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South China Morning Post
19-05-2025
- South China Morning Post
In the footsteps of Saigon's Quiet American, 70 years on
Northeast of central Saigon lies the Dakow canal. It was here, in its dirty waters, that the body of an American man was found drowned in the mud – stabbed in the chest, it would later be determined, by 'a rusty bayonet'. Thus begins Graham Greene 's The Quiet American, published 70 years ago this year. Set during the first Indochina war (1946-1954), the novel tells of a love triangle between a jaded British foreign correspondent and self-professed désengagé, Thomas Fowler; Vietnamese beauty Phuong; and a young American, Alden Pyle, whose quietness belies a dangerous idealism. Often noted for its foresight into American involvement in the Vietnam war, the novel's real triumph lies in how vividly it brings its setting to life. Today, it makes for an interesting companion while exploring Saigon – now officially known as Ho Chi Minh City – where traces of remote Greeneland can still be found. The Cao Dai Temple in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Oliver Raw The far bank of the canal, described in the novel as Vietminh territory by night, is now part of the urban core, with restaurants lining the water and apartment buildings shooting upwards beyond. During my visit, I find no bodies floating under the bridge, just elderly residents doing their morning exercises and a man fishing in the muddy waters. A woman empties a plastic bag filled with juvenile catfish into the canal. 'For peace,' she tells me, before hopping on her scooter and speeding away like someone fleeing the scene of a crime. Those familiar with the novel will know I have begun, like Greene, where the story comes full circle. To follow events properly, however, we must visit the Rue Catinat, or Dong Khoi ('mass uprising') Street as it is known today, where much of the action of the novel takes place. The Hotel Continental is the city's oldest hostelry and during the war was a watering hole for journalists. Greene doesn't offer much detail about its appearance but its Grecian-influenced design remains largely unchanged from early photographs, although the terrace, which once would have resounded to the clatter of dice games (a favourite pastime of French colonials) is now fully enclosed.
Time of India
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
10 fiction, nonfiction books inspired by Vietnam War
Vietnam War-Anniversary-Books (AP) Washington: Vietnam has been called the first "television" war. But it has also inspired generations of writers who have explored its origins, its horrors, its aftermath and the innate flaws and miscalculations that drove the world's most powerful country, the US, into a long, gruesome and hopeless conflict. Fiction "The Quiet American," Graham Greene (1955) British author Graham Greene's novel has long held the stature of tragic prophecy. Alden Pyle is a naive CIA agent whose dreams of forging a better path for Vietnam - a "Third Force" between communism and colonialism that existed only in books - leads to senseless destruction. "The Quiet American" was released when US military involvement in Vietnam was just beginning, yet anticipated the Americans' prolonged and deadly failure to comprehend the country they claimed to be saving. "The Things They Carried," Tim O'Brien (1990) The Vietnam War was the last extended conflict waged while the US still had a military draft, and the last to inspire a wide range of notable, first-hand fiction, none more celebrated or popular than O'Brien's 1990 collection of interconnected stories. O'Brien served in an infantry unit in 1969-70, and the million-selling "The Things They Carried" has tales ranging from a soldier who wears his girlfriend's stockings around his neck, even in battle, to the author trying to conjure the life story of a Vietnamese soldier he killed. O'Brien's book has become standard reading about the war and inspired an exhibit at the National Veterans Art Museum in Chicago. "Matterhorn," Karl Marlantes (2009) Karl Marlantes, a Rhodes scholar and decorated Marine commander, fictionalised his experiences in his 600-plus page novel about a recent college graduate and his fellow members of Bravo Company as they seek to retake a base near