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A review by bianca89279
The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen
5.0
“We were the unwanted, the unneeded, and the unseen, invisible to all but ourselves. Less than nothing, we also saw nothing as we crouched blindly in the unlit belly of our ark… Even among the unwanted there were unwanted, and at that, some of us could only laugh. The prostitutes scowled at us and said, What do you want? We, the unwanted, wanted so much. We wanted food, water, and parasols, although umbrellas could be fine. We wanted clean clothes, baths, and toilets, the squatting kind … “
I am generally not a fan of sequels, tie-ins, but since this was written by Viet Thanh Nguyen, I jumped at the opportunity to read this eARCs, in which we encounter the Sympathizer, from the Pulitzer winner book with the same name. In the Sympathizer he spent some years in the United States, following the end of the Vietnam war. In this novel, he’s a refugee in Paris, France, in the early 1980s. What a brilliant idea to have this most charismatic, intelligent, tormented, ambiguous character spend time in the country that colonised Vietnam, his father's country, a father who had never recognised him.
The Committed is a masterclass in writing, with one of the most exquisite unreliable narrators I’ve ever come across. He’s intelligent and well-read, philosophical, self-aware, self-deprecating and immensely funny. I’ve highlighted quite a few paragraphs. Our character epitomizes complexity. His views on colonialism, racism, ideology, Vietnamese people and culture, French people and culture and so many other things blew me away, yet again. Occasionally, I found myself giggling, delighting in the narrator’s observations and cheekiness.
While my enjoyment of this novel did dip here and there, the peaks were so many and so high, I have to rate this 5 stars, as it's on another level.
The Committed will definitely make it on my list of 2021 favourite reads.
I've received this eARC via Edelweiss in exchange for my honest opinion. My gratitude to Grove Atlantic for the opportunity to read and review this novel.
I am generally not a fan of sequels, tie-ins, but since this was written by Viet Thanh Nguyen, I jumped at the opportunity to read this eARCs, in which we encounter the Sympathizer, from the Pulitzer winner book with the same name. In the Sympathizer he spent some years in the United States, following the end of the Vietnam war. In this novel, he’s a refugee in Paris, France, in the early 1980s. What a brilliant idea to have this most charismatic, intelligent, tormented, ambiguous character spend time in the country that colonised Vietnam, his father's country, a father who had never recognised him.
The Committed is a masterclass in writing, with one of the most exquisite unreliable narrators I’ve ever come across. He’s intelligent and well-read, philosophical, self-aware, self-deprecating and immensely funny. I’ve highlighted quite a few paragraphs. Our character epitomizes complexity. His views on colonialism, racism, ideology, Vietnamese people and culture, French people and culture and so many other things blew me away, yet again. Occasionally, I found myself giggling, delighting in the narrator’s observations and cheekiness.
While my enjoyment of this novel did dip here and there, the peaks were so many and so high, I have to rate this 5 stars, as it's on another level.
The Committed will definitely make it on my list of 2021 favourite reads.
I've received this eARC via Edelweiss in exchange for my honest opinion. My gratitude to Grove Atlantic for the opportunity to read and review this novel.