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The Idle Book Club 17: The Sympathizer

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The Idle Book Club 17:

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The Sympathizer

This month, Sarah and Chris discuss Viet Thanh Nguyen's ambitious and bleakly comic debut novel, The Sympathizer. The story of a Vietnamese communist sympathizer among his fellow refugees in the United States, the book is a scorching examination of inside and outside perspectives on the Vietnam War and its reverberations.

Next month: Runaway by Alice Munro!

Discussed: The Sympathizer, Tears of My Soul

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Just finished this. I think I'm going to need some time to assimilate this. First thought: what an amazing ride.

I especially loved how the narrator managed to sneak a mention of how big his dick is into his autobiography.

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Short review also posted on goodreads. I really liked this one. I also liked how the racism was so much more overt and well-handled here than in Everything you never told me.

A dark, depressing and funny book. I'm sure it's not as powerful to me as it would be to someone with more emotional investment in the Vietnam war (I'm too young for that). But the universal themes of revolution, war, betrayal and the inevitable transformation from revolutionaries into tyrants ring true regardless, and the theme of torture is sadly more relevant now than ever.

The sly way in which the narrator portrays himself actually made me sympathise with the commandant slightly because it's clear he's spinning things (culminating in a reference to the impressive size of the author's genitals). Still, he's an extremely entertaining writer.

The book highlighted a people and an experience I never thought much about (the Vietnamese refugees in the US) while showing and deconstructing all the problems with a two-party and two-side system clearly. All this while serving as a great mirror and lampoon of American exceptionalism and casual racism. Wonderful.

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Not sure why this won the Pulitzer, outside of an enjoyable narrator's voice and being about an Important Subject. The plotting is a mess, the commentary pretty one-note, and the book as a whole seems to run on auto-pilot for the whole midsection. That said, the voice IS striking until it wears thin, and the end section was a refreshing change once it finally arrived. Nguyen allows himself to get more daringly-subjective with the prose, and despite the risks, I think he pulls it off nicely. And the book as a whole feels sort of like a novelization of Said's writing on Orientalism, but way more enjoyable!

 

 

The whole book is a quick enough read, but squandered opportunities throughout. I feel kinda like a broken record, but this really does have many of the same debut-novel problems as the other stuff we've been reading recently. The steady hand of Munro will be a lovely change of pace. :)

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I first expected and later desperately tried to like this book, but ended up sorely disappointed. My expectations did not stem from the fact that the person in the front cover was Mickey Moused with Pulitzer and Andrew Carnegie Medals or the seven (!) pages of praise at the beginning of the book, but the interesting premise and point-of-view. What eventually made this book a bitter disappointment for me, though, was the writing and the plot.

 

At first I thought that my issues with the style of The Sympathizer were a result having finished James Ellroy's ultra terse American Tabloid just before staring this book, but after 200 pages I was ready to accept that the writing and the narrator's tone were simply doing nothing for me. At least nothing good. I often found the author (giving him the benefit of the doubt here) narrator to be too clever for his own good, with many of the witticisms falling flat and some being downright gross, e.g.

when the narrator took the time to remark on his countrymen's inability to grasp the concept of queuing while describing a gang rape scene while being tortured himself. Consider what kind of effort that must have required.

By the time I got to the paragraphs singing praises to feet (one of which was prodding him), my eyes were rolling violently.

 

Well, at least the book made me appreciate Raymond Chandler's art of wisecracking even more.

 

The plot was huge disappointment as well considering how interesting the premise was. Many of the major plot points felt unconvincing, e.g. the way the fate of the major and Sonny was sealed and how the right-hand man of the general was just sent back to Vietnam with handful of soldiers, and I couldn't help but feel that the author had a clear idea where he wanted to take the story (e.g. guilt, capture, and "re-education") but little idea how best to take it there. The story was stuck in a mud for pretty much the whole middle section of the novel, and the one time it temporarily got unstuck, it accelerated so far off-course that it was ridiculous. I appreciate a good criticism of Apocalypse Now and the depiction of Vietnam war in western entertainment, but not if it is integrated in the story this poorly. In general, I feel that I would have much preferred reading a collection of essays and short stories by the author, instead of novel where everything is squeezed together artificially.

 

It wasn't all bad, though. I liked the perspective and there were some genuinely interesting insights along the way. The ending was quite good, and definitely made feel more positive about the novel as a whole, and somewhat hopeful about any upcoming novels by the author.

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I really liked the book. During the episode someone mentioned that the author talked a bit about Apocalypse Now somewhere. Does someone have a link to it or was it just from his appearance on Fresh Air, which it sounds like I should listen to.

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Forgot to note that the episode is up and the original thread post has been updated!

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As was I am about to type this I heard an ad for a book on audible called 'Without you these is not us' about a woman's experience teaching in a college in North Korea which reminded me the idea that the general and the sympathiser are not Vietnamese but anti-american.

 

My recommendation for simile that was so clever is was distracting was him saying something a beating like the LA police give.

 

The novel does seem like Nyguen taking ideas that could work as essays and building a novel round them but I liked the style/voice. I didn't even register the hap hazard nature of the plot cause I like the rest of it but it's something I'll keep in mind when reading other debut novels.

 

Having just read a book about the battle of Dien Bien Phu I liked the detail of the General having fought there and spending two years in a POW camp after it.

 

I thought Sonny and the Major being killed with so little basis made sense cause people  who fit a 'profile' were killed with just the right person saying they are an enemy spy/ agent. 

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I hope it's not out of line to ask some questions despite not having read the book. I only listen to episodes of this podcast for books I already know I don't want to read. :P Also I don't know how to use the spoilers code here, sorry, spoilers below:

 

I'm confused a little about the comments about the white male perspective and how this is supposedly different. After learning that the gang rape of a woman is a major plot point here, I wonder if this book has really taken any different approach to the male perspective at all? It sounds like a very violent rape and also the cinematic depiction of a rape are being used as symbolic metaphors, only ever considered from an unaffected male perspective, and is only being used to further the characterization of the narrator or symbolize the relations between these two countries. It sounds like this novel is very explicitly in a strictly male perspective, and if that's the case I'd argue the comment of the matter of rape being handled "as well as it could be" is at least debatable? 

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Chris and I saw Nguyen speak last night in SF and got our copy of the Sympathizer signed. It was an amazing talk where Nguyen was brutally honest about the way (white) America deals with refugees in the present and the past. He also mentioned that the Sympathizer will be getting a sequel and hopefully be adapted into a movie or a TV show.

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