Reviews with content warning for Rape - The Sympathizer

Reviews tagging 'Rape'

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

164 reviews

cassreading's review

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was wonderfully and thoughtfully written. It has so much to say about the Vietnam war, American imperialism, racism, the American Dream™, politics, language, representation. It's incredibly ambitious, and yet I think it manages to do what it wants well for the most part.

The ending was brutal to read (read TW). It definitely shows the brutality of war, the limits of sympathy, but I still feel unsure about it, and about the book's representation of women as a whole. Still working through that mentally.

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patchworkculture's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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katherine_shelton's review

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dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The writing is meticulous, the characters are complex, the story is fascinating, it's just an excellent book. It's also enjoyable to read, despite being dark and very violent. My Dad is a Vietnam war veteran and I was exposed to all THOSE movies, including Apocalypse Now, at a weirdly young age (WTF, Dad!) and reading about them from the perspective of these fictionalized Vietnamese characters was really embarrassing. I definitely grimaced reading some of the scenes that I specifically remember seeing in film ages ago. The author has a really clever style of writing that evokes empathy without being self-pitying or preachy. It holds a mirror up to American Colonialism, and other atrocities, such as disco fashion, without beating you over the head. In fact, it's hard not to feel like you're on the protagonists side, even though he's very morally flawed. Anyway, I recommend it.

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friendlypoet's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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maviemerveilleuse's review

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dark funny mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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claired01's review

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challenging dark

5.0

I have nothing to say!

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sorceress_j's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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rei_vitalize's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Very philosophical book. I really enjoyed the prose of the book. Not my usual type of book I read but did enjoy it but was often confused by the plot. Also some very weird flashback stories and character very sex obsessed which wasn’t expecting based off the synopsis. Plot was almost like different vignettes about the character. Intrigued enough to read the sequel but don’t think I’d read this one again.

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bmunsh's review

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challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Rape

First and foremost, Viet Nguyen has an incredible grasp of prose and the English language. Very concise, witty, humorous, and playful, without really pushing that boundary of becoming overly verbose.

Although, being overly verbose does become a point later, in the commandant's review of the protagonist’s self-crit.

Overall, it’s an extremely strong novel on the conflicting nature of the protagonist, in both his physical self and personal beliefs. My only real criticisms are 1) The US and South Vietnamese armies are let off pretty easily.

This is the point, that the protagonist has suppressed the atrocities he witnessed, but a naive reader may only takeaway north=reeducation=bad, individual American soldiers committing war crimes=bad. I think there is an excellent analysis via parallelism in the making of The Movie, how the SA scene is committed by Viet Cong, and the protagonist can do nothing to change this scene or the portrayal of Viet Nam in the Movie, with the actuality of his supressed memories of the SA of the agent by the Americans, and how the South Vietnamese did nothing (himself included), to give Nguyen credit. I just think that, while not his job to educate people on the horrors, naive readers may miss the critique of South Viet Nam.

I completely understand why it was written the way it was, but art can be a dangerous tool and some people, especially those who are not well versed on the genocide, may take away the wrong message. 2) Unless you already knew a lot of these events, it may be difficult to understand the gravitas of some points.

For example, if you didn’t know what the Phoenix Program was, or the extent to which American war hawks bombed the country, you may not understand why the North retaliated in the way it did.

The big change in the protagonist’s thoughts is that he becomes a bit disenfranchised with communist thought as he sees what happened when revolution was achieved. This could have been handled a bit better, as his disenfranchisement from communism comes from his observation of systematic reeducation. However, his critique of capitalism largely references individual incidents, which frames the conflict as systematic issues vs isolated incidents. It would have more strongly portrayed the protagonist’s conflict if the story also balanced system vs system. I was very surprised that My Lai or any other the other massacres weren’t referenced (there was one reference made in passing). Once again, it is the whole point of the novel that he represses the atrocities he participated in, but I still think that by not fully describing the horrors that Americans (and the compliance of the South Vietnamese army) committed, the story feels a bit uneven.

jessaustin111's review

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dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated

3.0

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