The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen Discussion/Spoilers

[Barbara]

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen is our next Reading List selection. Though I've seen the author say that the book was turned down by 13 of the 14 publishers to which his agent submitted it, it went on to be a bestseller. It also won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2016 and was a New York Times Editor's Choice.

Viet Thanh Nguyen was born in Viet Nam. When he was 4 years old, after the fall of Saigon, his family fled to the United States. He was separated from them initially, an experience which he said was extremely traumatic and affected him significantly. His family finally settled in San Jose, California. He received his PhD in English from Berkeley. Currently he is an associate professor at UCLA in both the English and the American Studies and Ethnicities Departments. He has a great webpage at https://vietnguyen.info/home. There are lots of interviews with him online, both text and on youtube. My favorite is one with Maxine Hong Kingston who was his former professor. An excerpt of it is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7kM4...

This is the first book I've read that tells the story of Viet Nam and it's wars with France and the U.S. through a Vietnamese point of view. One New York Times Review said that finally we have a Vietnamese voice. Nguyen says this is a fallacy. There have been many explorations of the history and culture of Viet Nam but they are not popularly known in English. I was very taken with the main character's statement that history is usually written by the winner but in the case of the United States war in Viet Nam, the history has been written by the loser. It made me look at every book and movie associated with that war with different eyes.

There is so much to talk about here. It's a complex book. I think a good starting point is the character's introduction of himself. He is a man of two minds, the son of a French Catholic priest and a Vietnamese teenager. He is an aide to a South Vietnamese general and a spy for for the North Vietnamese. He goes through the entire book torn in two directions, secretively following orders from one childhood friend who is working with the North and trying to protect his other childhood friend who is a soldier for the South. Trying to balance these identities felt both physically and emotionally exhausting. What did you think of this framing of the character? Did you think that it was effective? Did you think that Nguyen was able to extend it throughout the narrative?

[Katy]

I haven't finished it yet. But so far I really like it. It is interesting, complex and provocative. His observations on life in Southern California and the contrasts for Vietnamese refugees are perceptive so glad you suggested it.

[Sheila]

I'll probably be a silent watcher of this thread just to see what folks think about it . I read it when it first came out as my choice for one of my in person book group reads and it was their top read that year. I loved it . Hope you do too.

[Gina]

It was extremely complex for me and at times, I was confused. While reading it, I couldn't see a reason for including the movie, but in the end, I got it. Barbara, your comments about the two friends pulling him in different directions was helpful. He tried to protect both of them.

[Ann D]

Barb, I am about half way through and I like it very much. I hope to be finished this weekend. Then I will read the posts and comments.

Thank you for nominating this! It is so original, thought provoking, poignant, and even funny.

[Barbara]

I'm really glad to see that you are reading it, Katy and Ann, and that Sheila and Gina had a good impression of it. I need to give credit for my discovery of this book to my brother, Bruce. Ann, and maybe some other people, will remember him from the very early days of Classics Corner on Prodigy. He has great literary taste so when he recommended it highly, I was interested.

I am really interested in your reaction to Chapter 22 when you get there, Ann and Katy, or if you remember, Sheila and Gina. I was kind of baffled by it. The word "nothing" is key but I am not sure how it applies. I know that the Communists were saying that nothing is more important than peace and freedom but, even though they won the war, their people were getting neither of those -- nothing. But the last chapter has to do with the main character's epiphany as he screamed "nothing!" again and again "...because I was, at last, enlightened."

[Donna]

I’ll just drop in to say that I’m finding the writing so fresh and clever. I’m only a few chapters in and I’m savoring it - although I’m waiting with baited breath for the bad things that I am thinking are coming.

[Ann D]

Barb,
I have finished the book. It's not for everyone, but I loved it. It's tied with Hamnet for my top read of 2021.

There's lots to discuss, but I'll start with your question about chapter 22 and the repetition of "nothing." The narrator was having a mental breakdown, induced by torture and his year long solitary confinement, as well as the ongoing mental turmoil of his years of being a double agent.

In Chapter 22, he is accused of doing "nothing" to help the the female Communist agent, or the Communist intellectual referred to as the "Watchman." When he protested that there was nothing he could have done, the interrogators suggested that he could have sacrificed himself as so many other revolutionaries had done.

I found this statement very confusing: "while nothing is more precious than independence and freedom, nothing is also more precious than independence and freedom! These two slogans are almost the same, but not quite. "

I decided that it depends on where you put the emphasis in the statement. For me, nothing is MORE IMPORTANT than independence and freedom, means that independence and freedom are the pinnacle.