the border with Laos. Like "The Quiet American," "Matterhorn" is, in part, the story of disillusionment, a young man's discovery that education and privilege are no shields against enemy fire. "No strategy was perfect," he realises. "All choices were bad in some way." "The Sympathizer," Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015) Viet Thanh Nguyen was just 4 when his family fled Vietnam in 1975, eventually settling in San Jose, California. "The Sympathizer," winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2016, is Nguyen's first book and high in the canon of Vietnamese American literature. The novel unfolds as the confessions of a onetime spy for North Vietnam who becomes a Hollywood consultant and later returns to Vietnam fighting on the opposite side. "I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces," the narrator tells us. "Perhaps not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds." "The Mountains Sing," Nguyen Phan Que Mai (2020) Nguyen Phan Que Mai was born in North Vietnam in 1973, two years before the US departure, and was reared on stories of her native country's haunted and heroic past. Her novel alternates narration between a grandmother born in 1920 and a granddaughter born 40 years later. Together, they take readers through much of 20th century Vietnam, from French colonialism and Japanese occupation to the rise of Communism and the growing and brutal American military campaign to fight it. Que Mai dedicates the novel to various ancestors, including an uncle whose "youth the Vietnam War consumed." NONFICTION "The Best and the Brightest," David Halberstam (1972) As a young reporter in Vietnam, David Halberstam had been among the first journalists to report candidly on the military's failures and the government's deceptions. The title of his bestseller became a catchphrase and the book itself a document of how the supposedly finest minds of the post-World War II generation - the elite set of advisers in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations - could so badly miscalculate the planning and execution of a war and so misunderstand the country they were fighting against. "Fire in the Lake," Frances FitzGerald (1972) Frances FitzGerald's celebrated book was published the same year and stands with "The Best and the Brightest" as an early and prescient take on the war's legacy. Fitzgerald had reported from South Vietnam for the Village Voice and The New Yorker, and she drew upon firsthand observations and deep research in contending that the US was fatally ignorant of Vietnamese history and culture. "Dispatches," Michael Herr (1977) Michael Herr, who would eventually help write "Apocalypse Now," was a Vietnam correspondent for Esquire who brought an off-hand, charged-up rock 'n' roll sensibility to his highly praised and influential book. In one "dispatch," he tells of a soldier who "took his pills by the fistful," uppers in one pocket and downers in another. "He told me they cooled out things just right for him," Herr wrote, "that he could see that old jungle at night like he was looking at it through a starlight scope." "Bloods," Wallace Terry (1984) A landmark, "Bloods" was among the first books to centre the experiences of Black veterans. Former Time magazine correspondent Wallace Terry compiled the oral histories of 20 Black veterans of varying backgrounds and ranks. One interviewee, Richard J Ford III, was wounded three times and remembered being visited at the hospital by generals and other officers: "They respected you and pat you on the back. They said, You brave and you courageous. You America's finest. America's best.' Back in the states, the same officers that pat me on the back wouldn't even speak to me." "A Bright Shining Lie," Neil Sheehan (1988) Halberstam's sources as a reporter included Lt Col John Paul Vann, a US adviser to South Vietnam who became a determined critic of American military leadership and eventually died in battle in 1972. Vann's story is told in full in "A Bright Shining Lie," by Neil Sheehan, the New York Times reporter known for breaking the story of the Pentagon Papers and how they revealed the US government's long history of deceiving the public about the war. Winner of the Pulitzer in 1989, "A Bright Shining Lie" was adapted into an HBO movie starring Bill Paxton as Vann.
