The Quiet American, Graham Greene

 

 

 

 

The Quiet American, Graham Greene.1955.

“그레이엄 그린“ (1904-1991) 作, ”조용한 美國人“. 1952年 3月-1955年 6月, 베트남, 사이공에서의 記錄.

 

The Times의 書評.

Into the intrigue and violence of Indo-Chian comes Pyle, a young idealistic American sent to promote democracy through a mysterious ‘Third Force’. As his naive optimism starts to cause bloodshed, his friend Fowler, a cynical foreign correspondent, finds it hard to stand aside and watch. But even as he intervenes he wonders why: for the sake of politics, or for love?

 

프랑스 식민통치하의 베트남. 베트민을 비롯 각 분파간 내전이 한창이다. 파울러는 영국신문의 사이공 특파원. 고국의 부인과는 별거상태지만, 부인은 이혼을 동의해 주지 않는다. 현재는 사이공의 젊은 여인 ‘푸옹’과 동거중. skin, the color of amber. p13-, peelomg off her trousers with no question. p.107, 미당국의 비밀요원으로 파견나온 ‘파일’이 ‘푸옹’을 애모하게 되고, 당당하게도, 불륜상태인 파울러에게 양보를 요구한다.

 

And so there is no real way to be good in Greene, there are simply a millon ways to be more or less bad. p.vii

 

Human nature is not black and white but black and grey. p.viii

 

Dear Rene and Phuong,

I have asked permission to dedicate this book to you not only in memory of the happy evenings I have spent with you in Saigong over the last five years, but also because.....

 

Yours affectionately,

Graham Greene

 

Wearing a green eyeshade, and he had a volume of Pascal open on his desk to while away his time.... his eyes were on a page of Les Pensee as though he were still absorbed in those sad arguments. p8

 

Vigot said, ‘Yes.’ He seemed to be looking for words on his desk with which to convey his meaning as precisely as I had done. ‘A Very Quiet American.’....Opium makes you quickpwitted-perhaps only because it calms the nerves and stills the emotions. p.9

 

With his gangly legs and his crew-cut and his wide campus gaze, he seemed incapable of harms. p.9

 

When I opend my door I could tell my room had been searched: everything was tidier than I ever left it. p.13

 

He had a way of staring hard at a girl as though he hadn’t seen one before and them blushing. p25

 

He dropped again into his thoughts, but.. p31

 

‘She is the most beautiful girl in Saigong,’ Miss Hei said, as though she were correcting him. p34

 

After dinner they danced again. I am a bad dancer too and I hadn’t the unselfconsciousness of Pyle-or had I possessed it, I wondered, in the days when I was first in love with Phuong? p35

 

From childhood I had never believed in permanence, and yet I had longed for it. Always I was afraid of losing happiness.....Death was the only absolute value in my world. Lose life and one would lose nothing again forever....To kill a man was surely to grant him an immeasurable benefit. p36

 

The possession of a body tonight seemed a very small thing- perhaps that day I had seen too many bodies which belonged to no one, not even to themselves. p47

 

I feel in a way this has brought us together. Loving the same woman,i mean. p50

 

And waking that morning months later with Phuong beside me, I thought, ‘And did you understand her either? Could you have anticipated this situation? Phuomg so happily asleeo beside me and you dead? p52

 

I would be happier, Phuong would be happier, the whole world would be happier... p54

 

I had experience to match his virginity, age was as good a card to play in the sexual game as youth, but now... p58

 

‘I will come with you anyway,‘ she said. She meant it, but I could see in her eyes the long train of thoughts begin as she lifted the pipe again abd began to warm the pellet of opium. She said ’ Are there skyscrapers in London?‘ and I loved her for the innocence of her question. p73

 

‘I wish cigarettes had a symbolic significance like salt.‘ p86

 

‘Sometimes I hate the way you talk, Thomas. Do you know how she seems to me? She seems fresh, like a flower.‘ p93

 

‘You think they are mistaken?’

‘I wish I could have those nights back.’

‘One starts promiscuous and ends like one’s grandfather, faithful to one woman.‘ p94

 

‘It’s not worth explaining. I'm bored with the subject anyway. I’ve reached the age when 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 just don’t want to be alone in my last decade, that’s all. I’d sooner have a woman in the same room-even one I didn't love. But if Phuong left me, would I have the energy to find another?...It;s not easy to live with someone you’ve injured... p96

 

Always, everywhere, there is some voice crying from a tower. p110

 

Be careful. The last step is missing. p119

 

A silence grew outside. p122

 

That;s Phuong. She can survive a dozen of us.. She will never suffer like we do from thoughts, obssessions- she won't scratch, she will only decay. p 124

 

I made love to her in those days savagely as though I hated her, but what I hated was the future. p132

 

I thought of Phuong just because of her complete absence. So it always is: when you escape to a desert the silence shouts in your ear. p 150

 

I thought of the first day and Pyle sitting beside me at the Continental, with his eyes on the soda-fountain across the way. Everything had gone right with me since he had died, but how I wished there existed someone to whom I could say that I wa sorry.

March 1952-June 1955

 

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