If you put the emphasis on the first word - NOTHING is more important than independence and freedom, it means that the last two have no real meaning.

The revolutionaries have worked to bring about independence and freedom, but it is meaningless, because their internal and external enemies are deprived of these things. Both Man and the narrator have recognized that their fight was worthless. The results amounted to "nothing."

Well, I hope I have not muddied the waters. Remember that the narrator is being totally broken down and his testimony may not be entirely reliable. :-)

[Ann D]

Barb, I just finished watching the YouTube interview of Viet Thanh Nguyen by Maxine Hong Kingston -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7kM4.... You were right. It is very enjoyable. The two both have a great sense of humor.

[Katy]

When I finally finished the book, I sort of thought of it as a guy book, intense action, intrigue, sex, drinking, more action, torture, endurance, and finally nothing resolved. When I began to read, I thought it was interesting, unusual and provocative as well as shocking, brutal and honest.
The corruption he describes on all sides - French, American, and Vietnamese was horrible and it seemed to seep into everything, and continued when they left Vietnam and lived in Los Angeles.
Without commenting on the section involving the filming of the movie about the war, which served to reinforce the brutality, it also
evoked memories of his childhood resulting in self knowledge.
The final section in the prison camp where he was subject to the torture, was hard to read and understand. Sleep deprivation and sensory deprivation were intense and puzzling. The demand for absolute thought control reminded me of Orwell's 1984, and the demand that he come up with the correct answer to the question that was never asked was what? "Nothing" he repeats over and over, which I think, indicates the absence of western ideas.
On a positive note, the writing is superb angry, passionate, bitterly sarcastic, but what did it all mean? It left me thinking that all war is violent, brutal, corrupting and ultimately, futile.

[Ann D]

Katy, you wrote, "It left me thinking that all war is violent, brutal, corrupting and ultimately, futile."

Exactly! That was also my feeling.

Nguyen wanted to show the war from the Vietnamese-American perspective, something that other American novelists had not done. I think he succeeded brilliantly.

I knew something about the history of the war, so not all of this was new to me. In my opinion, the American government was never that interested in the Vietnamese themselves and knew little about their culture. The war was only a tool in the American fight against Communism during the Cold War. Its justification was the domino theory - the belief that if Vietnam fell to the Communists, all of Asia would fall as well. This was not valid. As the war dragged on and on, the most important goal became to wring some sort of "victory" out of this quagmire.

There was some stinging criticism of the United States in the novel. The narrator refers to America as "a democracy destroying another country in order to save it." (p. 79). But no side escapes blame for Vietnam's tragedy. For example, those brutal torture scenes were performed by the CIA, South Vietnamese, and in the end by the Communist victors.

The book doesn't seem to have a real ending. Earlier this year, Nguyen published a sequel which follows Bon and the narrator (will he ever get a name??) to Paris. I will definitely read it. I hope it doesn't have as much brutality, but I expect that the wit and the clever writing will win me over in any case.

[Jane]

Ann D wrote: "Barb,
I have finished the book. It's not for everyone, but I loved it. It's tied with Hamnet for my top read of 2021.

There's lots to discuss, but I'll start with your question about chapter 22 an..."

Ann, I agree with your analysis of Chapter 22. As I read the phrase, "Nothing is more important than independence and freedom" over and over, I got the impression that he was saying that anything is more important than independence and freedom as the communists view it. No one is really independent or free.

I have just started HOPE AGAINST HOPE, our December book, and the description of life in Soviet Russia is so bleak and frightening. It reinforces what is said in THE SYMPATHIZER.

After reading this book, I can understand how most people don't like Americans. (Well. I already knew that.) We see ourselves as great heroes, but what is the cost to the local people?

[Jane]

Ann D wrote: "Barb, I just finished watching the YouTube interview of Viet Thanh Nguyen by Maxine Hong Kingston -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7kM4.... You were right. It is very enjoyable. The two both ha..."

I just watched this also, and it's so interesting to hear her view of Viet Thanh Nguyen as a student. I have had students like that who were "just there" but who later turned out to be wonderful people.

[Ann D]

Yes, as a former teacher, I could relate to the anecdotes about Viet Thanh Nguyen as a student as well :-). I also found it interesting that Kingston, who wrote a blurb for the book, admitted that she had not read the torture scenes.

Nguyen and his wife named their son Ellison, after Black writer Ralph Ellison, who wrote the 1953 National Book Award winner Invisible Man. Does anyone else remember when we read that on Classics Corner or Constant Reader?

