The Quiet American

I started this book with a sense of duty, a novel to be read because it had been assigned to me. After a few chapters, I was drawn in to the Greene's secondary world of war, cynical journalists, and bright young things trying altruistically to solve the problems of the world. I kept reading, not because I enjoyed the descriptions or the scenery, but because I wanted to know what he would say through this novel. I was not dissapointed.
A key theme, as Sky pointed out, is the concept that innocence equals stupidity. Greene wants us to see firsthand why innocence, or naivete, leads to more death and destruction. There are characters, such as Captain Trouin, who have already lost their innocence through the horror of way. There are 'innocents', such as Pyle, who waltz in and try out their easy solutions of democracy. And finally, there are those, such as Fowler, who seek to remain aloof and cynical.
If the main conflict lies between Pyle and Fowler, the turning point occurs when Fowler finally involves himself in the war. As his friend Captain Trouin predicted, 'One day something will happen. You will take a side.' Fowler finds that he can no longer remain aloof. He has seen the destruction of the bomb left in the town square, and knows that Pyle is behind the event. The image of the man without both his legs haunts him. Greene shows the impossibility of remaining uninvolved through a speech of Mr. Heng: 'Sooner or later, one has to take sides. If one is to remain human. ' Yet in plotting the murder of Pyle, Fowler destroys himself. Through his is never arrested for his crime, he lives with the guilt of murder.
As much as I hated Fowler for his selfishness, Greene made me sympathize with him more than with Pyle. Pyle was a 'gentleman', who risked his life to tell Fowler that he loved Phuong. He made no secret that he planned to marry her in America, a 'proper' wedding. But he is naive. He lives with Phuong before the wedding, reasoning that the ends justify the means. He never seems to comprehend the reality of the war. The death of the civilians in the town square is simply a 'mistake', and the extra annoyance of getting one's shoes shined.
Fowler is a cynic but also a realist. He knows that life is not always cut and dried. Also, he alone grieves for the civilians wounded by the bomb. In the end, it is his viewpoint which is the most honest. Life is complicated. There is an ultimate right and wrong, but there is also the lesser of two evils. War is insanity, and one must do the best one can in each situation. There are no easy answers. While it was wrong to kill Pyle in order to regain Phuong, his death may have saved the lives of some civilians. Phuong and Hei both show the impossibility of remaining neutral. Neither seem to realize their connections, but we see that Hei works for the office which plants bombs such Operation Bicyclette. Phuong is involved with Pyle, who also works for the office. Neither realize that civilians have died because of this work. Both characters are 'innocent' in the sense that they are naive, but both have unknowingly taken sides.
I believe that Greene wanted us to see that war is madness in the sense that there are no simple, easy answers. You cannot avoid taking a side. In the end you must take a side and choose the lesser of two evils. The greatest evil is to remain 'innocent', uncomprehending, fighting according to an outdated theory of war and never really seeing or feeling the realities of war. Such people are dangerous because they are blind.