Just Finished Reading: The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (FP: 2015) [495pp]

Always an outsider. Always. He didn’t even question it any more, it was who he was. But knowing who he was and what he was turned out to be a kind of power. Once he accepted his position, his fate, he was free. Maybe he was even home no matter how far he travelled. It started the very day he was born a bastard – the product of lust between a western priest and a Vietnamese villager. As a bastard and a mixed blood he would never be accepted except by the mother who bore him. But he was smart and learnt quickly – both the ways and the words of the west and the truth of the coming Communist Revolution. He was an ideal infiltrator into the security apparatus of South Vietnam one able to mimic the South’s love of all things modern and American. He even fooled the fabled CIA into employing him. He was also ideal to leave his country on the Fall of Saigon and flee to the west as a refugee. There, embedded within the last remnants of South Vietnam’s power structure, he could observe and report on their plans for a triumphal return to power. Always on the outside, always looking in. Outside his country, outside his patriotic duty to the South, outside his belief in the Communist Party and outside his blood bond friendship. Always outside.

I remember watching the Vietnam War on the nightly news broadcasts and distinctly remember the last days of Saigon and the rushed helicopter flights onto waiting, and sometimes fleeing, ships beyond the shores of that embattled country. I hadn’t really considered what happened afterwards to the many native Vietnamese and children of American soldiers who fled when the regime in the South fell in April 1975. Here we are presented with several examples of how people survived in the new world of America through the eyes of someone who was all too aware of what had happened and what was to come. Unsurprisingly, given the amount of awards this book either won or was nominated for, this is a very well written work. The sense of isolation is as palpable as the oppressive atmosphere of Saigon in the summer time without the relief of monsoon rain. The dramatic escape from Saigon was adrenaline pumping stuff and full of tragedy as well as hope. Everything felt very real including the almost overwhelming feeling of loss as the narrator and his ex-General started to come to terms with their situation. Our sympathies were definitely fully engaged with his plight and those of his blood brother who had literally lost everything. Yet….. Although I found the first few hundred pages both affective and interesting my overall appreciation began to wane. I think a large part of the problem was that, apart from the narrator, almost none of the characters were particularly likable. The General and his wife were arrogant dreamers who I actively disliked and their rebellious daughter wasn’t much better. The Vietnamese reporter was likable enough but had too small and too short a role to play. Despite the strength of the main character his presence wasn’t enough, in my mind, to hang the entire narrative on. The plot, once they left South Vietnam, I thought wandered semi-aimlessly with the plotting of the Southern regime’s return (honestly barely touched upon) and a side plot as the narrator ‘assisted’ a movie director with his Vietnam War movie with added ‘authenticity’. Again interesting enough but I did wonder more than once, apart from causing the narrator to look back on his own reality in contrast to the US fictionalised version of the war, what the point was. I think what I’m trying to say is that I just couldn’t ‘connect’ with the book except on the more superficial ‘interesting and well written’ level. It engaged my intellect but only occasionally did it engage my emotions.

Rather oddly one of the reviews on the front of my copy said that the book was ‘tremendously funny’. That’s certainly not the tone I took from it! The book was, in many places, anything but funny (the hilarious squid episode aside!!). Apart from the combat, death, guilt, grief, torture and two rapes (one real during an interrogation and one simulated in the movie) there was little space I think for humour – at least in my reading! Although I can kind of see why it won so many awards I can’t say that I enjoyed it as much as other books I’ve read this year. It’s certainly worth a read, I give it that, but it won’t be in my ‘must read’ list for 2021.

Awards:

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  

Winner of the 2015 Centre for Fiction First Novel Prize

International IMPAC Dublin Literary Awards Best Book (nominee)        

PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction Best Book (Finalist)