The Star
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
Ten fiction and non-fiction books inspired by the Vietnam War
Vietnam has been called the first "television' war. But it has also inspired generations of writers who have explored its origins, its horrors, its aftermath and the innate flaws and miscalculations that drove the world's most powerful country, the United States, into a long, gruesome and hopeless conflict. FICTION 'The Quiet American,' Graham Greene (1955) British author Graham Greene's novel has long held the stature of tragic prophecy. Alden Pyle is a naive CIA agent whose dreams of forging a better path for Vietnam - a "Third Force' between communism and colonialism that existed only in books - leads to senseless destruction. The Quiet American was released when US military involvement in Vietnam was just beginning, yet anticipated the Americans' prolonged and deadly failure to comprehend the country they claimed to be saving. 'The Things They Carried,' Tim O'Brien (1990) The Vietnam War was the last extended conflict waged while the US still had a military draft, and the last to inspire a wide range of notable, first-hand fiction - none more celebrated or popular than O'Brien's 1990 collection of interconnected stories. O'Brien served in an infantry unit in 1969-70, and the million-selling The Things They Carried has tales ranging from a soldier who wears his girlfriend's stockings around his neck, even in battle, to the author trying to conjure the life story of a Vietnamese soldier he killed. O'Brien's book has become standard reading about the war and inspired an exhibit at the National Veterans Art Museum in Chicago. 'Matterhorn,' Karl Marlantes (2009) Karl Marlantes, a Rhodes scholar and decorated Marine commander, fictionalised his experiences in his 600-plus page novel about a recent college graduate and his fellow members of Bravo Company as they seek to retake a base near the border with Laos. Like The Quiet American, Matterhorn is, in part, the story of disillusionment, a young man's discovery that education and privilege are no shields against enemy fire. "No strategy was perfect,' he realises. "All choices were bad in some way.' 'The Sympathizer,' Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015) Viet Thanh Nguyen was just four when his family fled Vietnam in 1975, eventually settling in San Jose, California. The Sympathizer, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2016, is Nguyen's first book and high in the canon of Vietnamese American literature. The novel unfolds as the confessions of a onetime spy for North Vietnam who becomes a Hollywood consultant and later returns to Vietnam fighting on the opposite side. "I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces,' the narrator tells us. "Perhaps not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds.' 'The Mountains Sing,' Nguyen Phan Que Mai (2020) Nguyen Phan Que Mai was born in North Vietnam in 1973, two years before the US departure, and was reared on stories of her native country's haunted and heroic past. Her novel alternates narration between a grandmother born in 1920 and a granddaughter born 40 years later. Together, they take readers through much of 20th century Vietnam, from French colonialism and Japanese occupation to the rise of Communism and the growing and brutal American military campaign to fight it. Que Mai dedicates the novel to various ancestors, including an uncle whose "youth the Vietnam War consumed.' NON-FICTION 'The Best and the Brightest,' David Halberstam (1972) As a young reporter in Vietnam, David Halberstam had been among the first journalists to report candidly on the military's failures and the government's deceptions. The title of his bestseller became a catchphrase and the book itself a document of how the supposedly finest minds of the post-World War II generation - the elite set of advisers in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations - could so badly miscalculate the planning and execution of a war and so misunderstand the country they were fighting against. 'Fire In The Lake,' Frances FitzGerald (1972) Frances FitzGerald's celebrated book was published the same year and stands with The Best And The Brightest as an early and prescient take on the war's legacy. Fitzgerald had reported from South Vietnam for the Village Voice and The New Yorker, and she drew upon firsthand observations and deep research in contending that the US was fatally ignorant of Vietnamese history and culture. 'Dispatches,' Michael Herr (1977) Michael Herr, who would eventually help write Apocalypse Now, was a Vietnam correspondent for Esquire who brought an off-hand, charged-up rock 'n' roll sensibility to his highly praised and influential book. In one "dispatch,' he tells of a soldier who "took his pills by the fistful,' uppers in one pocket and downers in another. "He told me they cooled out things just right for him,' Herr wrote, "that he could see that old jungle at night like he was looking at it through a starlight scope.' 