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A review by rzarate9696
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
3.0
I'm overall compelled by this story and want to read its sequel to see how things shake out, but I'm not in love with this one. It's solid in its representation of the Vietnamese perspective on the Vietnam war and its immediate aftermath, but I feel more connection with this theme than I do the protagonist of the story. He feels more like a placeholder for themes than a believable and sympathetic character. The closest we get to his humanity is in his descriptive lusting over women and his torture scene toward the end of the book, both of which feel artificial and contrived.
The secondary characters, especially the ghosts, really hold things together for me as they seem more fleshed out and fun to follow.
Not to spoil too much but there's also a rape that occurs later in the book that's pivotal to the plot, and it's just kind of gross and in poor taste when you consider in retrospect how horny the character is written in the aftermath of being supposedly traumatized by this rape. The author's goal was to show that Vietnamese people were human during this war and also inflicted violence upon themselves alongside the Americans. I can appreciate the sentiment but the delivery is lukewarm and off-putting for me in this particular example.
I would still recommend for sure, and I'm excited to read more of Nguyen's work. I respect all of the research and time he put into this book and his other works.
The secondary characters, especially the ghosts, really hold things together for me as they seem more fleshed out and fun to follow.
Not to spoil too much but there's also a rape that occurs later in the book that's pivotal to the plot, and it's just kind of gross and in poor taste when you consider in retrospect how horny the character is written in the aftermath of being supposedly traumatized by this rape. The author's goal was to show that Vietnamese people were human during this war and also inflicted violence upon themselves alongside the Americans. I can appreciate the sentiment but the delivery is lukewarm and off-putting for me in this particular example.
I would still recommend for sure, and I'm excited to read more of Nguyen's work. I respect all of the research and time he put into this book and his other works.