The Quiet American was first published in 1955 but it could have been written this summer as US ploughed a lone course in Iraq. Graham Greene has written a wonderful political novel. But this is something more. If the greatness of fiction lies in it being relevant fifty, hundred years after it was written, then The Quiet American is a great novel.
Iraq is a far cry from Vietnam. The times in which this novel is set were also drastically different. In the fifties, the French were still fighting the war and the Americans were just doling out economic aid and covering the war. The novel is told from the eyes of Fowler, a British journalist and is set around his liaison with a Vietnamese girl, Phuong and an American, Pyle employed with the US economic mission in Vietnam. Pyle like America wasn't involved just on an economic mission. He was in search of that elusive third force in Vietnam.
The most telling feature of the novel is the contrast between Fowler's world weary cynicism and Pyle's naivete. Almost symbolic of Britain's post-war mood and the enthusiasm of the new American superpower. Greene uses the first-person, direct rapportage style to devastating effect. Greene's prose is economical and effective. Some of the best passages in the book occur as a result of conversations between Fowler and Pyle.
The long conversation they have atop a watch tower when stranded on the Saigon road is a favourite. Some sample quotes.
"If Indo-China goes..." - "I know that record. Siam goes. Malaya goes. Indonesia goes. What does 'go' mean?"
"- in five hundred years there may be no New York or London, but they'll be growing paddy in these fields, they'll be carrying their produce to market on longpoles wearing their pointed hats. The small boys will be sitting on the buffaloes. I like the buffaloes, they don't like our smell, the smell of Europeans. And remember - from a buffalo's point of view you are a European too."
On the educated elite in third world countries
"-we've brought them up in our ideas. We've taught them dangerous games"
"I laugh at anyone who spends so much time writing about what doesn't exist - mental concepts."
"Thought's a luxury."
On individuality
"Ours wasn't threatened, oh no, but who cared about the individuality of the man in the paddy field - and who does now? --- Don't go on in the East with that parrot cry about a threat to the individual soul. Here you'd find yourself on the wrong side - it's they who stand for the individual and we just stand for Private 23987, unit in the global strategy."
Though the novel is engaging as a narrative and we care about Pyle and sympathise with his naivete and are sorry for Fowler when he feels insecure about Phuong, the hard edge of cynicism always rears up throughout the book and causes a pain like that caused by a sharp instrument. There are descriptions of massacres, deaths and bomb blasts that are shocking more so because of the efficiency of the prose. At the end it doesn't matter what happens to Pyle or whether Fowler and Phuong come together. We are left wondering if Pyle's ideas - mental concepts - do matter at all. This novel is a liberal's nightmare. If you are cynical read and feel vindicated. If you are naive or care more about "isms and ocracies", read and realise.
Oh, apart from the obvious differences between Iraq and Vietnam, America is no longer naive in its foreign policy. In his introduction Greene talks of the "great American dream that was to bedevil affairs in the East and later in North Africa." Times have moved on, but there are still elements - most notably Wolfowitz - that deal in mental concepts. Iraqis might have hated Saddam Hussein. But they won't have too much sympathy for others who treat them like pawns in a game. America's game right now seems to be democracy in Middle East. Well it took more than twenty years before normal relations could resume between US and Vietnam. Lets see where Iraq and America stand in 2023. Good intentions are always troublesome.
'This is the patent age of new inventions
For killing bodies, and for saving souls,
All propagated with the best intentions'
-Byron
PS. I have liberally used quotes from the book. I hope I have not violated any copyright provisions. If anyone brings to my notice any violations I will cease from using these quotes.
September 18, 2003
September 17, 2003
Uncle Sam's dilemma
Post 9/11 amidst all the outpouring of grief and sympathy for the victims and their families, there were a number of voices that expressed satisfaction, a kind of "they deserve this" or "Americans had this coming". And predictably the response from US was one of bewilderment and frustration. Nobody can understand such distasteful and heartless comments. Americans were even more puzzled as it was inconceivable to them that the US could evoke so much hatred. Of course in 2 years a lot of water has flown down Tigris and a few Americans can now accept the fact.
Not being from America but having a few friends who have migrated there and having long been an admirer of the country, its economic and political freedoms and its leaders I find it distressing that so many people around the world are so eager to hate the US and puzzling that so many Americans cannot fathom it.
To me, 9/11 marks a shift not just in how terrorism has become the single biggest threat to world peace but how it has and will shape alliances. America's right to defend herself from terrorist attacks is irrefutable and the rest of the world has a duty to help the US for past dues - Europe for bearing its security burden during the Cold war, Asia for setting an early example with its War of Independence and for eschewing colonialism and Africa for having the brutal honesty to engage in first the Civil War and later the Civil rights movement.
