The Committed (The Sympathizer #2)

by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Nothing’s more real than nothing. —Rithy Panh with Christophe Bataille, The Elimination: A Survivor of the Khmer Rouge Confronts His Past and the Commandant of the Killing Fields

The father of one of the dead children cried, My God, why are You doing this to us? And it struck us all then, the answer to humanity’s eternal question of Why? It was, and is, simply this: Why not?

Even among the unwanted there were unwanted, and at that some of us could only laugh.

Like most refugees we barely had any material belongings, even if our bags were packed with dreams and fantasies, trauma and pain, sorrow and loss, and, of course, ghosts. Since ghosts were weightless, we could carry an infinite number of them.

I sat on a corner of the couch in the state of humiliation, a region I have visited quite often,

The American Way of Life! Eat too much, work too much, buy too much, read too little, think even less, and die in poverty and insecurity. No, thank you. Don’t you see that’s how the Americans take over the world?

Whoever said the road to Hell was paved with good intentions had gotten it all wrong. If you looked more closely, you could see that the road to Hell was paved with excuses.

I look at me all the time, and because I do not like what I see, I must turn to whiskey, which is so much better at improving one’s eyesight than any pair of glasses.

Seeing these haunting remnants reminded me that I was poorly equipped to deal with death, pain, sorrow, or depression, whether experienced by others or myself. Witnessing the suffering of others left me in a panic, unsure of what gesture to make or what words to offer. It was all I could do just to put my hand on her shoulder, tentatively, and say, I’m sorry.

Those who believe in revolutions are the ones who haven’t lived through one yet.

One can be just about anything and a fool at the same time.

I’m Catholic, I said, opening my door, as if being Catholic explained everything, which it usually did.

If revolutionaries can educate themselves in prisons, why not brothels?

You knew yourself, and you had no desire to continue the cycle of abuse otherwise known as life. Your greatest contribution to the propagation of the human species was not to propagate yourself, even if your mother badly wanted a grandchild.