The Quiet American (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (original 1955; édition 2004)

Graham Greene starfaði á árunum 1951-54 sem stríðsfréttaritari í franska Indókína og fékk þá hugmyndina að sögu sem hann síðar gaf út undir nafninu The Quiet American 1955. Í bókinni ræðst hann harkalega að íhlutun Bandaríkjamanna í málefnum Vietnama og hlaut hann litlar þakkir vestan hafs fyrir vikið þar sem .
Þegar sagan gerist hafa Frakkar átt í stöðugum ófriði við kommúnista um árabil sem ráða stórum svæðum í dreifbýlinu. Söguþráður sögunnar gengur út á kynni og vinskap Fowlers, miðaldra ensks fréttamanns, sem starfað hefur lengi í Vietnam við Pyle, ungan Bandaríkjamann sem er nýkominn til landsins, fullur eldmóði og þörf til að koma á bandarísku lýðræði í Indókína.
Við upphaf bókarinnar hefur sá yngri verið myrtur og lesandinn kynnist samskiptum þessa ólíku einstaklinga smám saman. Eldri maðurinn hafði samlagast lífinu í landinu og leið vel þar og leit gagnrýnum augum á einfalda sýn þess yngri á samfélagið í Indókína. Fowler neitaði að taka afstöðu til átakanna, bæði sem fréttaritari og sem einstaklingur. Fljótlega verður hins vegar ljóst að Pyle starfaði fyrir leyniþjónustu BNA og taldi tilganginn helga meðölin. Nokkuð sem gekk gegn öllum lífsgildum Fowlers.
Sagan var kvikmynduð 1958 og 2002 og hlaut Michael Caine tilnefningu til Óskarsverðlaunanna fyrir leik í aðalhlutverki fyrir þá mynd. ( )

This book takes place in the 1950s in Vietnam when France was fighting the Vietminh and the role of the United States was primarily as an observer. The narrator Fowler is a cynical, opium-smoking British correspondent who became friends with Pyle, “the quiet American,” an innocent abroad whose academic knowledge of international relations leads to violent clandestine action and the killing of civilians. The action takes place in Saigon, Hanoi and the rice patties. It is an exciting read and an uncomfortable foretelling of American foreign policy choices.

Many of the locations in the book still exist, such as the Continental Hotel in Saigon where journalists would hang out and where Fowler and Pyle first met in the bar. Greene lived in the hotel in room 214. For more on Greene’s Saigon go to http://www.historicvietnam.com/graham-greenes-saigon-revisited/Graham Greene’s Saigon - HISTORIC VIETNAM.
. ( )

This novel is set in Viet Nam during the time in the 1950s when French rule of Indo-China is collapsing and the Americans are moving in. The central theme is the rivalry between an English reporter Thomas Fowler and the eponymous American Alden Pyle, particularly their differing philosophical outlooks and attitudes towards Viet Nam, as expressed through their relationship with a Vietnamese woman, Phuong. Pyle is murdered near the beginning of the novel, though it is never clear by whom, and the rest of the novel flits back and forth in time in a way that I found sometimes confusing. There were some interesting incidents and discussions in here, but overall I found the novel rather unsatisfying. ( )

prachtige enscenering halverwege het boek, waar twee van de drie hoofdpersonen - twee mannen- over seksualiteit spreken, op de vloer van een wachttoren, waar ook twee Vietnamese wachten zitten, die er niets van kunnen verstaan. Doet denken aan Decamerone of the Canterbury tales.

Het boek bevat veel humor, mooie observaties.
Dialogen zijn kernachtig. ( )

Scott Anderson's The Quiet Americans is anything but a description of quiet Americans. It is, rather, a comprehensive history of America's (specifically, the CIA's) very noisy involvement in the geopolitics of the mid-forties to the mid-fifties told by telling the stories of four iconic intelligence operatives: Michael Burke, Edward Lansdale, Peter Sichel, and Frank Wisner.
I found this book to be enlightening: clarifying the events, and identifying the actors that drove the U.S.'s involvement in the major hot spots of the period: Germany, the Soviet satellite countries, the Philippines, and Viet Nam. In choosing the four men most closely involved, then allowing us to "live" with them, the book became impossible to set down.
I found, though, that the history itself (not the writing of the history) incredibly sad. Such a waste of possibilities and what a great disappointment to learn of the America that was, rather than the America that could have been.