Late April 2009
In broad terms we didn't disagree much with what Richard said in his note below - so that will have to do as a summary plus whatever anyone else wants to send around by way of addendum. I recall some discussion about the pre-American Vietnam and how generally (expect for the History Teacher Man) we knew little of that era and so were interested to find out more - albeit from the perspective of Greene which some of us, myself included, suspected of a degree of personal political bias. The male/female power relationship element noted by Richard was also discussed (though without getting into comparing notes on numbers of partners) along with a conversation about how times have and have not changed in terms of social attitudes and norms. Rob found the juxtaposition of good and bad in terms of personalities and sense of moral judgement between the two prime characters quite interesting. i.e. Pyle had a high sense of personal moral behaviour in his direct dealings with people but no sense of moral right or wrong in the wider impact of what he did, whilst the central character (can't recall his name - sorry) was clearly unpleasant to almost everyone around him but had strong and generally sound moral judgements on wider society. Was Greene trying to make a point here I wonder?
Generally felt to be a good book without completely stirring people into paroxysms of delight.
From RV:
There were lots of things I enjoyed about this book:
* it was quick and easy to read;
* it was very interesting to read about Vietnam before the USA Vietnam war;
* Greene was very interesting on relationships (p 100) and how relationships are infused with hurt and pain and possession etc, and his writing on religion is especially interesting given his conversion to Catholicism;
* It was really interesting to read about people's views of 'old age' in the 1950s (p 96): "I've reached the age where sex isn't the problem so much as old age and death. I wake up with these in mind and not a woman's body. I don't want to be alone in my last decade." - and yet he is meant to be in his 50's! I could imagine now someone writing that about someone in their 70s or 80s!
* It was also interesting to read about Greene's view of the average number of sexual partners people have! (pp 94-96 in my edition) - the character says he has had sex with about 45 women (and this is in the 1950s!) and then says "I'm sure it is below the Kinsey average". UK surveys show that the mean number of partners over a lifetime is actually 9.5! USA averages are between 6 and 8.
*many of his descriptions are incredibly real and vivid - for example, the brilliant brief description of a plane destroying a boat on the river and the dead civilians (page 142), or the one of the bomb exploding in the market (pp 151-155).
The worst bit of the book was Zadie Smith's boring and rather verbose introduction! But her last paragraph is very good - too long to write here, but her last two sentences will suffice:
"There are many natural storytellers in English literature, but what was rare about Greene was the control he wielded over his abundant material. Certainly one can imagine nobody who could better weave the complicated threads of war-torn Indochina into a novel as linear, as thematically compact and as enjoyable as the Quiet American."
However Richard did not really warm to any of the characters, so it was not a brilliant book for him, just a very good one.
7.46
