The Quiet American (Masterplots II: British and Commonwealth Fiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Graham Greene
- First Published: 1955
- Type of Work: Documentary fiction, political existentialism
- Time of Work: 1953-1955, during the French war in Indochina
- Setting: Vietnam, primarily Saigon, with excursions to Hanoi, Phat Diem, and the countryside
- Principal Characters: Thomas Fowler, Alden Pyle, Vigot, Phuong, Mr. Heng, Dominguez, Joe, Bill Granger
- Genres: Long fiction, Existential literature, Political fiction
- Subjects: 1950’s, Journalism or journalists, Murder or homicide, War, Death or dying, Assassination, Mysteries, Terrorism or terrorists, Espionage or spies, Intelligence service, Vietnam or Vietnamese people
- Locales: Saigon, Vietnam
The Novel
The story begins with the news of Alden Pyle’s murder. Pyle, the “quiet American” of the title, is a thirty-two-year-old Harvard-educated idealist and the son of the famous professor Harold C. Pyle, a “world authority on underwater erosion.” The younger Pyle works for the American Economic Aid Mission in Saigon, but he is also involved in espionage and terrorism and seems to be a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative. On the surface, however, Pyle is “quiet,” modest, and apparently decent in comparison to the crude American journalists and...
[The entire page is 2736 words long]
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