Nicole answers “I loved the book and thought it taught me...”

Ray asked this question about The Sympathizer (The Sympathizer, #1):

I loved the book and thought it taught me a lot but I was confused and disappointed at the final chapters. The narrator is captured and tortured by his best friend, now the commissar of a POW camp. He is deprived of food, sleep, given sensory deprivation. All of this is done according to the friend "to save him". Eventually, the author is "saved". Why did the author need to add these chapters?

Nicole The struggle I had with the end of the book was how strikingly similar it was to the end of George Orwell's 1984 in that the new regime believed that …moreThe struggle I had with the end of the book was how strikingly similar it was to the end of George Orwell's 1984 in that the new regime believed that everyone must be broken down and reborn, including admitting to things they don't want to admit, before they can be released. Perhaps this is accurate, but it made it very predictable.(less)

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