[Barbara]

Thanks Ann and Jane, I can see that explanation of "nothing." It was pretty abstract in the telling, I thought, and I wasn't sure that I was getting it right. I did find a question about it in the interview printed at the end of my paperback copy. The interviewer points out that at the beginning of the book, the narrator says that he is nothing, given no name, recognized by his father as nothing. and relates it to the nothing referenced at the end.
As part of his answer, Nguyen refers to Ellison's Invisible Man when the protagonist leaves the failed revolution in the end and says that all that's left to him is to be the individual. Nguyen says that he was with Ellison to that point but disagreed with the conclusion. He goes on to say that "...even an individual who is nothing has a great deal of value in this revolutionary society." Also, he says that there is no resolution to this book because his adventures are not done yet. "He simply reaches one moment of terrible revelation and is then left with an opening which the novel doesn't close in the end." I think we need to read The Committed to find out if there is closure. By the way, my brother highly recommends that one too.

I'm glad others liked the youtube video with Nguyen and Kingston. It put him in a more vulnerable light as her former student and I loved the humor.

One thing that I really liked about the book that I don't think we've talked about yet is Nguyen's portrayal of immigrants to the U.S. It related to all immigrant experiences but I thought he did a particularly good job showing us how it felt to consider yourselves allies of the U.S., then get here and be treated without respect. Both the escape scenes from Viet Nam and that treatment made me think of our recent situation in Afghanistan.

[Barbara]

Ann D wrote: "Yes, as a former teacher, I could relate to the anecdotes about Viet Thanh Nguyen as a student as well :-). I also found it interesting that Kingston, who wrote a blurb for the book, admitted that ..."

Ann, I've never been able to read The Invisible Man for some reason. Each time I start, I get turned off somehow and go to something else. Reading how much it influenced Nguyen, I wondered if I should try again.

[Lyn]

I read this book a couple of years ago for a book club and didn't reread it. My feeling and that of others was that it was difficult to read (violence, cruelty) but they were glad they had done it.

Katy and Ann, agree with your posts. I can especially relate to the last paragraph in Katy's. Think of what wonderful benefits to humanity could have happened if all the resources gone to war were spent in life-affirming ways. (And still, our military is enormous and by far the largest contributor to our debt).

[Ann D]

Barb and Lyn,
I read Ellison's Invisible Man years ago. I had pretty much forgotten it. I remember not really liking it, but finding it interesting. I read the summary on Wikipedia and am surprised that I didn't remember more of it; it's a pretty wild plot.

I had assumed that Nguyen related to it because as a Vietnamese-American he also often felt "invisible." Nguyen has said he has been interested in political protest since college. The narrator in INVISIBLE MAN, who is also unnamed like the one in THE SYMPATHIZER, becomes involved in different Black radical groups and becomes disenchanted. I wonder if that is also something Nguyen related to. I know he continues to feel strongly about the outsize influence of the military-industrial complex on our politics and culture.

[Ann D]

I was also interested in how much his being mixed race effected the narrator. He mentions that Vietnamese call such people "the dust of life" - which is, taken literally, about as insulting as you can get. People could tell he was mixed race just by looking at him and he was looked down upon and bullied for it.

The narrator's only honest and loving relationship was with his mother, who is truly a sympathetic character.

[PattyMacDotComma]

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this. I think I wasn't expecting the humour and what is sometimes just silliness, but I certainly understood his never feeling as if he fit in anywhere.

I do have trouble, though, understanding how someone can live through the kind of humiliation and atrocities of his captivity and come out the other side living what is apparently a normal life. I can't imagine not going nuts.

I have The Committed but haven't read it yet. Here's what I thought of this one.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[PattyMacDotComma]

Ann D wrote: "Barb and Lyn,
I read Ellison's Invisible Man years ago. I had pretty much forgotten it. I remember not really liking it, but finding it interesting. I read the summary on Wikipedia and..."

Hi, Ann - I don't know why the link didn't work, since my account isn't private. Here it is again.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Ann D]

Thanks, Patty. Today I can access it. Maybe it was a computer quirk.

I really enjoyed your review. I like the way you included so many quotations from the book in your review. They really showcase the style and perception of Nguyen's writing.

[Katy]

Patti,
Great review. I too liked the quotes you pulled from the book illustrating its nuance, complexity, and even humor. It also made me think about your question: to justify violence, which comes first war or ideology. Thanks for the link.