The present US Administration has formed a useful doctrine of preemption to deal with the terrorist menace. However, the concept has been muddled by wrong and hesitant application to Iraq. The shifting positions on the need to attack Iraq - it is about weapons of mass destruction, its about Al Qaeda, its about Saddam Hussien's murderous regime, its about democracy in Middle East - undermined the cause even before it began. Saddam Hussien posed a threat if he really possessed all the weapons that he was accused of having hidden in the sands of Iraq. Now with hindsight we know that he may not have had any. But at that time it was a difficult decision to make. US had to rely on intelligence that was dodgy at best, patently malafide at worst. In the face of such evidence, it would have made more sense for US to have treaded carefully and to have engaged other countries on the best course. Instead the Adminstration was working on a predetermined timetable - too closely linked to the US election cycle - and the vagaries of weather and logistics proved to be more important than global opinion. What we saw in the lead up to the war was a doctrine of presumption, not preemption. (In future, the events proceeding upto the war and the impasse in the Security Council should be a compulsory case study for diplomats around the world. Of how posturing and bravado got the better of intellect. The French behaved very much like their national bird rooster.)
The war on terror had and has more urgent battles - in Afghanistan, in South East Asia, in the Indo-Pak border and possibly in Africa. In Afghanistan the task is unfinished and the country is in a delicate situation. Unless President Karzai's hands are strengthened, the country may sink into political vacuum similar to the one that resulted in the rise of Taliban. By squandering all its energies on Iraq the Administration has seriously stretched the capabilities of the US military power. The difficulties faced by the military in Iraq at present are precisely the kind of long and hard engagement that the US did not need, least in the midst of hostile Arab populace in close proximity to that Palestine tinderbox. That's why the return to UN for a multinational force is welcome. But this move already looks stuck in geopolitics and US may have to try a different tack.
George Bush would do well to cultivate one habit that has not been in abundance within the present Adminsitration so far - humility. At least Bill Clinton had charm. He might have been a rogue but he was lovable. Maybe Bush can pick up the phone and cosy up to France, Russia and China instead of armtwisting countries like India. The agenda should be to reduce the number of US forces in Iraq and put in place a UN force with a greater proportion of brown faces than white faces. Preferably under UN command. Alas this would involve a massive pride swallowing exercise that would produce the mother of all indigestions (to borrow an idiom from Saddam). But the idea is clear. Cut losses and beat a tactical retreat. But wield enough influence in the background to ensure that the transition regime in Iraq is not unfriendly. And trust to time, patience, goodwill and aid for building institutions of democracy. It cannot be achieved overnight. And it takes more commitment than just winning re-election. Therein lies the dilemma for Americans. Wonder if they recognise it. Elect a President who is intelligent. Its not enough if the President can pick and choose the best talent for his Administration. The present times call for a man (woman?) with vision, who is prepared to be a statesman, who is aware of the legacy he would like to leave and who wishes to be remembered for posterity as the one who made a conscious and decisive difference to the war on terror. Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt anyone? In short electing a President whose greatest achievement may come on the foreign policy front. Being tough on security issues alone would not win the war on terror. Now since we don't have an option from the Republican side, our hopes lie with Democrats. If only they would sort out the mess and cut to the chase.
"There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea we are now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures." - William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
Post 9/11 amidst all the outpouring of grief and sympathy for the victims and their families, there were a number of voices that expressed satisfaction, a kind of "they deserve this" or "Americans had this coming". And predictably the response from US was one of bewilderment and frustration. Nobody can understand such distasteful and heartless comments. Americans were even more puzzled as it was inconceivable to them that the US could evoke so much hatred. Of course in 2 years a lot of water has flown down Tigris and a few Americans can now accept the fact.
Not being from America but having a few friends who have migrated there and having long been an admirer of the country, its economic and political freedoms and its leaders I find it distressing that so many people around the world are so eager to hate the US and puzzling that so many Americans cannot fathom it.
To me, 9/11 marks a shift not just in how terrorism has become the single biggest threat to world peace but how it has and will shape alliances. America's right to defend herself from terrorist attacks is irrefutable and the rest of the world has a duty to help the US for past dues - Europe for bearing its security burden during the Cold war, Asia for setting an early example with its War of Independence and for eschewing colonialism and Africa for having the brutal honesty to engage in first the Civil War and later the Civil rights movement.
