The Quiet American by Graham Greene

The book we discussed on 19 December was 'The Quiet American' by Graham Greene, and it certainly proved fairly divisive and 'Marmitey'. Comments ranged from a derisory 'it's a boy's book about war' to "it's a book everyone should read".

Wiki says it's "Narrated in the first person by journalist Thomas Fowler, the novel depicts the breakdown of French colonialism in Vietnam and early American involvement in the Vietnam War. A subplot concerns a love triangle between Fowler, an American CIA agent named Alden Pyle, and Phuong, a young Vietnamese woman".

The word prophetic cropped up a fair bit in our discussion. Written in 1955 as the Vietnam war was in its very early days, Greene certainly gives us a taste of the way the Americans stomped around the globe as a 'we know best' world power. They are still doing it, of course, seemingly with little or no self awareness or even awareness - period (as they say).

Graham Greene is often proclaimed to be the best author of his generation and we all appreciated his writing to some extent. He obviously had something important to say, but a couple of us just didn't like the book enough to stick with it to find out what it was. Others stuck with it and wished they hadn't, and others really loved it. In fact, one of the group read it three times.

After an enjoyable debate, 'The Quiet American' ended up scoring 5 thumbs up out of 9.

January's read is a psychological thriller from 1955 - 'The Talented Mr Ripley' by Patricia Highsmith, which many of you will know was made into a very successful film starrring Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon & Jude Law. We hope there will a book or two under the tree for you all, and you will find time to lose yourself in their worlds over Christmas and New Year.