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pasc96's review against another edition
5.0
A masterwork of both story and structure from a first-time novelist, The Sympathizer brings the reader to the edge of madness and back again, squirming and even laughing along the way. Nguyen never shies from the tough, eternal questions, and the unnamed narrator's split identities and muddled loyalties make the reader re-examine their own selves (personal, cultural, familial, religious). This is the rare book that made me want to start all over again once I read the last sentence.
hcoppola's review against another edition
3.0
The first 275 or so pages are great. They deal more with a search for identity & belonging & being a refugee. The last 100 pages are unfortunately some trite & hackneyed bs if you ask me.
esmemazzeo's review against another edition
challenging
dark
sad
slow-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
3.5
boronguyen's review against another edition
5.0
It’s been a long time coming!
Pulitzer-y to the point that I wonder whether he wrote it with the prize in mind...
Thanks for Nothing!
Pulitzer-y to the point that I wonder whether he wrote it with the prize in mind...
Thanks for Nothing!
debojoy's review against another edition
5.0
I didn't learn much about the Vietnam War—just bits and pieces from protest events, songs from Woodstock, and movies. No one seemed to want to talk about it. I was 20 when the US abruptly departed in April 1975 (also the same month my father passed away—perhaps I was distracted) but I clearly remember the people scrambling to get aboard helicopters to escape.
I learned a lot from this book, which was beautifully written. Sprinkled with satire, some passages made me laugh out loud. And yet, there were painful underlying messages. How the author pulled this off makes me want to go back and see how he did it.
Never have I read a book that moved me enough to plaster it with sticky notes! There are paragraphs and pages of prose that I will read again and again.
Savor this one: it is deliciously wonderful—and dark and raw.
I learned a lot from this book, which was beautifully written. Sprinkled with satire, some passages made me laugh out loud. And yet, there were painful underlying messages. How the author pulled this off makes me want to go back and see how he did it.
Never have I read a book that moved me enough to plaster it with sticky notes! There are paragraphs and pages of prose that I will read again and again.
Savor this one: it is deliciously wonderful—and dark and raw.
mondyboy's review against another edition
4.0
Last year (2015) was the fortieth anniversary of the Fall or Liberation of Saigon, an event that effectively ended the Vietnam War. In the opening chapters of his début and Pulitzer prize-winning novel The Sympathizer (it also won an Edgar for best first novel), Viet Thanh Nguyen provides a visceral account of the American evacuation of the city through the eyes of a South Vietnamese army captain who also happens to be a sleeper agent for the communist North. In a scene that’s tragic and horrifying for those who are left behind but also perversely thrilling as planes and helicopters come under fire from the North Vietnamese military our narrator and a select group of army officials and their families escape to America. For our nameless, referred throughout as the Captain, his task is to report back to the Vietcong the intentions of “the General” a top ranking soldier in the south Vietnamese Army who dreams of taking back Saigon from the communists.
Thematically and in terms of plot, there’s a great deal going on in the novel. For our narrator he has to juggle the coded demands of the newly established communist Government while also proving to the General that he’s still loyal to the South Vietnamese. This requires him to kill innocent men who threaten the General’s plans and enduring the associated guilt that comes with these acts of violence. But in among these moments of tension and violence and the gut churning fear that any moment he will be found out as a spy, both the Captain and Nguyen comment on issues that go beyond Saigon, the Vietnam War and the evils of communism. In particular the book deals with issues of immigration, assimilation, representation of the “other” and the bonds of friendship.
In the case of immigration the Captain provides some hilarious insights into American culture, especially in the context of those in power, such as a Californian Congressman who support the General and his plan to retake Vietnam. At one point the Captain opines that the immigrant, whether Vietnamese or otherwise, “were the greatest anthropologists of the American people.” something Americans never realised because the field notes “were written in our own language in letters and postcards dispatched to our countries of origin.” There’s something poignant and profound about this observation given all the talk today of how immigrants refuse to assimilate.
