The Quiet American

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.