A hard book for me to read. Being on an assignment at the moment and having been for the last 23 years of my life, this book telling an assignment of somebody outside his home land got to me.

So very well written, only somebody on the road can reliate to this kind of life, and only can read underneath the hardship of outside our comfort zone.

Well done, one book that will follow me now, wherever I am going next. ( )

This was a very well written, short book that packs much in its pages in spite of its length.

Additionally, this is actually my first book I've read by Greene as well, which seems to be taking things backwards.

It has been a while since a work of fiction has kept me so intrigued that I truly could not wait until I was back into it. I truly felt that in under 200 pages we were really able to get a feel for the time in history as well as its place in history(Vietnam). Additionally, we are not simply given the story of a complicated love triangle or of figuring out how another character died, but are able to follow both simultaneously without having to lose the other. By starting with the end, we are left trying to understand what happened between these two friends that one would end up dead while the other got their lover.

By no means is any of this story a cheap thrill or a stereotype, but an enjoyable journey of understanding the lives of these two people that met up in an unusual way. ( )

A gorgeously written novel that can be nearly any type you choose to read it as: an espionage thriller, a satire of two countries naively attempting to impose their wills on a country they both choose not to understand (Fowler as Britain cynically attempts to remain objective while Pyle, the apparently ineffectual American tries to save Phuong and Vietnam from herself), a war novel infinitely more personal and thoughtful than any by Hemingway, or a text that directly addresses language and how it shapes and colors the meaning we attempt to express through it. It can be anything except what it first appears to be: a love story. Phuong is as much an object as she is a mystery to both men, and this is integral to reading the novel. ( )

Written about the War in Indo-China (Vietnam) before the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The story revolves around two characters: Fowler, an experienced and jaded British journalist and Pyle, a young idealist sent out by Washington on a mysterious mission to Saigon. Pyle's naive political blunders (a metaphor for the rising US influence in the region) devolve into needless bloodshed that ultimately moves the cynical Fowler to action.

I found it to be an interesting read about the second to the last chapter of Western colonialism in Southeast Asia. ( )

I was expecting more from this. It is often taught in Australian high schools, and students I know often have a lot to say about it. However, I was disappointed. This was one of those books in which the high point comes and goes in a page and you have to read it a couple of times to make sure there isn't something more to it. So an innocent young American comes to Vietnam during the war, gets caught up in misguided efforts to bring a better world, realises the war and the problem is bigger than he can fix, that he has become a puppet, and that unscrupulous people will use him for their own ends. I found myself asking 'So what?'. ( )

The 2nd Greene book I've read, and both times I started to like the story only in the last quarter of the book. This one's heavy on the moral ambiguity, and it's a good allegory for relations between the US, UK and Vietnam in the 50's. It's hard to believe he wrote this way back then. ( )

yes an absolute classic. the way the story is told, the British journalist in french Vietnam, the progression of the story. the deep yet sarcastic love affair and the not-so-quiet American. just a great subtle critique on society by taking it to another country and seeing how certain countrymen would act in such situations. read in 2005 when I was 19 and moved. ( )

One of the best Graham Greene books, taking place in Vietnam at the time of the beginning of American influence on local politics, but long before the Vietnam war. A love triangle between a local girl, an English correspondent and an American government official is the surface, but the book is really about how far foreign politics are allowed to go. ( )

A lesson in how to say a lot without writing a lot. 160 pages of war, love, espionage and conflicting world views. Brilliant and wonderfully relevant. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. ( )

This was a story of two battles. An English reporter is sent to cover a war-torn Saigon. While there he falls in love with Vietnamese woman. His love is challenged when an American from Boston falls in love with the same woman. There is a real war raging on the periphery, complete with bombings and mass murders, while at the center is a battle over a woman. The interesting twist to this story is how the story makes the reader feel towards the two men and how that changes over time. ( )

An insightful look at the classic conflict between cynicism and naivete. Some say the novel is anti-American, but both Fowler and Pyle transcend nationality. ( )

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is poignant without being sentimental and has a full measure of irony.

