Greene writes wonderful prose, captures feelings and emotions so well, and tells a great story.
[Jonathan Franzen is another author who captures feelings and emotions well.
However, Greene's novels are more succinct and suspenseful, revolving around specific events, whereas Franzen's novels follow his characters' lives through the years.]
The Story
The Quiet American centers around a love triangle between Englishman Thomas Fowler, a reporter in Vietnam covering the Indo-China war in the 1950s; Phoung, a pretty Vietnamese woman who lives with Fowler; and Alden Pyle, an idealistic American who falls in love with Phoung.
As the love triangle unfolds, the characters' differing attitudes about the war unfold as well.
Fowler is committed to remaining impartial, and not judging actions or taking sides while reporting the news. He is able to maintain this objectivity as Vietnam, despite being at war, provides him with an escape from his failed marriage at home.
Pyle has only recently arrived in Vietnam, but is certain that the correct solution and right thing for Vietnam lies in the books that he has read about the country.
As a woman whose country is at war, Phoung's focus is on surviving, although her sister has higher ambitions for Phoung and her beauty, including leaving the war-torn country.
Told in flashbacks, the novel begins and ends with Pyle's death. It's a gripping tale that made me flip back to the beginning to re-read the first few pages after discovering what had happened.
Writing Samples (i.e. Quotes)
Greene has a way of capturing moods and is so talented with prose, that he is able to convey so much with just one word.
For example, I love his use of "incongruously" in the following sentence regarding the local police chief:"...I had noticed him because he appeared incongruously in love with his wife, who ignored him, a flashy and false blonde."
He also has a subtle, dry wit that comes across in his observations, such as the "young and too beautiful French colonel."
Other quotes that I enjoyed from The Quiet American:
"...a single sigh that might have represented his weariness with Saigon, with the heat, or with the whole human condition."
"One always spoke of her like that in the third person as though she were not there. Sometimes she seemed invisible like peace."
"Perhaps truth and humility go together; so many lies come from our pride..."
"...free from the discomfort of personal thought."
Political View
The exchange below between Fowler and Pyle captures my conflict with America's tendency to involve themselves with other countries.
Although I may not agree with decisions that other governments make or human right abuses, I'm not sure how correct it is for a country (especially one as young as the United States) to impose its ideals onto another culture or people.
With its homeless population and hungry families, America's human right abuses may not be intentional, but they still exist, and indifference is a form of consent.
Just because America's glass house is smaller, should it be throwing stones at other, larger glass houses?
Fowler: "...You and your like are trying to make a war with the help of people who just aren't interested."
Pyle: "They don't want Communism."
Fowler: "They want enough rice. They don't want to be shot at. They want one day to be much the same as another. They don't want our white skins around telling them what they want."
