The Quiet American

Written by Grahame Greene, this light thriller set against the hardships of 1950s war in Indochina is an exploration of the rising of American imperialism and the waning of European colonialism. Beginning closer to the end and working backwards to establish characters and their relationships with one another as well as the sequence of events that led to the eventual outcome, The Quiet American is quite an easy read, despite its fragmentation in terms of where we are time-wise, and Greene manages to pack a lot of power into the voice of his narrator, constructing a surprisingly deep and well-rounded story that is just shy of 200 pages. 

The ‘quiet American’ is Alden Pyle, a fresh-faced, innocent American youth who comes to Indochina with a head filled with the romantic and democratic ideals of authors. Blind to the way people really are, Pyle crosses paths with Fowler, a cynical British correspondent, and a shallow but somehow endurable friendship forms. Sent from America to promote democracy through a mysterious ‘Third Force’, Pyle’s innocence and naivety begins to cause great bloodshed and soon even the cynical, un-sided Fowler cannot sit on the fence and watch. But even as he starts to intervene he wonders why; is it for country, for equality, for morality, or for love? 

I began reading this book trying to muster as much neutrality as I could. It’s a text that I have to read for uni (I’m trying to get a head start before classes resume) and not usually something that I would go in for. But I discovered that this is actually a very deceptively complex book despite its length. Sitting at just shy of 200 pages (with pretty big typing too), The Quiet American is a story that explores more than just a love triangle and an unlikely friendship. It’s an exploration into morality, masculinity, and, of course, the patronising ‘paternalistic’ attitudes of the West towards the Orient. 

Orientalism works strongly within Greene’s story, both the beauty and exoticness of it as well as the poverty and ‘dis-civilisation’. Particularly in the character of Phuong, we see all that is beautiful and exotic about the East: Phuong is often compared to and held in association with flora, and Greene’s recurring associations with her and material exhibits both exoticness as well as a common link with the West in terms of materialism and consumerism: her silk trousers and collection of scarves. Then in comparison to the prettiness that is Phuong and the Orient, we also see the poverty and the dystopian side of it: Greene paints wonderful pictures of large families living on the floor of scrap warehouses, we see the crowded and humid squalor of opium dens and brothels, and whilst there is also a sort of exoticism in these less attractive pictures as well, they’re not as endearing as Phuong. 

We then have this exploration into what makes a man in the romance of Phuong with both Pyle and Fowler. Pyle enters with somewhat clichéd and conservative romanticisms about love and marriage whilst Fowler is the creature of habit, the experienced one in the pleasures of women, and whilst his offerings to Phuong are nowhere near as typically romantic as Pyle’s, they are still honest and true. 

Morality also too creeps into the mix, playing especially with the idea that no one can ever be mutual the entire time. Whether it be in war, love, friendship, whatever, at some point everyone has to take a side or become involved and this is what happens to Fowler through the catalyst of Pyle. Pyle’s character works as this great driving force within the narrative to push the otherwise neutral and stationary Fowler forwards, backwards, and sideways and this is how the story gains its depth and complexity. What’s most enthralling about the whole thing is that you don’t even know it’s happening until Fowler makes such an un-Fowler move and you realise then and only then what is going on. The whole thing is written from Fowler’s point of view, in Fowler’s cynical voice and there is a lot of free indirect speech that elevates him off the page and shapes him into this tangible 3-dimensional character. Whilst he’s a hard man to agree or side with, his transformation as a character is compelling and the way that Greene chronicles the chain of events that lead to a tragic and actually shocking outcome, is just SO good because, by the last page, you’re just staring at the book in front of you with it’s ‘happy ending’ and going “……” Seriously, there are no words to describe how I felt at the end of this book. 

Filled with action, violence, bloodshed, shocking images of war, romance, and even a little comedy in the voice of the narrator, The Quiet American is a great read and an incredibly deceptively complex book. It’s a bit like a soup where you can’t tell all the ingredients: it looks really simple, but then you get hits from all these different flavours that work in harmony to spark life into the pallet and that’s what this book does. It excites, it shocks, and it makes you go back and look closer to understand why and how Greene has made you feel the way you do in the end.