While the Vietnamese might be cognizant of their hosts, Nguyen also explores the unwillingness on the part of American’s – especially in terms of the mainstream media – to understand other cultures. Again Nguyen’s dry sense of humour and sharp observations come to the fore as the Captain is asked to join a film set in the Philippines to consult on a movie about the Vietnam War directed by “the Auteur” a man who may, or may not, be based on Francis Ford Coppola. The Captain’s initial attempts to convince the Auteur to more accurately represent his people, both South and North, results in a film that treats the Vietnamese as villain and victim while presenting the American soldier as a noble, tragic figure making the best of a horrible situation.
However, the theme that takes primacy above all else is that of friendship. The Captain’s childhood bond with Man – a major figure in the Communist party – and Bon – a man who fought for the South and lost his wife and son during the evacuation of Saigon – reverberates throughout the novel. Every choice the Captain makes is directly linked to this friendship, whether it’s protecting Bon from his self-destructive desire to destroy those who murdered the people he loved or following the coded orders sent to him by Man on behalf of the communist regime. The last third of the novel is especially an expression of that friendship as the Captain, against his better judgement, decides to follow Bon to Vietnam as part of crazy plan cooked up by the General to retake the country. The Captain’s intent is to keep his mate alive, but their inevitable capture by the communists leads to a confronting, powerful interrogation scene between the Captain and Man. Interrogation scene aside, if I was less than invested in the last third of the novel it’s because I missed the Captain’s and Nguyen’s wry observations of American culture and the migrant experience.
Thematically and in terms of plot, there’s a great deal going on in the novel. For our narrator he has to juggle the coded demands of the newly established communist Government while also proving to the General that he’s still loyal to the South Vietnamese. This requires him to kill innocent men who threaten the General’s plans and enduring the associated guilt that comes with these acts of violence. But in among these moments of tension and violence and the gut churning fear that any moment he will be found out as a spy, both the Captain and Nguyen comment on issues that go beyond Saigon, the Vietnam War and the evils of communism. In particular the book deals with issues of immigration, assimilation, representation of the “other” and the bonds of friendship.
In the case of immigration the Captain provides some hilarious insights into American culture, especially in the context of those in power, such as a Californian Congressman who support the General and his plan to retake Vietnam. At one point the Captain opines that the immigrant, whether Vietnamese or otherwise, “were the greatest anthropologists of the American people.” something Americans never realised because the field notes “were written in our own language in letters and postcards dispatched to our countries of origin.” There’s something poignant and profound about this observation given all the talk today of how immigrants refuse to assimilate.
While the Vietnamese might be cognizant of their hosts, Nguyen also explores the unwillingness on the part of American’s – especially in terms of the mainstream media – to understand other cultures. Again Nguyen’s dry sense of humour and sharp observations come to the fore as the Captain is asked to join a film set in the Philippines to consult on a movie about the Vietnam War directed by “the Auteur” a man who may, or may not, be based on Francis Ford Coppola. The Captain’s initial attempts to convince the Auteur to more accurately represent his people, both South and North, results in a film that treats the Vietnamese as villain and victim while presenting the American soldier as a noble, tragic figure making the best of a horrible situation.
However, the theme that takes primacy above all else is that of friendship. The Captain’s childhood bond with Man – a major figure in the Communist party – and Bon – a man who fought for the South and lost his wife and son during the evacuation of Saigon – reverberates throughout the novel. Every choice the Captain makes is directly linked to this friendship, whether it’s protecting Bon from his self-destructive desire to destroy those who murdered the people he loved or following the coded orders sent to him by Man on behalf of the communist regime. The last third of the novel is especially an expression of that friendship as the Captain, against his better judgement, decides to follow Bon to Vietnam as part of crazy plan cooked up by the General to retake the country. The Captain’s intent is to keep his mate alive, but their inevitable capture by the communists leads to a confronting, powerful interrogation scene between the Captain and Man. Interrogation scene aside, if I was less than invested in the last third of the novel it’s because I missed the Captain’s and Nguyen’s wry observations of American culture and the migrant experience.
