasantly surprised how moving this story was and how strongly I warmed up to the humanity of the main character in the face of his generally detached outlook. And then he comes home to play house with his Vietnamese mistress, Phuong, who is sweet and kindly prepares his opium for a nightly mental escape. Soon we come to believe that his love for Phuong is more than just selfish need.
Both he and her mother would like there to be a marriage, but his estranged, Catholic wife back in London has refused to grant him a divorce. He dreads the inevitable day when he will be recalled to London for a higher position as a news editor.
Into this scenario comes a young American, Alden Pyle, who ostensibly works for the economic development division of the U. He is genuinely friendly to Fowler, showing a homespun Yankee hospitality in is character.
From social interactions, he has become attracted to Phuong. His morality of fairness and honesty leads him to confide his interest in wooing her. He is torn between the threat of losing her and the reluctant recognition that Phuong would probably be better off with Pyle.
The narrative starts with this unstable situation and then alternates between Fowler reflecting back in time along various threads leading to the present and his perspective on events unfolding in the current time. As we would expect, the CIA is meddling.
An academic political analyst has written a book with an idea that guides Pyle, namely that a solution for American interests requires nurturing and arming a third force among the Vietnamese as an alternative to the communists and pro-colonial sectors. This turns out to be a bumbling and dangerous strategy.
The sense of decadent cynicism I saw in Fowler at the beginning is slowly replaced with great admiration for his human compassion. His actions in meeting his challenges shows a quiet bravery and a form of wisdom I think most can admire. As Zadie Smith points out in her preface to the book edition I accessed after doing the audiobook version, the relationship between the three characters makes for a rich personal tale of conflicts in love and loyalty while at the same time playing out the relationship between the three countries in symbolic form.
Both planes hold some element of doom arising from all the complication brought on by the divergent goals of their nations and cultural differences in personal vision and morality. And then a few more years later, manipulations by the CIA to develop a non-communist puppet regime will lead to a much bigger war. Sep 13, Sara rated it it was amazing Shelves: borrowed-from-library , vietnam , historical-fiction.
The Vietnam War is an era that is all too real for me. The French had already tried to remake Vietnam into a Western style democracy, and had failed entirely. This book takes place just at the passing of the baton--France has not quite given up, and America is beginning to think they have the solution.
That is the scene, but this book, as with all The Vietnam War is an era that is all too real for me. Fowler, Pyles and Phuong are representations of the three elements that are trying to mix in Vietnam, and they are as unable to do it as individuals as they were as nations. Neither of these men understands Phuong.
She, on the other hand, appears to accept them as they are, without trying overly much to understand them. I think she would tell you that they are too foreign to understand--and there is the rub, they are the foreigners, she is at home. During one of their discussions, Fowler tells Pyle of the Vietnamese citizens: "They want enough rice,' I said, 'They don't want to be shot at.
But, while he waivers in his view from moment to moment, even he seems to see the Vietnamese as too simple and childlike to make their own choices. Pyle is never bothered with this struggle to see them as anything other than children, however.
As the romantic imperialist, he is the guy who has all the solutions if these misguided people would just step out of his way and leave him in charge. Of course, he is deluded. As individuals? Do some count more than others? Should one decide the fate of many?
Can you witness destruction and not become involved? Apr 26, Max rated it really liked it Shelves: historical-fiction. The fictional plot is centered on a real event, a car bombing in a busy downtown Saigon square in January The American mission blamed the Viet Minh. Greene was a war correspondent based in Saigon at the time and many scenes in the book are drawn from things he witnessed.
He started writing the book in March The second triangle is national. The same values and motives underlie both situations. The first side of the triangles is the self-indulgent Thomas Fowler. Fowler is in love with Phuong but keeps her as his mistress since he is married although separated from his wife in England. He has a cynical view of the war, the desires of the Vietnamese people and of Phuong, who he uses just as Viet Nam is used by its European master. Fowler sees no morality on any side, the French, the Viet Minh or the American.
His motto is just let it be, interference just adds to the death and injured toll and accomplishes nothing. His views are those of the colonial rulers who see their empires collapsing and take refuge in their smugness and legacy of privilege.
The second side of the triangles is the impulsive Alden Pyle, who offers to marry Phuong and take her away from the decadent Fowler and chaotic Viet Nam to his home in Boston where he believes she will thrive as a middle class housewife. Also for the purest of motives he hopes to launch a third force in the war to do away with both the evil communists and the colonial puppet government and bring democracy to the Vietnamese.
Similarly he is shown as too simple to understand the complexities of the Vietnamese people and the war - that American style democracy would not work in their culture. Just as Greene portrays his idea of a prototypical American albeit very fitting as events turned out so he gives us his conception of a prototypical Asian woman who never reveals her true self - mysterious and alluring, always accommodating, but underneath clever and pragmatic.
Fowler needs Phuong to light his opium pipes and take care of him as he grows old, just as England and France need the colonies to support them as they decline. He sees Phuong as someone interested solely in security. Young and handsome or old and paunchy does not matter, only who will provide for her and be reliable. He reported on the war for The Times and Le Figaro from Greene loved his time in Viet Nam and clearly patterned Fowler after himself.
Greene particularly liked the restaurants, the nightlife, the opium, and the prostitutes. However, his characterization of Phuong and the oriental is also simplistic - and racist as well.
Greene is a skillful writer giving us fine prose, a cleverly constructed plot and a vivid sense of an exotic time and place he knew well. An interesting aside is the plot change in the Joseph Mankiewicz movie made to assuage politically powerful pro Diem activist groups in the US. Diem had strong support from the likes of Henry Luce and Cardinal Spellman. In the novel Greene had the American Alden Pyle arrange the bombing to help create a third force.
