The Sympathizer

by Viet Thanh Nguyen

We were not a people who charged into war at the beck and call of bugle or trumpet. No, we fought to the tunes of love songs, for we were the Italians of Asia.

This stood for Government Issue, which is also what the Amerasians are.

It is always better to admire the best among our foes rather than the worst among our friends.

Without bidding, and utterly beyond my control, my maniacal manhood leaped to attention, luring me forward to you, inviting, bewitching, come-hither squid!

What am I dying for? he cried back. I’m dying because this world I’m living in isn’t worth dying for! If something is worth dying for, then you’ve got a reason to live.

Americans on the average do not trust intellectuals, but they are cowed by power and stunned by celebrity.

I cannot be the only one who believes that if others just saw who I really was, then I would be understood and, perhaps, loved. But what would happen if one took off the mask and the other saw one not with love but with horror, disgust, and anger? What if the self that one exposes is as unpleasing to others as the mask, or even worse?

Foreign invaders might kill my body, but only I could kill my spirit.

Death would hurt only for a moment, which was not so bad when one considered how much, and for how long, life hurt.