The present US Administration has formed a useful doctrine of preemption to deal with the terrorist menace. However, the concept has been muddled by wrong and hesitant application to Iraq. The shifting positions on the need to attack Iraq - it is about weapons of mass destruction, its about Al Qaeda, its about Saddam Hussien's murderous regime, its about democracy in Middle East - undermined the cause even before it began. Saddam Hussien posed a threat if he really possessed all the weapons that he was accused of having hidden in the sands of Iraq. Now with hindsight we know that he may not have had any. But at that time it was a difficult decision to make. US had to rely on intelligence that was dodgy at best, patently malafide at worst. In the face of such evidence, it would have made more sense for US to have treaded carefully and to have engaged other countries on the best course. Instead the Adminstration was working on a predetermined timetable - too closely linked to the US election cycle - and the vagaries of weather and logistics proved to be more important than global opinion. What we saw in the lead up to the war was a doctrine of presumption, not preemption. (In future, the events proceeding upto the war and the impasse in the Security Council should be a compulsory case study for diplomats around the world. Of how posturing and bravado got the better of intellect. The French behaved very much like their national bird rooster.)
The war on terror had and has more urgent battles - in Afghanistan, in South East Asia, in the Indo-Pak border and possibly in Africa. In Afghanistan the task is unfinished and the country is in a delicate situation. Unless President Karzai's hands are strengthened, the country may sink into political vacuum similar to the one that resulted in the rise of Taliban. By squandering all its energies on Iraq the Administration has seriously stretched the capabilities of the US military power. The difficulties faced by the military in Iraq at present are precisely the kind of long and hard engagement that the US did not need, least in the midst of hostile Arab populace in close proximity to that Palestine tinderbox. That's why the return to UN for a multinational force is welcome. But this move already looks stuck in geopolitics and US may have to try a different tack.
George Bush would do well to cultivate one habit that has not been in abundance within the present Adminsitration so far - humility. At least Bill Clinton had charm. He might have been a rogue but he was lovable. Maybe Bush can pick up the phone and cosy up to France, Russia and China instead of armtwisting countries like India. The agenda should be to reduce the number of US forces in Iraq and put in place a UN force with a greater proportion of brown faces than white faces. Preferably under UN command. Alas this would involve a massive pride swallowing exercise that would produce the mother of all indigestions (to borrow an idiom from Saddam). But the idea is clear. Cut losses and beat a tactical retreat. But wield enough influence in the background to ensure that the transition regime in Iraq is not unfriendly. And trust to time, patience, goodwill and aid for building institutions of democracy. It cannot be achieved overnight. And it takes more commitment than just winning re-election. Therein lies the dilemma for Americans. Wonder if they recognise it. Elect a President who is intelligent. Its not enough if the President can pick and choose the best talent for his Administration. The present times call for a man (woman?) with vision, who is prepared to be a statesman, who is aware of the legacy he would like to leave and who wishes to be remembered for posterity as the one who made a conscious and decisive difference to the war on terror. Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt anyone? In short electing a President whose greatest achievement may come on the foreign policy front. Being tough on security issues alone would not win the war on terror. Now since we don't have an option from the Republican side, our hopes lie with Democrats. If only they would sort out the mess and cut to the chase.
"There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea we are now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures." - William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
September 09, 2003
Review of "The Pianist"
A cynical way of looking at "The Pianist" is that its a clever and sureshot attempt by Roman Polanski to put himself in contention for Oscars. Given the odds against Polanski winning awards in America this looks plausible. Witness the success achieved by Spielberg with Schindler's List in bagging the Best Director award that he craved so much. However The Pianist is no cheap attempt to sidestep Polanski's legal troubles nor was it made with awards in mind. Rather it is based on a true account of Wladyslaw Szpilman's life during Nazi occupation of Poland. While Schindler's List deals mainly with the Krakow ghetto, The Pianist is based in Warsaw where the Jews actually mounted an ultimately unsuccessful armed struggle against the Germans.
The fate of Jews under Nazis and the horrors of holocaust are subjects that have been dealt with ad nauseum. But The Pianist is different in its own way and needs to be told. Szpilman is a silent witness to the destruction wrought not just on Warsaw's Jewish community but also on the city in five years of Nazi occupation. Szpilman and his family go through the horrors of ghettoisation and then Szpilman is separated from his family when they are deported (almost certainly to their deaths). Szpilman slips into the ghetto again and plays a part in helping Jews who are arming themselves and then slips out and is constantly on the run. Almost the entire story is told through the eyes of Szpilman. However it is doubtful whether the movie would have succeeded so much if Polanski had stuck rigidly to Szpilman's account which is essentially a journal. Polanski embellishes the story with his own experiences and this elevates the movie to a different level. Several scenes stand out:
Early in the movie when the city is already under occupation but the Jews have not yet been ghettoised, Szpilman is witness to a man trying to grab a can of soup from an old lady. The can falls down and soup spills onto the road. The man falls on all fours and starts licking the soup. Along with Szpilman, the audience feels a momentary twinge of pity mixed with disgust that a human being can be reduced to such desperation. By the end of the movie Szpilman is reduced to a similar state of mind and we are left feeling helpless.
