Graham Greene, Literary Stud

I’m sure no one would argue with me if I called Graham Greene a literary stud. The man churned out masterpiece after masterpiece, each one hailed as a classic to this day. My introduction to Greene was The Quiet American. The recent release of the movie of the same title brought this work back into pop culture’s Attention Deficit Disordered mind, but it was well before the movie when I picked up the book in Vietnam. There are bootlegged versions of the book for sale at every spot where tourists could even dream of going. Hopefully Greene doesn’t mind fact that I read a boot-legged copy of his work. I apologize for any turning over in the grave that occured as a result of my purchase. I was instantly attracted to the story’s prose, its plot, and its treatment of morality.
For those who haven’t read it (shame on you), it’s a story of Fowler, and jaded English journalist covering the French War in Indochina. His only remaining joy is his relationship with a young Vietnamese woman named Phuong. This relationship is complicated by Phuong’s sister who is trying to set her up for the future, which involves marriage as a means to gain financial stability. Fowler’s last wife refuses a divorce, making a legal marriage to Phuong an impossibility.
This sets up a series of moral questions involving Fowler and an ambitious young American foreign service officer named Pyle. Pyle’s under the table dealings with the “anti-communist” forces in Southern Vietnam causes unforeseen and violent consequences.

Meanwhile, a love triangle involving Pyle and Phuong complicates Fowler’s political feelings. The book’s ultimate question: Is Fowler motivated by his personal love interests or by what he thinks is right. The reader is not sure, and neither is Fowler. The answer does not even come fully with the end of the book. Greene is the master of besetting his characters with these type of moral dilemmas. He is also a master of cynicism. I like to imagine him in real life as a character similar to Fowler. A guy who sees what is wrong and what is right, but knows it’s not as simple as that. All that can be done is to smirk at all of it.
There is a sense of one-sidedness in the book’s political views: Pyle is a dopey hometown boy inspired by some book written by a pseudo scholar with questionable credentials. There is very little mention of Pyle’s dark side. He’s just too naive for his own good (and for everyone elses good). Still, Pyle’s ideals and bumbling actions on the international stage seem to be a foreshadowing of today’s America as it muddles through foreign lands with pure motives but no clue what is really going on in the places they are trying to “save”.
Someone should have passed out copies to Bush and his posse before they decided to invade Iraq. It might have helped. For all his cynicism and one-sidedness, Greene uses the story to make an extremely convincing point: don’t mess with places you don’t understand. It never turns out well, no matter how pure your motives are.