The Quiet American

The best audiobook narrators, PARTICULARLY in stories written in the 1st person such as this, walk that fine line of an engaging clear read and an actual PERFORMANCE that isn't distracting, or doesn't betray the text. And Simon Cadell's tired & cynical tone as Fowler is absolutely pitch perfect. 'The Quiet American' is a modern classic. You'll learn more about why Afghanistan & Iraq have become quagmires for us in the West by listening to Fowler & Pyle hiding out one night in a watch-tower in the Vietnamese jungle than you will listening to any pundit on cable TV :) Highly recommended.

Thomas Fowler is a middle-aged British journalist who has been living in Saigon for a number of years to report on the French Indochina War. He's left behind a wife in England from whom he's been separated for a long time, though she refuses him a divorce on religious grounds. This shouldn't be a problem for his current lover, twenty-year-old Phuong, who doesn't ask for anything and is content to live with Fowler and prepare his opium pipes, but Phuong's older sister wants her to get married to secure her future. Then a young idealistic American called Alden Pyle appears on the scene, makes friends with Fowler, and also falls in love with Phuong and decides to ask her in marriage. When the novel opens, Pyle has been found murdered, and Fowler proceeds to recount his relationship with the young man and their conflicts, both political and personal, which have somehow led to the young man's death. I can't say I was taken with this novel. It's tone was very serious and it had quite a plodding pace. The love story, such as it was, was obviously on the forefront of the narrator's mind, but the real story was about the war and the conflict between the French colonists, the communists who wanted to oust them, and the foreigners who were either there to report the war and bent on not getting involved, like Fowler, or on the contrary, invested in bringing about change according to their own agenda, like Pyle. My own disinterest in politics is to blame for my lack of appreciation here, as I can objectively say it's a very good novel, but it didn't quite satisfy this reader.

This tidbit from wikipedia was quite interesting: "The book draws on Greene's experiences as a war correspondent for The Times and Le Figaro in French Indochina 1951-1954. He was apparently inspired to write The Quiet American in October 1951 while driving back to Saigon from the Ben Tre province. He was accompanied by an American aid worker who lectured him about finding a “third force in Vietnam”. Greene spent three years writing the novel, which foreshadowed US involvement in Vietnam long before it became publicly known. The book was the initial reason for Graham Greene being under constant surveillance by US intelligence agencies from the 1950s until his death in 1991, according to documents obtained in 2002 by The Guardian newspaper under the US Freedom of Information Act."

Like many great novels, there are so many levels on which this story can be appreciated. In particular it foretells in a sense some of the events that were coming to pass in the battle between ideological forces in Indo China. The story is narrated by a man who says he has "no politics", but whose narrative brings the personal and the political together.
On a personal level it can be seen as a meditation on war and love, a duel to the death between the leading male characters as they vie for possession of the beautiful Vietnamese girl "Phong".One of the most sad and profoundly beautiful things that Greene says in this novel relate to war and love.He says that they have always been compared, that "we get involved in a moment of emotion", and then "we cannot get out".
Simon Cadell as narrator was well chosen to read "the Quiet American". His voice has that blend of worldliness and cynicism which enhanced this story for me.I listened to it as a way of winding down as I came off of nightshift; half asleep and half awake, and loved it. Often after listening for a while and drifting off, there was the feeling of a haunting, swirling mystery. It was completely engaging and never intrusive. I recommend it to anyone who loves mysteries, or who wishes to rediscover great literature.