When Szpilman escapes from deportation to concentration camp, he starts running away from the railway yard. The Jewish guard (who is helping him) snaps at him "Don't run" and Szpilman walks out of the yard as nonchalantly as possible. This is so realistic and so beautifully done
The initial scenes, particularly Szpilman's brief encounters with Dorota are refreshing and radiate a picture of happiness and health. This provides such a stark contrast to later scenes when Szpilman is alone and is constantly on the run and emaciated.
Music plays an important part throughout the film and is the motivation behind Szpilman's quest for survival. Szpilman's passion for music saves him during the final days of the war. One of the most touching scenes is where Szpilman plays in front of the German officer (Captain Hosenfeld) to convince him that he (Szpilman) is a pianist. But it also helps Szpilman reconnect with his past and keep alive his hope that once the war was over, things would return to normal.
One of the chief virtues of the film is that Szpilman is alone during much of the film but we hardly feel it. Poalnski has also avoided typecasting - there are good and bad Jews and good and bad Poles. Germans with the exception of Captain Hosenfeld are pure evil.
Adrien Brody has done a wondeful job. His is a subtle, nuanced performance and captures the spirit of the role more by changes in appearance than by theatrics. Brody lost about 30 lbs for the part and his commitment shows till the very end.
The Pianist is a wonderful story about humanism and the power of the human spirit and music. Szpilman's determination to survive in the face of dauning odds and great personal loss shows the value of human life and why we should never fritter it away nor underestimate human will.
A cynical way of looking at "The Pianist" is that its a clever and sureshot attempt by Roman Polanski to put himself in contention for Oscars. Given the odds against Polanski winning awards in America this looks plausible. Witness the success achieved by Spielberg with Schindler's List in bagging the Best Director award that he craved so much. However The Pianist is no cheap attempt to sidestep Polanski's legal troubles nor was it made with awards in mind. Rather it is based on a true account of Wladyslaw Szpilman's life during Nazi occupation of Poland. While Schindler's List deals mainly with the Krakow ghetto, The Pianist is based in Warsaw where the Jews actually mounted an ultimately unsuccessful armed struggle against the Germans.
The fate of Jews under Nazis and the horrors of holocaust are subjects that have been dealt with ad nauseum. But The Pianist is different in its own way and needs to be told. Szpilman is a silent witness to the destruction wrought not just on Warsaw's Jewish community but also on the city in five years of Nazi occupation. Szpilman and his family go through the horrors of ghettoisation and then Szpilman is separated from his family when they are deported (almost certainly to their deaths). Szpilman slips into the ghetto again and plays a part in helping Jews who are arming themselves and then slips out and is constantly on the run. Almost the entire story is told through the eyes of Szpilman. However it is doubtful whether the movie would have succeeded so much if Polanski had stuck rigidly to Szpilman's account which is essentially a journal. Polanski embellishes the story with his own experiences and this elevates the movie to a different level. Several scenes stand out:
Early in the movie when the city is already under occupation but the Jews have not yet been ghettoised, Szpilman is witness to a man trying to grab a can of soup from an old lady. The can falls down and soup spills onto the road. The man falls on all fours and starts licking the soup. Along with Szpilman, the audience feels a momentary twinge of pity mixed with disgust that a human being can be reduced to such desperation. By the end of the movie Szpilman is reduced to a similar state of mind and we are left feeling helpless.
When Szpilman escapes from deportation to concentration camp, he starts running away from the railway yard. The Jewish guard (who is helping him) snaps at him "Don't run" and Szpilman walks out of the yard as nonchalantly as possible. This is so realistic and so beautifully done
The initial scenes, particularly Szpilman's brief encounters with Dorota are refreshing and radiate a picture of happiness and health. This provides such a stark contrast to later scenes when Szpilman is alone and is constantly on the run and emaciated.
Music plays an important part throughout the film and is the motivation behind Szpilman's quest for survival. Szpilman's passion for music saves him during the final days of the war. One of the most touching scenes is where Szpilman plays in front of the German officer (Captain Hosenfeld) to convince him that he (Szpilman) is a pianist. But it also helps Szpilman reconnect with his past and keep alive his hope that once the war was over, things would return to normal.
One of the chief virtues of the film is that Szpilman is alone during much of the film but we hardly feel it. Poalnski has also avoided typecasting - there are good and bad Jews and good and bad Poles. Germans with the exception of Captain Hosenfeld are pure evil.
Adrien Brody has done a wondeful job. His is a subtle, nuanced performance and captures the spirit of the role more by changes in appearance than by theatrics. Brody lost about 30 lbs for the part and his commitment shows till the very end.
The Pianist is a wonderful story about humanism and the power of the human spirit and music. Szpilman's determination to survive in the face of dauning odds and great personal loss shows the value of human life and why we should never fritter it away nor underestimate human will.
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