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For the 1958 film, see The Quiet American (film). For the 2002 film, see The Quiet American (2002 film).
The Quiet American (1955) is a novel by British author Graham Greene. It was adapted into films in 1958 and 2002.
[edit] BackgroundThe Quiet American is one of Greene's later books, published in 1955, and draws on his experiences as a SIS agent spying for Britain in World War II in Sierra Leone in the early 1940s and on winters spent from 1951 to 1954 in Saigon reporting on the French colonial war for The Times and Le Figaro. He was apparently inspired to write The Quiet American in October 1951 while driving back to Saigon from the Ben Tre province. He was accompanied by an American aid worker who lectured him about finding a “third force in Vietnam”. Greene spent three years writing it. [edit] Major charactersThomas Fowler is a British journalist in his fifties who has been covering the French war in Vietnam for over two years. He has become a very jaded and cynical man. He meets Alden Pyle and finds him naïve. Alden Pyle is the "quiet American" of the title. Pyle is thoughtful, soft-spoken, intellectual, serious, and idealistic. He comes from a privileged East Coast background. His father is a renowned professor of underwater erosion who has appeared on the cover of Time magazine; his mother is well respected in their community. Pyle is a brilliant graduate of Harvard University. He has studied theories of government and society, and is particularly devoted to a scholar named York Harding. Harding's theory is that neither Communism nor colonialism is the answer in foreign lands like Vietnam, but rather a "Third Force", usually a combination of traditions, works best. Pyle has read Harding's numerous books many times and has absorbed Harding's thinking as his own. Phuong, Fowler’s lover at the beginning of the novel, is a beautiful young Vietnamese girl who stays with him for security and protection, and leaves him for the same reason. She is viewed by Fowler as a companion to be taken for granted and by Pyle as a delicate flower to be protected, but Greene never makes clear which, if either, of these views is actually the truth. Pyle's desire for Phuong was largely interpreted by critics to parallel his desire for a non-communist south Vietnam. Her character is never fully developed or revealed. She is never able to show her emotions, as her older sister makes decisions for her. She is named after, but not based on, a Vietnamese friend of Greene’s. Vigot, a French inspector at the Sûreté, investigates Pyle's death. He is a man torn between doing his duty (pursuing Pyle's death and questioning Fowler) and doing what is best for the country (letting the matter go). He and Fowler are oddly akin in some ways, both faintly cynical and weary of the world; hence their discussion of Blaise Pascal. But they are divided by the differences in their faith: Vigot is a Roman Catholic and Fowler an atheist. [edit] Literary significance and receptionAfter its publication in the U.S. in 1956, the novel was widely condemned as anti-American. It was criticized by The New Yorker for portraying Americans as murderers, largely based on one scene in which a bomb explodes in a crowd of people. According to critic Philip Stratford, “American readers were incensed, perhaps not so much because of the biased portrait of obtuse and destructive American innocence and idealism in Alden Pyle, but because in this case it was drawn with such acid pleasure by a middle-class English snob like Thomas Fowler whom they were all too ready to identify with Greene himself”.[1] However, it was popular in England and over the years has achieved notable status, being adapted into films in 1958 and most recently in 2002 by Miramax, starring Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser and earning the former a Best Actor nomination. [edit] Allusions and referencesBlaise Pascal's Pensées, specifically "The Wager" - “Let us weigh the gain and the loss, in wagering that God is, let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.” Fowler claims that he is not a Berkeleian, a reference to the ideas of George Berkeley. Fowler quotes part of Arthur Hugh Clough's poem "Spectator Ab Extra"[2] to Pyle, and Clough's "Amours de Voyage"[3] is included in the preface. [edit] Allusions to history, geography and social conditionsThe novel is set during the First Indochina War and lists cities such as Saigon, Haiphong, and Hanoi. Though fiction, it mentions and involves actual people and groups, such as the Vietminh and Trinh Minh The. The book contains a detailed description of the syncretic Cao Dai religion of Tay Ninh province. [edit] Publication historyThis novel was first published in Great Britain in 1955 by William Heinemann Ltd. It was first published in the United States in 1956 by the Viking Press, Inc. The ISBN of the American edition is 0-09-947839-0. [edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
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