American diplomats Greene knew were discussing a third force strategy at the time the novel was written. Mankiewicz instead made the English reporter, Fowler, a communist dupe who helps the communists plan the bombing. View all 19 comments. Shelves: classics. My first Graham Greene and it is brilliant. His writing is sparse yet descriptive.
A less talented or more loquacious author might have taken pages to deliver what Mr. Greene succinctly packed into these pages.
I wish I could say more but am still struggling with writing. I'll let my five star rating speak for itself. View all 22 comments. Oct 13, Lisa rated it really liked it Shelves: classicsth-century. Written in , the novel is a searing look at the beginning of U. If only we had heeded Greene's cautionary message! I'm glad my book club is going to discuss this novel because there is so much going on under the surface to talk about.
Jan 25, Jen rated it really liked it Recommends it for: the usual suspects. Shelves: spirituality-religion , lit-fic , classics. My time on Earth will be brief, very brief, inconsequential really to things like North America's seasonal movements, Earth's orbit, and the galaxy's star patterns. Yet I, and pretty much everyone else with as brief a life as mine, continue the search for meaning and meaningful experience stupid humans.
Are we looking for profundity in the brevity, a way to either surpass our life's span or are we simply trying to forget about its paltry duration? Birthing, dying, birthing, dying But there it is. And perhaps, more than anything else, this is true: there is an end and a beginning. A beginning and an end.
To everything. Change wins. It's not always the best feeling, or a pithy sentiment one should use while patting the back of the bereaved at a funeral. Graham Greene wrote, "From childhood I had never believed in permanence, and yet I had longed for it.
Change wins again. Despite being the kind of person who simply cannot divorce myself from the concept of God, I understand the previous paragraph. I can see how this changeless and permanent idea is an aberration, but its calmative powers are not that insignificant. The idea that there is something greater than life and death, past all effort of comprehension. To think that sense just might be made of brutality and senseless war and that if a mind was large enough, distanced enough, unclouded by stupidity or bravery, fear or pride Was this what Greene was getting at in TQA?
I may never know. But these are the things through his writing that are getting to me. View all 10 comments. You only had to find a leader and keep him safe. The Third Force comes out of a book. War and Love, they have always been compared. It is a front for covert CIA activities conspiring to introduce an American supported nationalist force to intervene in the French and Viet Minh conflict.
Fowler has an estranged wife in Britain and a girlfriend, Phuong, in Vietnam. The storyline revolves around a love triangle that develops between the three. Pyle falls in love with Phuong and interjects himself into her relationship with Fowler, who sees the American as naive and ideologically simplistic.
Phuong is a cipher who is not understood by either man; a metaphor for SE Asia, an older master and younger suitor. Phuong's sister tries to separate her from Fowler and fix her up with Pyle, unencumbered by previous relationships, financially fit and ready for marriage. Fowler, now aging, is desperate to save his life with Phuong. Stranded overnight in a roadside guard station, with the Viet Minh patrolling the paddies, Fowler and Pyle clash over the western presence in Vietnam.
While Pyle believes in an altruistic mission to spread democracy and freedom Fowler is derisive. The domino theory is an illusion, even the water buffalo hate the westerners.
The peasant in his hut doesn't know or care about their platitudes. The tower is attacked and Fowler is injured. Pyle helps him get back to Saigon. Fowler writes his wife to ask for a divorce but he is denied. He is recalled to London by his publisher but gets a one year extension. Phuong leaves him and moves in with Pyle, with whom she is now engaged. Through his reporting contacts Fowler finds out Pyle might be involved in the bombings that killed innocent civilians in Saigon.
When Pyle is missing the French police begin to investigate Fowler, speculating that tensions between the two men may have led to foul play. The story has elements of Greene's personal experiences.
Greene's writing is straight forward but nuanced. This psychological thriller was made into a movie in and The earlier film was co-opted by CIA funding and rewritten to remove it's anti-war message. View all 23 comments. Shelves: fiction , library-book , vietnam , favorites , 20th-century , read All you can do is control them or eliminate them. Innocence is a kind of insanity.
I was 12 in so I was a teen as the build up of the American turn i 'What's the good? I was 12 in so I was a teen as the build up of the American turn in Viet Nam occurred. Of course we, the public, didn't know everything back then. But the news and, particularly the photography, brought the attention of Americans to the war in a way the government would have preferred to prevent.
Earlier in the novel, Fowler the older reporter says of Pyle: That was my first instinctto protect him. As he thinks about his bid to get a divorce from his wife, who is back in England, Fowler reflects: I had forgotten her pain for too long, and this was the only kind of recompense I could give her. On 25 June , Soviet and Chinese forces from North Korea invaded South Korea, which precipitated an armed conflict that lasted until the combatants signed an armistice in July The Quiet American does not reference the events of the Korean War directly.
Korean War initiated U. The Vietnam War officially broke out in November of , and it would last for another two decades, until The army in the north received support from the Soviet Union, whereas the army in the south received support from the United States. Although Greene could not have known how history would play out, his background as a world-traveling journalist made him an astute political observer. Therefore, through his novel, Greene could be said to have predicted what American involvement would mean for the region.
In , Greene met and fell in love with Vivien Dayrell-Browning, who had recently converted to Catholicism. Dayrell-Browning introduced Greene to the , and he joined the Church later that same year.
Greene remained a Catholic for the rest of his life.
0コメント