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A review by dennisfischman
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
The first thing I would tell you about this book is that it's brilliantly written. An author who's writing in a second language is sometimes more aware of the nuances and double meanings than a native speaker, and so it is with Viet Thanh Nguyen AND his central character, who's writing his confessions in a Vietnamese re-education camp.
Look at the title of the book. To those of us who grew up during the Cold War, "communist sympathizer" was a McCarthyist term, like "pinko"; it meant someone who might not be a card-carrying member of the Communist Party (to use another phrase from the Red Scare) but who had a more favorable view of them and their cause than a real American was allowed.
That meaning resonates here, but it is occluded by another. The narrator is a Vietnamese man who's gone over to the communists but works for a South Vietnamese General, spying on him, both before and after the fall of Saigon and their flight to the U.S. Where are his real sympathies? Even he cannot tell. He has the blessing and the curse of seeing things from both sides and feeling--sympathizing--with them both.
Double meanings and plays on words like that are part of his voice throughout the book. Through the irony, we get a deeper sense of who he is than if he or anyone around him tried to describe him. I admire that.
I also appreciate the way Nguyen portrays life in an immigrant community in the U.S. My Jewish immigrant ancestors went through something like that half a century earlier: moving into ethnic enclaves, speaking one set of truths in one's own language and another in English to the uncomprehending Americans, turning one's cuisine into a dining experience, and a living. Some of the hierarchies from the old country persist. Others get turned on their heads. The books makes all that come to life.
So why am I ambivalent about the book? You might say, to be true to the spirit of the author! But there is more than that, or less.
The book began to drag for me when some of the language that had been amusing was repeated too often (e.g., "the crapulent major"). At the same time, bizarre events started to come and go for no apparent reason. And there was so much violence, including sexual violence, and not one woman ever really got a voice of her own throughout the book (although two dead men do!)
The double-ness of the narrator, which had been so intriguing, started to seem like an artificial device to set up the scenes the author wanted to write and to make the political and philosophical points he wanted to make.
If I read more by this author, who deserves to be read, it will probably be his nonfiction.
Look at the title of the book. To those of us who grew up during the Cold War, "communist sympathizer" was a McCarthyist term, like "pinko"; it meant someone who might not be a card-carrying member of the Communist Party (to use another phrase from the Red Scare) but who had a more favorable view of them and their cause than a real American was allowed.
That meaning resonates here, but it is occluded by another. The narrator is a Vietnamese man who's gone over to the communists but works for a South Vietnamese General, spying on him, both before and after the fall of Saigon and their flight to the U.S. Where are his real sympathies? Even he cannot tell. He has the blessing and the curse of seeing things from both sides and feeling--sympathizing--with them both.
Double meanings and plays on words like that are part of his voice throughout the book. Through the irony, we get a deeper sense of who he is than if he or anyone around him tried to describe him. I admire that.
I also appreciate the way Nguyen portrays life in an immigrant community in the U.S. My Jewish immigrant ancestors went through something like that half a century earlier: moving into ethnic enclaves, speaking one set of truths in one's own language and another in English to the uncomprehending Americans, turning one's cuisine into a dining experience, and a living. Some of the hierarchies from the old country persist. Others get turned on their heads. The books makes all that come to life.
So why am I ambivalent about the book? You might say, to be true to the spirit of the author! But there is more than that, or less.
The book began to drag for me when some of the language that had been amusing was repeated too often (e.g., "the crapulent major"). At the same time, bizarre events started to come and go for no apparent reason. And there was so much violence, including sexual violence, and not one woman ever really got a voice of her own throughout the book (although two dead men do!)
The double-ness of the narrator, which had been so intriguing, started to seem like an artificial device to set up the scenes the author wanted to write and to make the political and philosophical points he wanted to make.
If I read more by this author, who deserves to be read, it will probably be his nonfiction.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Mental illness, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Dementia, Grief, Medical trauma, Cultural appropriation, Colonisation