'Bloods,' Wallace Terry (1984) A landmark, Bloods was among the first books to centre the experiences of Black veterans. Former Time magazine correspondent Wallace Terry compiled the oral histories of 20 Black veterans of varying backgrounds and ranks. One interviewee, Richard J. Ford III, was wounded three times and remembered being visited at the hospital by generals and other officers: "They respected you and pat you on the back. They said, 'You brave and you courageous. You America's finest. America's best.' Back in the states, the same officers that pat me on the back wouldn't even speak to me.' 'A Bright Shining Lie,' Neil Sheehan (1988) Halberstam's sources as a reporter included Lt Col. John Paul Vann, a US adviser to South Vietnam who became a determined critic of American military leadership and eventually died in battle in 1972. Vann's story is told in full in A Bright Shining Lie, by Neil Sheehan, the New York Times reporter known for breaking the story of the Pentagon Papers and how they revealed the US government's long history of deceiving the public about the war. Winner of the Pulitzer in 1989, A Bright Shining Lie was adapted into an HBO movie starring Bill Paxton as Vann. – AP
The Independent
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
10 fiction and nonfiction books inspired by the Vietnam War
Vietnam has been called the first 'television' war. But it has also inspired generations of writers who have explored its origins, its horrors, its aftermath and the innate flaws and miscalculations that drove the world's most powerful country, the U.S., into a long, gruesome and hopeless conflict. FICTION 'The Quiet American,' Graham Greene (1955) British author Graham Greene's novel has long held the stature of tragic prophecy. Alden Pyle is a naive CIA agent whose dreams of forging a better path for Vietnam — a 'Third Force' between communism and colonialism that existed only in books — leads to senseless destruction. 'The Quiet American' was released when U.S. military involvement in Vietnam was just beginning, yet anticipated the Americans ' prolonged and deadly failure to comprehend the country they claimed to be saving. 'The Things They Carried,' Tim O'Brien (1990) The Vietnam War was the last extended conflict waged while the U.S. still had a military draft, and the last to inspire a wide range of notable, first-hand fiction — none more celebrated or popular than O'Brien's 1990 collection of interconnected stories. O'Brien served in an infantry unit in 1969-70, and the million-selling 'The Things They Carried' has tales ranging from a soldier who wears his girlfriend's stockings around his neck, even in battle, to the author trying to conjure the life story of a Vietnamese soldier he killed. O'Brien's book has become standard reading about the war and inspired an exhibit at the National Veterans Art Museum in Chicago. 'Matterhorn,' Karl Marlantes (2009) Karl Marlantes, a Rhodes scholar and decorated Marine commander, fictionalized his experiences in his 600-plus page novel about a recent college graduate and his fellow members of Bravo Company as they seek to retake a base near the border with Laos. Like 'The Quiet American,' 'Matterhorn' is, in part, the story of disillusionment, a young man's discovery that education and privilege are no shields against enemy fire. 'No strategy was perfect,' he realizes. 'All choices were bad in some way.' 'The Sympathizer,' Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015) Viet Thanh Nguyen was just 4 when his family fled Vietnam in 1975, eventually settling in San Jose, California. 'The Sympathizer,' winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2016, is Nguyen's first book and high in the canon of Vietnamese American literature. The novel unfolds as the confessions of a onetime spy for North Vietnam who becomes a Hollywood consultant and later returns to Vietnam fighting on the opposite side. 'I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces,' the narrator tells us. 'Perhaps not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds.' 