Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Winner of the 2016 Edgar Award for Best First Novel Winner of the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction “[A] remarkable debut novel . . . [Nguyen] brings a distinctive perspective to the war and its aftermath. His book fills a void in the literature, giving voice to the previously voiceless . . . The nameless … previously voiceless . . . The nameless protagonist-narrator, a memorable character despite his anonymity, is an Americanized Vietnamese with a divided heart and mind. Nguyen’s skill in portraying this sort of ambivalent personality compares favorably with masters like Conrad, Greene, and le Carré. . . . Both thriller and social satire. . . . In its final chapters, The Sympathizer becomes an absurdist tour de force that might have been written by a Kafka or Genet.”—Philip Caputo, New York Times Book Review (cover review)
The winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as seven other awards, The Sympathizer is the breakthrough novel of the year. With the pace and suspense of a thriller and prose that has been compared to Graham Greene and Saul Bellow, The Sympathizer is a sweeping epic of love and betrayal. The narrator, a communist double agent, is a “man of two minds,” a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain who arranges to come to America after the Fall of Saigon, and while building a new life with other Vietnamese refugees in Los Angeles is secretly reporting back to his communist superiors in Vietnam. The Sympathizer is a blistering exploration of identity and America, a gripping espionage novel, and a powerful story of love and friendship.
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Viet Thanh Nguyen’s “The Sympathizer” is a unique examination of the Vietnam War and its aftermath from a perspective not often encountered in American literature or cinema. “Examination” carries connotations that are too dry for the language and pace of this novel. Nguyen packs ironic and satiric observations in well-crafted images and metaphors throughout this story of a Vietnamese double agent who finds himself of two minds as he is swept along by the events of his life and the various parties claiming his loyalties. He credits this duality in part to his biology – half French and half Vietnamese. He is raised in the Roman Catholic religion of his father, but drawn to the revolutionary ideas of communism. He is educated in the United States and returns to his native land to work for the South Vietnamese secret police under the tutelage of an American, meanwhile providing information to his communist handler and one of his best friends from boyhood.
While the main storyline follows the sympathizer’s journey through the fall of Saigon and his experiences as a refugee in the United States (still acting as an operative for the communists, reporting on his general’s efforts to return), the novel is loaded with commentary on how Americans perceive the Vietnamese and their interpretations of the war, as well as how Vietnamese perceive each other. One of the centerpieces of the novel is when the narrator acts as a consultant for a film about the war and his conflicts with the director about how Vietnamese are portrayed.
It is also the story of three boyhood friends who grow up in a nation at war, their different reactions to it, and the test of their bond.
Anyone interested in this period of history should read this book.
The emotional charge of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s extraordinary debut novel The Sympathizer will keep your heart pounding and your blood chilled. Tim O’Brien’s story collection The Things They Carried still stands as the landmark for examining the American soldier’s perspective on the Vietnam War, but Nguyen now owns the patent for his haunting insights and revelations of the Vietnamese experience from both sides of the conflict. In this case, the unnamed narrator is, indeed, the sympathizer, a Viet Cong spy with the self-proclaimed “talent” to understand all aspects of his country’s complexity and demise. Starting with his escape on one of the last flights out of Saigon to his exile in the United States, the narrator’s story leads from one spellbinding adventure to another. Using an array of lenses, the narrator puts the politics, machinations, and history of the unmerciful war under intense scrutiny, and he gives the Vietnamese people their much-needed voice of identity and a deserved sense of nationality as he examines their unwavering strength and sacrifice. The narrator’s blistering honesty and keen intelligence combines sorrow and compassion with dark humor to deliver a sometimes shocking and an altogether breathtaking tale of tragedy and survival. Making the book all the more remarkable is Nguyen’s electric prose. His language has a lush and scintillating quality that makes for an unforgettable reading experience. Having won the Pulitzer, The Sympathizer now has its immortality, but it’s not an exaggeration to call it a masterpiece and an instant classic.
Still reading the book. This book has a little bit of everything: humor, suspense, great writing, interesting situations, crime, intelligent, everything.
This books underlying theme is how war can change people in the worst way. The language and writing is wonderful, but there are some very graphic parts that are difficult to read.
This guy can really write. He gives us a rare and unusual look at the end of the American involvement in Vietnam.
“I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces…I am not some misunderstood mutant from a comic book or a horror movie, although some have treated me as such. I am simply able to see any issue from both sides.” So begins the written confession of our unnamed narrator to the Commandant of the prison camp where he is being held following the fall of Saigon. Perhaps in the context of the prison, there are only two sides to the issue of the war. In the larger context of the book, there are many more. The perspectives of the South Vietnamese army, American GIs, the embassy and diplomatic staff, a CIA operative, North Vietnamese Communists, Vietnamese immigrants in the US and others – including a movie director who is making a film about the war – are all represented in this (fictional) depiction of the history and politics of the American conflict in Vietnam. Shifting in time from between the past and the present and told from the (sometimes delirious) narrator’s point of view, the prose has a dreamlike quality that lends itself well to the retelling of this painful part of American history. This beautifully written book is a ‘must read.’
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize winning story The Sympathizer is a haunting tale of espionage at the end of the Vietnam War. The unnamed narrator of the story is a communist double agent and refugee of the war, sent to America with the General he was sent to spy on. As the story unfolds we realize the narrator is a captured man, giving his confession and detailing his time in America and the Philippines. The story touches on many themes but centers around the narrator’s duality. He is half Vietnamese, half French, working as a Viet Cong spy undercover as a south Vietnamese spy. He has become a Vietnamese American not fully feeling that he belongs in American or Vietnamese society. He is a conflicted man of two minds struggling to understand his own political beliefs and his place in two worlds.
This was at times a tough read for me. I have a very good friend who is the son of a former south Vietnamese Navy Commander that was one of the last evacuated from the war. The scenes of the narrator’s evacuation are very similar to what my friend has shared with me of his own experience. I can only imagine what it must feel like to come to a country as a refugee and not feeling as if you fit in any where. I have to admit that at times the spying scenes and political rhetoric were not as exciting for me, but it is a very good look at an often overlooked perspective of the impact of the Vietnam War.
I’m not sure where to begin a discussion of this book. It is a beautifully written story, but not really my “cup of tea”. So my personal opinion aside, I can definitely acknowledge the strengths of this author’s writing. At one point in the story the main character talks about how revered poets and poetry were in his home country of Vietnam, and to me the writing had a poetic flavor to it in many places. I will also say that I am very glad I had the e-book version of this book because I used the dictionary feature A LOT! This book challenged my vocabulary – there were pages where I had to look up multiple words, so that kind of slowed my usual reading pace. But learning new words and challenging the brain are good sometimes!
The story centers around the main character as he tells of his life as a spy during and after the Vietnam War. There were times that I found it hard to follow and to keep straight with which side he aligned himself. I think if I were more knowledgeable about the Vietnam War prior to reading the book, it might have helped. Even during the escape to the US after the war and when he returned to Vietnam years later, there were scenes that were difficult to read (due to the content) and hard to understand the justification of the events by the characters. I found the ending a little hard to follow as well because the author had the main character begin speaking of himself in plural terms – this being the result of certain events.
I would not recommend this book to just anyone to read. I think if you are into award winning books, enjoy war stories, or have an interest in or knowledge about the Vietnam War, then you would appreciate this book.