sunkernplus's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Since I'm not really good at giving off the cuff reviews of books out of the gate, I'm going to give My Personal Thoughts:
-I was personally excited to read this for school, for one thing. I'm what one would call a "true English major": aside from heteronormative and amatonormative m/f romance (because bi, pan, enbian and gray aromantic as well as quoiromantic) and a lot of YA novels, which, even if LGBT or T4T tend to feature heteronormative and amatonormative dynamics, I'm pretty much unbiased towards any book, from children's literature to erotica. I still found myself excited as I read it until a lot of the misogynistic chapters popped up, but then in later chapters marveled at the Nguyen's amazing prose, droll and dry sense of humor, and telling observations about American capitalist society (the society I was born, reared, and raised in, and know uncomfortably all too well). Perhaps, like Man, I have come to a dialectic synthesis: this book is both horribly misogynistic, and this book is a fantastic work of postmodernist literature, and both can be true at once. However, I still take points off for all of the female characters, even Lana and Sofia Mori, lacking particular interiority, and being mainly to motivate the male character's emotional suffering, which a great deal of it is understandable, and some portion of it (such as the killing of the "crapulent major", God, that fatphobic description of him and Sonny) being of his own making.
-Upon reaching the end of the novel and seeing that his work was inspired by Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man", I did a mental whoop and fist pump. Like, "yes, I knew it, I knew that opening mimicked the opening prologue lines of Invisible Man, give me a prize!" To be fair, I had only read the prologue and first chapter to Ellison's work, as well as the missing draft chapter taking place in a psych ward. But the opening prologue was almost word for word, tone for tone the same without being plagiarism, and the style and tone of the novel draw heavily from Ellison, as well as the themes. I felt super smart when I guessed (today in fact) that this novel was a Vietnamese answer to Invisible Man.
-This personal thought is going to be given in spoilers, but regarding the rape of the woman who called herself Viet Nam, paralleled by the rape of Mai in The Auteur's film and his mother's own implied rape at the hands of the main character's white priest father, gives me two major thoughts, one Watsonian and one Doylist.
The Watsonian thought was that the rape of Viet Nam was foreshadowed largely in part by his mother's implied rape and the main character's mixed race heritage, and by the main character's inability to watch Asia Soo act the scene in which she is raped, despite him being kind of a misogynistic creep towards Lana, who he knew when she was 16 and he was 25 and they were both family members essentially, and despite him being kind of a Nice Guy TM to Sofia Mori and even not having the scruples to refrain from hitting on Asia Soo herself, who was a lesbian, he could not watch her be raped because her character Mai's rape would remind him of the brutal rape the American soldiers committed on the agent who called herself Viet Nam, where she was raped to such brutality he believed her to be dead. In other words, he's very much the guilty character the CIA handbook talks about, the man who feels guilt not only at himself and about himself but projects guilt as coming from others.
The Doylist thought, however, refers to my interest in eroge, or erotic games, and their medium as storytelling and potential arguments for some well written eroge to perhaps qualify as postmodern works of fiction in themselves, and perhaps a lot of them less misogynistic even than The Sympathizer. In my time exploring the eroge genre, either playing eroge, playing clean versions of eroge, or listening to YouTuber Amelie Doree talk about eroge and argue for its legitimacy as art, I have found that even eroge that even depicts scenes of brutal rape, much like The Sympathizer did with Viet Nam's rape, tends to have less outward misogyny than The Sympathizer itself, in my opinion, because the women in a lot of eroge are depicted less as symbols of the main character's brokenness, or clear obvious conservative and always ugly and fat sticks in the mud, like a lot of leftist men depict women either in the left who they disagree with or consider prudish or women on the right who they rightfully disagree with but insult their appearances for being "conventionally ugly" in the case of The Sympathizer, but as humans, with interiority and identity and flaws and strengths and traumas that are as deep as the men in their lives, and in the case of queer eroge focused on women or lesbian eroge such as LOVE BAKUDAN or LOVE AND DEHUMANIZATION, are focused entirely on women and their inner lives, even as, in LOVE AND DEHUMANIZATION's case, the main female characters (she's plural) go through immense pain.
That's all my thoughts for now; I'm not good at reviews, but I'm pretty decent at voicing my many thoughts and opinions.
