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The Sympathizer Viet Thanh Nguyen Books

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The Sympathizer Viet Thanh Nguyen Books

The author suffers from a propensity for using big fancy and flowery SAT words (adjectives and adverbs in particular are simply flying everywhere, as well as a Maureen Dowd type habit of trying too hard to be cute and clever) where simpler language would be more effective, but otherwise this was a pretty good read. Lots of interesting historical, political, cultural and cross-cultural background...Nguyen has clearly done his homework, as one would expect from a Literature professor. The first 1/4 was a bit of a slog as he narrates the last hours/days/weeks in 1975 Saigon before hopping a plane to the Land 'O Plenty, whereupon the novel picks up considerably, praise the gods.

He does provide a richly-deserved and scathing critique of mainstream and elitist (white American) ignorance, xenophobia, bigotry, racism and general redneckishness which, while not quite as directly confrontational as it could've been (he's more artful and professorially composed, sort of Obama-like), is a welcome ingredient in the sometimes milque-toast tone of many Asian-American writers. Nice defiance of the still all-too-common "model minority" stereotype of AAs which is of course just the flip side of the popular racist view of them as passive and docile little robots. This probably was a big factor in his being awarded a Pulitzer for this book.

There are definite shades of Kafka, Camus, Gogol and Dostoyevsky (mainly "Notes from Underground") as well as other very respectable 19th and 20th century novelists, which helps maintain interest. The protagonist even undergoes a half-ironic Nietzschean/Zen breakthrough right towards the end, which was rather unexpected and original.

Worth reading for entertainment as well as educational value.


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The Sympathizer Viet Thanh Nguyen Books Reviews

The Sympathizer is a powerful novel, taking as its subject the final days and aftermath of the Vietnam War as seen through the eyes of a North Vietnamese spy who is also the aide to a top ranking South Vietnamese general.

The mole (never named) was educated in the United States before returning to Vietnam and signing on as a Viet Cong spy. He accompanies the general to the United States after the fall of Saigon and continues his espionage work there. He ultimately returns to Vietnam in an ill-fated attempt to establish a counter-insurgency on behalf of the general.

I found the novel to be highly educational, as I’d never read such an account of the Vietnam War from the viewpoint of the Vietnamese. The refugee experience was largely unknown to me. While the final 50-100 pages are among the most powerful, containing acts of psychological and physical torture, they are presented in an almost stream of consciousness narrative which can become tiresome to wade through.

Certainly a worthy novel, however I can imagine that many might not enjoy it.
I read this book as part of a monthly book club's reading list; I was disappointed in it, and marvel that it earned a Pulitzer Prize. This book took me back to the Vietnam era and the Boat People era, and that is a time when, in real life (as well as in books) there were few sympathetic characters. The book includes a send-up of Apocalypse Now, another Vietnam-era story with no sympathetic characters. So, while this might be true-to-life (in some ways I'm sure it is), this isn't a life I'm eager to revisit. Normally I don't down-rate books, as I have no desire to hurt other authors, but since this one won a Pulitzer, there's vanishingly little chance that my review will hurt the author or the book's sales, I want to warn readers that this is tough, gritty, disturbing and powerful (but not in a good way).
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen is simply superb. Written with an unflinching eye and great humor, it is a brilliant and chilling look into the hearts and minds of men and the cruelty we inflict upon each other. The first 50 or so pages are devoted to the introduction of the Captain; a mole in South Vietnam's special forces. He is also a bastard, and half-breed, with a Vietnamese mother he adores and a French father (who also happens to be a Roman Catholic priest) he despises. He is a microcosm of a homeland divided in half--with a dual nature and opposites that seem to only attract loathing or disdain.

This is the fall of Saigon, the Vietnam war and the dislocation to America told from an Asian perspective, and a story non-Asian Americans should read if only for that viewpoint. But there is so much more brilliant writing and beautiful prose that is often hilarious, and always thought-provoking. "I calmed the tremor in my gut. I was in close quarters with some representative of the most dangerous creature in the history of the world, the white man in a suit." Or, "you must claim America, she said. America will not give itself to you. If you do not claim America, if America is not in your heart, America will throw you into a concentration camp, or a reservation or a plantation."

This is not an easy book to read--and no, not because there aren't quotation marks. God help some of these reviewers if they ever pick up Virginia Woolf or James Joyce. At times though the scenes of torture and rape are sickening and the author's pov about American hegemony (cultural and political) is going to disturb many. But it is challenging in the very best way. The Sympathizer does what great literature is supposed to do--force us out of our comfort zone to rethink assumptions. This wonderful, disturbing, challenging novel will do more than that--it will affirm something indomitable and essential about us all--a desire to carry on, and to live.
The author suffers from a propensity for using big fancy and flowery SAT words (adjectives and adverbs in particular are simply flying everywhere, as well as a Maureen Dowd type habit of trying too hard to be cute and clever) where simpler language would be more effective, but otherwise this was a pretty good read. Lots of interesting historical, political, cultural and cross-cultural background...Nguyen has clearly done his homework, as one would expect from a Literature professor. The first 1/4 was a bit of a slog as he narrates the last hours/days/weeks in 1975 Saigon before hopping a plane to the Land 'O Plenty, whereupon the novel picks up considerably, praise the gods.

He does provide a richly-deserved and scathing critique of mainstream and elitist (white American) ignorance, xenophobia, bigotry, racism and general redneckishness which, while not quite as directly confrontational as it could've been (he's more artful and professorially composed, sort of Obama-like), is a welcome ingredient in the sometimes milque-toast tone of many Asian-American writers. Nice defiance of the still all-too-common "model minority" stereotype of AAs which is of course just the flip side of the popular racist view of them as passive and docile little robots. This probably was a big factor in his being awarded a Pulitzer for this book.

There are definite shades of Kafka, Camus, Gogol and Dostoyevsky (mainly "Notes from Underground") as well as other very respectable 19th and 20th century novelists, which helps maintain interest. The protagonist even undergoes a half-ironic Nietzschean/Zen breakthrough right towards the end, which was rather unexpected and original.

Worth reading for entertainment as well as educational value.