Thomas Fowler is a British journalist who is estranged from his wife and living in Indochina during the French occupation. He has a Vietnamese mistress, Phuong. He is desperately in love with her and she is content with him. Enter Alden Pyle, an idealistic young American, who falls for Phuong and wants to marry her. Fowler discovers what Pyle is doing for the Americans and goes against his personal creed of disengagement to do what he thinks is right. But that choice benefits him personally, so he is torn.

About 2/3 of the way through, I made a guess about something that turned out to be true, which pleased me.

The language is spare but beautiful. The times and motivations of people are beautifully evoked. The title was puzzling to me as I was reading it because the book is really about Thomas Fowler, but when I finished it, I understand why it was chosen. ( )

I didn't like this as much as my other excursions into "Greene-land." It's certainly a prescient novel, about Vietnam and the folly of American meddling in the world, published in 1955 (!). This was long before the adventures of the CIA and other US interventionists were fully known - in places like Guatemala and Iran and Congo. But "Quiet" wants to be more than just a political tract; Greene also wants it to be a character study AND a faith novel, like "The Power and the Glory." There's too much going on in only 180 pages, and Greene has too many axes to grind to get them all sharp. Moreover, the eponymous character is too much of a straw man to be credible; Graham Greene wants so badly to make his point about the wrong-ness of the United States that he doesn't bother to flesh Pyle out. I liked the movie better! ( )

8.5

Take a heavy dose of a highbrow study of war, add one part love story, and a dash of mystery/thriller and what will you get? Only Graham Greene can take these ingredients and write a compiling, successful book.

Skip the film but by all means read the book. Exciting story set in a turbulent war-ridden Indo-China. The book's hero struggles with a meaningless, uncommitted existence on the one hand, and finding himself via a struggle against U.S. involvement on the other. ( )

Espionage,

Turns out Pyle wasn't such a quiet American after all... It's interesting to explore how things work differently during a war, but I must admit I was lost for part of this book. ( )

My review can be found at the following url.

http://geneg75075books.livejournal.co... ( )

One of the best novels on American post-War (WWII) imperialism, blended with all the humanity, passion, intrigue and damnation that marks Greene's best work. ( )

Another one of my classics. What beautiful writing! I felt like I could smell the jungle humidity and opium smoke. I’m not sure how I feel about his portrayal of Phuong in this–in some lights it might be construed as patronizing and shallow, but on the other hand, couldn’t that just be more revealing about how little she reveals to Fowler and how little he can see in her? Because there is a scene at the end that seems to subtly reveal a depth of emotion we don’t see from her otherwise. Right, no need for a dissertation, but this is well worth reading. A view of the Vietnam war that I haven’t read elsewhere and heartbreaking. ( )

Greene started writing this book about fifty-six years ago and I think it's stood the test of time well. I imagine quite a few half century books now creak a bit with the baggage of their era but I think Greene's style, setting and subject matter have maintained the relevance and interest of this book for the modern reader.

I guess books about self-doubt have some appeal for me and in Greene's Fowler, while there is cynicism, there is also a recognition of uncertainty. I also like the way all the characters are rather ambiguous. Pyle creates many problems with his naivete and fundamentalism and I'm also left uncertain about how simple is Phuong too, just as we're encouraged to feel.

At times I felt Greene examines too directly life issues but since the book is in the first person, I guess we're meant to take them coming from Fowler rather than directly from the author, even if it seems like some pretty direct philosophising at times. ( )

This is a good novel. I can't really agree that it is either one of the greatest novels ever, or an eerily prescient indictment of Bush's foreign policy. True, we see that the world is a complicated place in which naive idealism can be destructive. But then Alden Pyle is hardly the only destructive force in the book, and Thomas Fowler is not exactly the kind of guy you'd want your daughter to get involved with.

As you would expect from Greene, the plot is well constructed and the characters are convincingly drawn across several shades of gray. The 1950s Vietnam setting was fascinating, and made me want to learn more of the history of the era. ( )

Greene in 1953 propheticizes what will happen in Vietnam in the 60's and 70's and even in Iraq today where the American imposes his beliefs on another culture causing danger and destruction. The jaded, detached narrator, himself a product of dying British colonialism, ultimately must engage to stop the carnage that the American Pyle has wrought -- through his meddling in politics and facilitating bombing-- both to the Vietnam people and to the narrator. The price tag for Fowler is guilt. ( )