-I was personally excited to read this for school, for one thing. I'm what one would call a "true English major": aside from heteronormative and amatonormative m/f romance (because bi, pan, enbian and gray aromantic as well as quoiromantic) and a lot of YA novels, which, even if LGBT or T4T tend to feature heteronormative and amatonormative dynamics, I'm pretty much unbiased towards any book, from children's literature to erotica. I still found myself excited as I read it until a lot of the misogynistic chapters popped up, but then in later chapters marveled at the Nguyen's amazing prose, droll and dry sense of humor, and telling observations about American capitalist society (the society I was born, reared, and raised in, and know uncomfortably all too well). Perhaps, like Man, I have come to a dialectic synthesis: this book is both horribly misogynistic, and this book is a fantastic work of postmodernist literature, and both can be true at once. However, I still take points off for all of the female characters, even Lana and Sofia Mori, lacking particular interiority, and being mainly to motivate the male character's emotional suffering, which a great deal of it is understandable, and some portion of it (such as the killing of the "crapulent major", God, that fatphobic description of him and Sonny) being of his own making.
-Upon reaching the end of the novel and seeing that his work was inspired by Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man", I did a mental whoop and fist pump. Like, "yes, I knew it, I knew that opening mimicked the opening prologue lines of Invisible Man, give me a prize!" To be fair, I had only read the prologue and first chapter to Ellison's work, as well as the missing draft chapter taking place in a psych ward. But the opening prologue was almost word for word, tone for tone the same without being plagiarism, and the style and tone of the novel draw heavily from Ellison, as well as the themes. I felt super smart when I guessed (today in fact) that this novel was a Vietnamese answer to Invisible Man.
-
The Watsonian thought was that the rape of Viet Nam was foreshadowed largely in part by his mother's implied rape and the main character's mixed race heritage, and by the main character's inability to watch Asia Soo act the scene in which she is raped, despite him being kind of a misogynistic creep towards Lana, who he knew when she was 16 and he was 25 and they were both family members essentially, and despite him being kind of a Nice Guy TM to Sofia Mori and even not having the scruples to refrain from hitting on Asia Soo herself, who was a lesbian, he could not watch her be raped because her character Mai's rape would remind him of the brutal rape the American soldiers committed on the agent who called herself Viet Nam, where she was raped to such brutality he believed her to be dead. In other words, he's very much the guilty character the CIA handbook talks about, the man who feels guilt not only at himself and about himself but projects guilt as coming from others.
The Doylist thought, however, refers to my interest in eroge, or erotic games, and their medium as storytelling and potential arguments for some well written eroge to perhaps qualify as postmodern works of fiction in themselves, and perhaps a lot of them less misogynistic even than The Sympathizer. In my time exploring the eroge genre, either playing eroge, playing clean versions of eroge, or listening to YouTuber Amelie Doree talk about eroge and argue for its legitimacy as art, I have found that even eroge that even depicts scenes of brutal rape, much like The Sympathizer did with Viet Nam's rape, tends to have less outward misogyny than The Sympathizer itself, in my opinion, because the women in a lot of eroge are depicted less as symbols of the main character's brokenness, or clear obvious conservative and always ugly and fat sticks in the mud, like a lot of leftist men depict women either in the left who they disagree with or consider prudish or women on the right who they rightfully disagree with but insult their appearances for being "conventionally ugly" in the case of The Sympathizer, but as humans, with interiority and identity and flaws and strengths and traumas that are as deep as the men in their lives, and in the case of queer eroge focused on women or lesbian eroge such as LOVE BAKUDAN or LOVE AND DEHUMANIZATION, are focused entirely on women and their inner lives, even as, in LOVE AND DEHUMANIZATION's case, the main female characters (she's plural) go through immense pain.
That's all my thoughts for now; I'm not good at reviews, but I'm pretty decent at voicing my many thoughts and opinions.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Rape, and War
Moderate: Racism, Rape, and Xenophobia
Minor: Fatphobia and Rape
katheady2009's review against another edition
1.0
I really thought this book would be better since the subject was interesting and it won a Pulitzer. But it was a slog, over the top with descriptions and things going on in characters' heads.
ladybrik's review against another edition
4.0
"...only a man of two minds could get this joke, about how a revolution fought for independence and freedom could make those things worth less than nothing."
A powerful read; I look forward to discussing it with my book club next week.
A powerful read; I look forward to discussing it with my book club next week.
willbearsmom's review against another edition
5.0
I’m pretty sure I stopped reading this back in 2019 because my library checkout expired. And it is a difficult book, which makes robably explains why I didn’t check it back out. But I’m very glad I gave it another chance. This is a great book.