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Graham Greene
on The Quiet American:
…Perhaps there is more direct rapportage in the The Quiet American than in any other novel I have written. I had determined to employ again the experience I had gained with The End of the Affair in the use of the first person and the time shift, and my choice of a journalist as the "I" seemed to me to justify the use of rapportage. The Press conference is not the only example of direct reporting. I was in the dive bomber (the pilot had broken an order of General de Lattre by taking me) which attacked the Viet Minh post and I was on the patrol of the Foreign Legion paras outside Phat Diem. I still retain the sharp image of the dead child couched in the ditch beside his dead mother. The very neatness of their bullet wounds made their death more disturbing than the indiscriminate massacre in the canals around. from Ways of Escape, pp.139-140 © Melody Yiu Images and quoted text on this website may be protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. They are presented here for academic interest and personal entertainment. No distribution, reproduction, re-transmission or other rights are given or implied by their appearance. If you have any copyright concerns, please notify me. |
When my novel was eventually noticed in
the New Yorker the reviewer condemned me for
accusing my "best friends" (the Americans) of
murder since I had attributed to them the responsibility
for the great explosion -- far worse than the trivial
bicycle bombs -- in the main square of Saigon when many
people lost their lives. But what are the facts, of which
the reviewer needless to say was ignorant? The