The Quiet American Reading Log
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The Quiet American: Reading Log
PART I
Chapter 1
Narrator lives in room alone over Rue Catinat
Associated with a man named Pyle, has met him many times before
Phuong- meaning Phoenix waits for Pyle also. She speaks French. Phuong cannot wait in public as the police may pick her up
Phuong and Pyle are a couple
Phuong was once in a relationship with the narrator
Pyle “Had pronounced and aggravated views on what the US was doing for the world”
Narrator smokes opium pipes regularly
Phuong replies to the whether Pyle loves her and narrators thoughts: “In Love? – Perhaps it was one of the phrases she didnt understand.”
Pyle is an associate of General Thй
Narrator is not homesick? “I never wanted to go home.” Hes in love with Phuong still, yet Pyle has Phuong.
“I wish I were Pyle, I said aloud, but the pain was limited and bearable – the opium saw to that.”
Narrators name is Fowler. Fowler is a very polite gentleman, well mannered.
There seems to be no power for anyone, Police appear corrupt. “Legality was not essential in a country at war.”
Different sides: Communists, French
Private armies: Hoa-Hoas, Caodists, General Thй
What is Phuong? Vigot believes she is a prostitute being paid.
Description of Pyle by Fowler: “Hes a good chap in his way. Serious. Not one of those noisy bastards at the Continental. A quiet American, I summed him precisely up as I might have said, a blue lizard, a white elephant.”
Gives up waiting for Pyle, assumes him dead.
Pyle appears to be a young man, out of college. He was a 32 year old American, and employed in the Economic Aid Mission.
Fowler has been aged by the war.
Pyle “He was absorbed already in the dilemmas of Democracy and the responsibilities of the West; he was determined – I learnt that very soon – to do good, not to any individual person but to a country, a continent, a world.”
Phuong in a war: Pyle vs Fowler, she left Fowler for Pyle
“Everything was important to Pyle”
Pyle is found dead under a bridge
Saigon is a very dangerous place, therere grilles on windows to keep out grenades
Vigot on Pyle: “I am not altogether sorry. He was doing a lot of harm.
God save us always, I said, from the innocent and the good.”
Vigot raises questions of Fowlers innocence
When IDing Pyles body: Fowler thinks: “He looked more than ever out of place: he should have stayed at home. I saw him in a family snapshot album, riding on a dude ranch, bathing on Long Island, photographed with his colleagues in some apartment on the twenty-third floor. He belonged to the skyscraper and the express elevator, the ice-cream and the dry Martinis, milk at lunch, and chicken sandwiches on the Merchant Limited.” Seems such a waste of innocent youth.
Fowler: “I was a correspondent: I thought in headlines.” Work is his life
Pyle: “Before he died he had been responsible for at least fifty deaths, for it would have damaged Anglo-American relations, and the Minister would have been upset.” Maybe Pyle wasnt as innocent as he appeared. How could he be responsible for these deaths if he was there to help.
Phuong stays the night then with Fowler, she doesnt show much loyalty. Fowler thinks: “am I the only one who really cared for Pyle?”
Chapter 2
Flashback
“The French, who were, when all was said, fighting this war”
Pyle Before: “Pyle was quiet, he seemed modest, sometimes that first day I had to lean forward to catch what he was saying. And he was very, very serious.”
“But he criticized nobody.”
Pyle seems young and homesick
Fowler doesnt have an opinion on much; he just sits on the fence.
Pyle is loyal to those he respects.
Fowler is a much respected journalist; hes greeted members of Parliament, the British Prime Minister
Private Armys cont… Binh Xuyen
3rd Army: General Thй, was Caodaist, Chief of Staff, “But hes taken to the hills to fight both sides, the French, the Communists…”
Fowler is in love with Phuong, and doesnt want to return home.
Fowler doesnt know how to deal with death, after Pyle died. “One is not jealous of the dead, and it seemed easy to me that morning to take up our old life together.” He has Phuong back.
Armys cont… Vietminh, Vietnamese Suretй
Very mixed up war
Fowler about Pyles death: “You can rule me out, I said. Im not involved. Not involved, I repeated. It had been an article of my creed. The human condition being what it was, let them fight, let them love, let them murder, I would not be involved. My fellow journalists called themselves correspondents; I preferred the title of reporter. I wrote what I saw. I took no action – even an opinion is a kind of action.”
Pyle isnt very wealthy. She has a box of possessions (“It contained her picture books.”) She had “Less than a week-end visitors at home”.
Fowler was jealous of Pyle: “But, after all, he had had Phuong.”