A “masterful . . . brilliantly constructed novel” of love and chaos in 1950s Vietnam (Zadie Smith, The Guardian). It’s 1955 and British journalist Thomas Fowler has been in Vietnam for two years covering the insurgency against French colonial rule. But it’s not just a political tangle that’s kept him tethered to the country. There’s also his lover, Phuong, a young Vietnamese woman who clings to … Vietnamese woman who clings to Fowler for protection. Then comes Alden Pyle, an idealistic American working in service of the CIA. Devotedly, disastrously patriotic, he believes neither communism nor colonialism is what’s best for Southeast Asia, but rather a “Third Force”: American democracy by any means necessary. His ideas of conquest include Phuong, to whom he promises a sweet life in the states. But as Pyle’s blind moral conviction wreaks havoc upon innocent lives, it’s ultimately his romantic compulsions that will play a role in his own undoing.
Although criticized upon publication as anti-American, Graham Greene’s “complex but compelling story of intrigue and counter-intrigue” would, in a few short years, prove prescient in its own condemnation of American interventionism (The New York Times).
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A classic even if you are too young to remember Vietnam and its era. Greene was a great writer.
I read this because it is a respected work in the field of espionage fiction. I found it to be bland.
Dated and boring.
Greene brings his characters to life in the days of the wars in French Indo-China. The book is Part romantic triangle, part survival during the war, part deep character study.As with his other novels, Greene is low on action, but high on his characters and their interactions.
I can’t believe I haven’t already read this Graham Greene classic about the origins of the Vietnam War (before the French bailed out and the U.S. waded in).
Never read Graham Greene before. I am hooked!
Great writing by a master of the form. One of Greene’s best yet
Great read & very good historical fiction!
This is an outstanding introduction to life in Vietnam before USA entered the fray. The characters are believable and the juntaposition of political life and sex in a war zone is interesting.