Reviews tagging 'Violence'

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

73 reviews

lavenderlion's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative reflective sad tense slow-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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Content Warnings

Minor: Colonisation, Confinement, Death, Murder, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Torture, Violence, War, and Xenophobia

katherine_shelton's review

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape and Violence

bookmaddie's review

It’s soooo masculine and nothing has happened.

Yeah, he killed a man but somehow that’s been made BORING?!

Like give me some action! Isn’t this a spy book? I’m confused. And also pages of explanation or like.. smart asides and observations. Which are sometimes clever and thoughtful, but the descriptions are overwrought to me. I just didn’t care and everything felt so tedious.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, War, Torture, and Blood

claired01's review

challenging dark

5.0

I have nothing to say!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, War, Alcoholism, and Violence

rei_vitalize's review

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Rape, Torture, and War

bmunsh's review

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

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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.

3)

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

dark medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Rape, Violence, and Death

cheyison's review

dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Police brutality, Violence, War, and Rape

Moderate: Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Colonisation, and Gore

livscosycorner's review

challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

Having recently returned to reading - coupled with the fact  the author is an academic - The Sympathizer with its dense writing style took me much longer than expected to get through. 

I feel my focus was spent  wading through all the metaphors, analogies and lofty language and im left unsure if I enjoyed (for lack of a better word - perhaps engrossed by?) the story itself. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Rape, and Violence

Minor: Xenophobia and Racism

marijuanerareads's review

challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Murder, and Violence