The Quiet American
Graham Greene carries us away to a land of mystery and beauty and opium. But is it real?
I was still entirely in love with the romance of Southeast Asia when Graham Greene’s The Quiet American transported me back to the mysterious beauty of those enchanted lands.
For years after I returned home from Asia, all I could think of was how to get back to those magical lands. I knew that a life in England would not fulfil me but America felt insufficient too and The Quiet American doubled my determination to escape to an exotic land.
How I applauded the cynical realism of Monsieur Fowler! How I booed the shallow idealism of the titular Alden Pyle! The relationship between these two men helped define the contrast between the country of my birth and the country across the Atlantic where I was to spend half my life. The fact that both men were in love with the same young Asian woman only made the contrast between them more real.
One scene from the book is seared in my memory. When Phuong prepares Fowler’s opium pipe, Greene’s sensuous portrayal of the hiss of the needle sizzling in the ball of opium and the blissful bubbling that brings peace to Fowler makes me dream of the jungles of Burma and the hot, busy streets of Bangkok.
When I first arrived in Asia, I made a vow that I would not take advantage of the easy access to drugs. I don’t even remember why I made my vow, but I felt a certain superiority as the only one in my party to decline the bong or to Just Say No to the mushrooms and the hashish and even the heroin that were on offer at every cafe.
I kept my vow for twenty-five years — until a special brownie at Santa Cruz Piratefest set my head spinning and sent me to my bed. It might take several hours and several bottles of wine to carry me from the gentle buzz of the first glass to that whirling, spinning instant when the room won’t keep still, but my brownie took me there in just two bites. After that nauseating moment, it became even easier to Just Say No.
When we trekked through the Burmese jungle, the Karen tribesman who was our porter would bubble up his opium pipe at every cigarette break and politely offer us a hit. We always declined. The trekking group after ours lacked our temperance and their emergency evacuation for an overdose took them to the hospital in Chiang Rai.
But, still. The hiss from Phuong’s hot needle in Fowler’s bubbling bead of opium seems to offer an escape from the cares of the world should I ever need to break free.
Now she was kneading the little ball of hot paste on the convex margins of the bowl and I could smell the opium. There is no smell like it. Beside the bed my alarm clock showed twelve-twenty, but already my tension was over. Pyle had diminished. The lamp lit her face as she tended the long pipe, with the serious attention she might have given to a child. I was fond of my pipe: more than two feet of straight bamboo, ivory at either end. Two-thirds of the way down was the bowl, like a convolvulus reversed, the convex margin polished and darkened by the frequent kneading of the opium. Now, with a flick of the wrist, she plunged the needle into the tiny cavity, released the opium and reversed the bowl over the flame, holding the pipe steady for me. The bead of opium bubbled gently and smoothly as I inhaled.
The Quiet American (Greene, 1955, p.13)
In my memory, Fowler had cancer and the opium was necessary to dull the pain. I always imagined that if the pain ever got too much for me, a trip to Vietnam and opium bubbling in a pipe might be more romantic than a morphine drip under the harsh lights of a hospital room. Re-reading the book after thirty years, I find that my memory shaped the narrative to fit my desire. Fowler did not have cancer but what he endured was much worse. Who knew there were worse things than cancer?
I was intrigued to learn that opium sharpens the mind. How I wish I had the peace and sharpness of mind that bubbles up from an opium bowl! The present fork in my road leaves me with a difficult choice to make. Perhaps a tincture of opium would calm my mind and help me choose freely.
After three pipes I felt my mind clear and alert: it could take such decisions easily without losing sight of the main question
The Quiet American (Greene, 1955, p.16)
Will I ever make that journey back to those mystical lands where the opium poppies grow? Do those lands even still exist? I may never go back but Grahame Greene took me halfway and for that, I am grateful.
Mon enfant, ma soeur,
Songe à la douceur
D’aller là-bas vivre ensemble!
Aimer à loisir,
Aimer et mourir
Au pays qui te ressemble!
Les soleils mouillés
De ces ciels brouillés
Pour mon esprit ont les charmes
Si mystérieux
De tes traîtres yeux,
Brillant à travers leurs larmes.
Charles Baudelaire, 1857
The bright flame beneath the opium bowl reminds Fowler of Baudelaire’s poem about sharing a journey to an exotic land. What I wouldn’t give to make that journey! Perhaps the opium will take me there. Would you come too?
Run away with me
My darling, my wife,
Consider the life
We could share in a faraway land!
To love ‘neath the sky,
To love and to die
In a kingdom of forests and sand.
The sunlight so hazy
And the breezes so lazy
Bare your charms to my mind and my soul.
Your mysterious eyes
And your comforting sighs
And your tears shining bright make me whole.
Ragged Clown, 2024 — after Baudelaire
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And this brings an interesting twist into another fictional character, a certain Mr. Holmes of 221 Baker St. He also was fond of opium, but I don't think the sharpening of the mind was ever explicitly mentioned.
I like your translation of the Baudelaire 😊