'The Mountains Sing,' Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai (2020) Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai was born in North Vietnam in 1973, two years before the U.S. departure, and was reared on stories of her native country's haunted and heroic past. Her novel alternates narration between a grandmother born in 1920 and a granddaughter born 40 years later. Together, they take readers through much of 20th century Vietnam, from French colonialism and Japanese occupation to the rise of Communism and the growing and brutal American military campaign to fight it. Quế Mai dedicates the novel to various ancestors, including an uncle whose 'youth the Vietnam War consumed.' NONFICTION 'The Best and the Brightest,' David Halberstam (1972) As a young reporter in Vietnam, David Halberstam had been among the first journalists to report candidly on the military's failures and the government's deceptions. The title of his bestseller became a catchphrase and the book itself a document of how the supposedly finest minds of the post-World War II generation — the elite set of advisers in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations — could so badly miscalculate the planning and execution of a war and so misunderstand the country they were fighting against. 'Fire in the Lake,' Frances FitzGerald (1972) Frances FitzGerald's celebrated book was published the same year and stands with 'The Best and the Brightest' as an early and prescient take on the war's legacy. Fitzgerald had reported from South Vietnam for the Village Voice and The New Yorker, and she drew upon firsthand observations and deep research in contending that the U.S. was fatally ignorant of Vietnamese history and culture. 'Dispatches,' Michael Herr (1977) Michael Herr, who would eventually help write 'Apocalypse Now,' was a Vietnam correspondent for Esquire who brought an off-hand, charged-up rock 'n' roll sensibility to his highly praised and influential book. In one 'dispatch,' he tells of a soldier who 'took his pills by the fistful,' uppers in one pocket and downers in another. 'He told me they cooled out things just right for him,' Herr wrote, 'that he could see that old jungle at night like he was looking at it through a starlight scope.' 'Bloods,' Wallace Terry (1984) A landmark, 'Bloods' was among the first books to center the experiences of Black veterans. Former Time magazine correspondent Wallace Terry compiled the oral histories of 20 Black veterans of varying backgrounds and ranks. One interviewee, Richard J. Ford III, was wounded three times and remembered being visited at the hospital by generals and other officers: 'They respected you and pat you on the back. They said, 'You brave and you courageous. You America's finest. America's best.' Back in the states, the same officers that pat me on the back wouldn't even speak to me.' 'A Bright Shining Lie,' Neil Sheehan (1988) Halberstam's sources as a reporter included Lt. Col. John Paul Vann, a U.S. adviser to South Vietnam who became a determined critic of American military leadership and eventually died in battle in 1972. Vann's story is told in full in 'A Bright Shining Lie,' by Neil Sheehan, the New York Times reporter known for breaking the story of the Pentagon Papers and how they revealed the U.S. government's long history of deceiving the public about the war. Winner of the Pulitzer in 1989, 'A Bright Shining Lie' was adapted into an HBO movie starring Bill Paxton as Vann. ___ For more coverage of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War's end, visit
The Guardian
15-02-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trump's betrayal of Ukraine has emboldened Putin and pulled the rug from under Nato allies
In Graham Greene's 1955 novel, The Quiet American, Alden Pyle, a CIA agent, reckons he has all the answers to conflict in colonial era Vietnam. Pyle's ignorance, arrogance and dangerous scheming, intended to bring peace, result instead in the deaths of many innocents and ultimately his own. In today's too-real, nonfiction world, Donald Trump is Pyle. Except he's The Noisy American. He thinks he's a great deal-maker. He never stops trumpeting his brilliance. Yet his North Korea 'deal of the century' was a fiasco. He handed Afghanistan to the Taliban on a plate. Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu runs rings around him. Now Trump-Pyle proposes another rubbish deal – selling out Ukraine. America's very own surrender monkey is Vladimir Putin's useful idiot. No matter how officials spin it, Trump's concessions, made before ceasefire talks with Russia even begin, are calamitous, primarily for Ukraine but also for Europe's security, the transatlantic alliance, and other vulnerable targets, such as Taiwan. As stated, Trump's giveaways – accepting the loss of sovereign Ukrainian territory to Russian aggression, denying Nato membership to Kyiv, withholding US security guarantees and troops – are shameful appeasement, amounting to betrayal. It was Putin, remember, who launched an unprovoked, murderous full-scale invasion three years ago. But Trump suggests that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Ukraine's brave, battered people are somehow to blame. He even regurgitates Kremlin calls for fresh elections in Kyiv. Such hypocritical cant from a regime that