[Sheryl]

Hi everyone,

I enjoyed this book -- at least the first 80% -- my ebook was then due at the library and my attempted renewal didn't work. I found the writer's voice fresh and original and honest -- ironic, of course, because the character is a double agent and therefore essentially dishonest in his loyalties. Difficult to read in places, but I appreciate a new look at the Vietnam era.

[Ann D]

Hi, Sheryl. It's nice to see you here. I love library e-books, but I know that frustration when they suddenly disappear from your device - in my case, after 2 weeks!

[Sheila]

Barbara wrote: "......I am really interested in your reaction to Chapter 22 when you get there, Ann and Katy, or if you remember, Sheila and Gina. ..."
Sorry Barb, I don't have a copy to hand to check back what was covered in that chapter

[Sheila]

OK, catching up with more of the thread. Agree with posts 10 and 11 by Katy and Ann

Re Ann's post 8 where she gives the confusing quote
'I found this statement very confusing: "while nothing is more precious than independence and freedom, nothing is also more precious than independence and freedom!" These two slogans are almost the same, but not quite. '

I don't recall finding this confusing. I read it like this. There isn't any thing more precious than independence and freedom - because independence and freedom is/are the most precious thing of all, nothing beats them/it. Period. And I have to say I agree

I also have The Committed to read but have not as yet

And very entertaining video interview!

[Gina]

It might be read another way - While nothing is more precious than INDEPENDENCE AND FREEDOM , (suggesting you devote your life to the battle for independence and freedom), if both sides resort to murder, war and depraved action, then NOTHING is more precious than independence and freedom. Just a thought.

[Barbara]

Important thought, Gina. And, pretty much my inclination after mulling this over. Plus, they didn't really get independence and freedom in the end so they are back to nothing.

[spoko]

The book had already lost me by this point—I'm clearly in the minority here, but I didn't think it was especially well written or thought-provoking. The philosophical tap dancing around "nothing is more precious than independence and freedom" really confirmed my dislike for the book. This kind of writing equates confusion with depth, and since the reader is free to come down on either side (if she bothers to construct a dilemma at all), she just comes away with her priors confirmed, and a sense of accomplishment for having wrestled with an imponderable question.

I thought the whole book was a bit too proud of itself, and there was no better example than this section.

[Sheryl]

Ann D wrote: "Hi, Sheryl. It's nice to see you here. I love library e-books, but I know that frustration when they suddenly disappear from your device - in my case, after 2 weeks!"

Thanks Ann! I had it for 3 weeks (eeek)

[Donna]

I just picked up the book again this week and couldn't put it down until I finished it. For me it revealed so much about the Vietnamese refugee experience in America as well as a look at the Vietnam war from other than an American-centric point of view. I thought the writing was amazingly clever and never seemed forced or overblown. The various dualities that were explored throughout really centered the novel theme-wise. I can't say I fully understood the narrator's re-education at the end and his answer to the question about independence and freedom but I appreciate the thoughts of group members here about that. Anyway, I'm so glad I got to this book. I found it wonderful and devastating and I'll be picking up the sequel.

[Tonya]

Viet Thang Nguyen has an opinion piece in the NYTimes:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/29/op...
in which he argues against book banning and talks a bit about The Sympathizer and several other challenged books. He ends it like a master of the short story, with a nice, unexpected laugh.

[Barbara]

Tonya, that piece is in the Sunday NYTimes today. It's great when important points can be made with such readable writing -- nothing dry about it.

[Ann D]

I really liked that opinion piece too.

[PattyMacDotComma]

I enjoyed the NYTimes article. They let me read it today. Sometimes I'm locked out.

Regarding the "nothing is more precious than independence and freedom", I take it to read the usual way first. The other way to read it is that having nothing is more precious than having independence and freedom.

Having independence and freedom requires exercising a fair bit of personal responsibility and control. If you have nothing, (no responsibilities or obligations) and you have no freedom of choice or movement, you can relax into a peacefully limited existence.

I'd suggest that's part of what appealed to the monks and nuns of old. Just follow the rules and clear your mind. It's probably also the appeal of childhood.

[Barbara]

Interesting comment about "nothing is more precious that independence and freedom", Patty. I've seen that reaction among people who grew accustomed to a dictatorship and then need to learn to cope with a democracy.

[PattyMacDotComma]

Barbara wrote: "Interesting comment about "nothing is more precious that independence and freedom", Patty. I've seen that reaction among people who grew accustomed to a dictatorship and then need to learn to cope ..."

. . . and it's getting harder than ever to cope in democracies.