Novel
The Quiet American
Graham Greene · 1955
Synopsis
Saigon, in the early 1950s. The body of a young American, Alden Pyle, is found in the mud under a bridge, and the French police question Thomas Fowler, a British correspondent who was waiting for him at home that evening. The narrative goes back in time. Fowler lives with Phuong; his wife, who stayed in England, refuses him a divorce. Pyle, attached to the American economic aid mission, arrives steeped in the books of a theorist of the third force, and falls in love with Phuong.
Context
The novel appeared in December 1955 in London and came out of several winters spent in Indochina between 1951 and 1954, where its author followed the French war for English and French newspapers. In America, it was condemned as anti-American, and the adaptation shot in Saigon in 1957 reversed its point, making the American character the victim of a communist plot: its author disowned it as a propaganda film for America. A second adaptation, forty-four years after the first, closes on a montage of dispatches and press cuttings from the following years.
Who it is for
About two hundred and fifty pages; a single French translation, by Marcelle Sibon, since 1956.
Prizes and reception
Poorly received in the United States on its release, it was brought to the screen twice, in 1958 and in 2002, in opposite senses.
Sources for this page 9
The pages consulted to check this page.