routinely subverts other countries' polls is beyond sickening. But Trump the duplicitous dupe willingly buys it. Putin surely cannot believe his luck. By chatting chummily on the phone for 90 minutes, praising Russia's 'genius' tyrant for his 'common sense', and inviting him to a Saudi summit, Trump rehabilitated a pariah and pulled the rug from under Nato allies. Putin gave nothing back. He thinks he's winning, on the battlefield, politically and diplomatically. He's right. Worse, Moscow continues to demand that any lasting deal address 'structural issues'. These include Ukraine's disarmament, non-aligned status, the 'denazification' of its leadership, and even its existence as an independent state, which Putin abhors. Russia wants to re-order Europe's security architecture, shorthand for weakening, dividing and pushing back Nato. Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary and Pyle clone, gave Putin a big assist last week, insisting that European security was no longer Washington's 'primary focus'. Europe (including Britain) must pay more for its defence – he proposes 5% of GDP – and 'provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and nonlethal aid to Ukraine'. US troops in Europe could be cut, he suggested. All this raises a wider question about the transatlantic alliance under Trump's malign reign. The Americans have shattered Nato's united front on Ukraine. They have broken their word. They have undermined Zelenskyy and leading supporters – Britain, Germany's Olaf Scholz, Poland's Donald Tusk and Kyiv's allies in the Baltic republics and Scandinavia, all of whom put their trust, wrongly, it transpires, in US leadership. What, then, is Nato for? By prioritising China and the Indo-Pacific over the North Atlantic area – while threatening to emulate Putin and invade sovereign countries such as Canada, Panama and Danish Greenland – Trump undercuts Nato's raison d'être and shreds the global rulebook it was created to uphold. He previously threatened to quit the alliance. Maybe he should. It could force Europe to take charge of its own destiny. Sign up to Observed Analysis and opinion on the week's news and culture brought to you by the best Observer writers after newsletter promotion Europeans had plenty of warning that these kind of shifts on Ukraine and defence were coming. Trump has long viewed European governments, hard-right politicians such as Hungary's Viktor Orbán excepted, as spongers. He harbours irrational animosity towards the EU and has so far refused to speak to Brussels. His steel tariffs reflect this visceral disdain. So cries of shock and pain from the likes of Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, and Britain's defence secretary, John Healey, who insist they must have a central role in any US-Russia negotiation, come a bit late. They should have taken a tougher public and private stance with Trump from the start, to prevent him going off on a unilateralist tangent. Instead, Europe was, and still is, divided on how best to deal with both Trump and Ukraine, with some leaders, such as Italy's Giorgia Meloni, currying favour, and others, like Keir Starmer, biting their lip. This is vindication for France's Emmanuel Macron, who has repeatedly called, largely in vain, for the EU to develop and fund its own collective, non-Nato defence force, arms procurement and manufacturing. That effort must be ramped up immediately. The global ramifications of last week's watershed American capitulation will be widely felt. China will be emboldened by this spectacular, self-harming rupture inside the western alliance. It's probably fair to say an invasion of Taiwan, threatened by President Xi Jinping, has moved appreciably closer. Russia's rogue allies, Iran and North Korea, will also relish western disarray. Is it too late to turn this around? Europe's claims to be a global player have been torpedoed. America's reputation as guarantor of peace, security and the UN-charter-based rule of law is shot. It's a red letter day for the axis of autocrats and authoritarians everywhere. The Trump doctrine has been unveiled: might makes right, the weak go to the wall. All options must remain open. Ukraine and Europe must be directly included in any ceasefire talks. Rowing back rapidly, Hegseth and the US vice-president, JD Vance, now seem to concede these points. But concerted pressure on Washington by all the western democracies must be maintained to ensure Kyiv survives flaky Trump's patsy deals and a catastrophic precedent is avoided. If the US-UK so-called special relationship is still worth anything, it is time to cash in. Britain must quietly work behind the scenes until this noisome, noisy American grasps a hard-earned truth: peace at any price is no peace at all. Simon Tisdall is the Observer's Foreign Affairs Commentator
