Graham Greene is one of the finest twentieth-century writers that I've read. I think readers will find this book relevant, easy to read, and highly accessible, like most of his other writings. I saw the movie "The Quiet American" first, which I also highly recommend. It was beautifully filmed, well acted, and had a very timely message regarding the dangers of a foreign policy that sacrifies the value of innocent life for a much-lauded cause-on behalf of people it's not clear are on board with said cause, and may not actually want outsiders to liberate/bomb them.
This book takes place in Vietnam in the early 1950s (which is also when it was written) when Vietnam was still part of the French colony Indochine. The Vietnamese communists are fighting the French to gain their country's independence, and the Americans are aiding the French, because they believe Southeast Asia is a stack of dominoes about to go over to the Soviets. But some American theorists are suggesting that the "Old Colonialists" cannot possibly win the trust of the Vietnamese people and therefore to truly combat communism there they have to create or aid a "Third Force"-something the Vietnamese people might accept as a genuine nationalist movement, that can be an anti-colonial force as powerful as Communism.
People familiar with the history of the Cold War know that this was often American policy in several countries. Initially, the U.S. would refuse to aid a given independence movement and give money and weapons to the ruling colonial power, making argument that this would better hold the tide against communism. In the case of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh initially asked the U.S. for support against the French, which the U.S. denied, believing that the status quo was safer than an indigenous independence movement that might become communist.
However, as we all know, many of these movements did turn to the Soviet Union for help, often because they could not procure Western aid for their anti-colonial struggles. This happened in several African and Asian countries. At any rate, this book is about a young, naive and, idealistic American-Alden Pyle-who believes the ends justify the means-whatever they are, and his relationship with a world-weary middle-aged British reporter-Thomas Fowler-who has no patience with Pyle's world of absolutes.
Fowler and Pyle are at odds in every way imaginable, and although Fowler cannot forgive Pyle wanting to marry his Vietnamese mistress or his infuriating way of expecting real life to conform to principles;he has a certain sympathy for Pyle because Pyle is sweet and genuine and has real humility: he's not the "Ugly American" of other anti-colonial literature and he is very likable. However, Greene convincingly suggests that Pyle is a very dangerous type whose vision of the world causes far more damage than Fowler's.
Pyle admires Fowler and has a kind of puppy-dog aspect when he follows around the older man. He wants Fowler to give up his girl for idealistic reasons: he can offer her marriage, children, and security, things Fowler, for various reasons, cannot, and if Fowler really loved her he'd be interested in her future.
This fight over the Vietnamese beauty is an extension of the way Pyle views political reality. Fowler just wants his girlfriend with him-just like, he argues, the Vietnamese just want to be left alone, not have white people telling them what to do, and have enough to eat. They don't want to hear about liberty, he says bitterly, they just don't want their heads blown off. Pyle thinks he has something better to offer Phuong and Vietnam, both of whom are actually only interested in survival, both of whom are offered precious few options and very little autonomy in the situations they find themselves.
The movie was quite faithful to the book, extremely so in fact, but the book is still very much worth reading if you enjoyed the movie because the dialogue between Pyle and Fowler is more extensive than it was in the movie and more revealing of Greene's political ideas. It was also really interesting reading it as an American because it made me think how strange it was that this book, with all its profound insights about the state of Vietnam at that time and the impossibility of Pyle's vision doing any good, was written in the early 1950s. It seems that we knew, or could have known, enough early enough to have an idea, from the French experience there, to spare our own soldiers the horrors of an interminable imperialist war. I wish more policy makers had read the book.
Definitely read this book even if you don't have an interest in geo-politics of the twentieth century though-it isn't boring moralizing as my review might have suggested, but actually entertainingly written and filled with action and suspense. Also, a warning, there are some Asian stereotypes in the book that were offensive, but I felt Graham had Fowler express them for specific reasons. He ultimately has Fowler realize that he is "creating a character" for his mistress as much as Pyle is for her; she is powerless and unable to represent herself, and so Fowler's tried to rationalize his wish to hold on to her with certain cultural constructs.
Overall, it's a great and timeless story that would appeal to and interest a wide range of people.
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