A Review of “The Sympathizer” by Viet Thanh Nguyen
A spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. That’s what the Captain calls himself: a eurasian man who occupies the liminal, peripheral space between the east and the west. ‘Bui Do' – the dust of the earth. That’s what his schoolyard bullies in Saigon call him: the bastardized debris left behind after the French colonizers came, saw, and conquered Vietnam. Renamed streets and abandoned children are not the only things they left behind however, for their splitting of the country into three parts would lay the groundwork for the Vietnam War (or depending on your perspective) the American War.
It is this explicit awareness of the multiplicity of perspectives, a conscious occupation of “two minds”, and the setting of just shortly before the Fall of Saigon that abbreviates our introduction to the unnamed narrator, a secret communist agent embedded at the highest ranks of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam raging against the North. What follows is a fast-paced, exciting read– part espionage thriller, part historical literary fiction, part dark satire – that reads as both criticism and exposure of the failure of American involvement in Vietnam. In a wry, self-confessional narrative voice, we are strung along across the Pacific to Los Angeles, where the Captain attempts to build a new life alongside his other Vietnamese refugees while secretly reporting back to his communist superiors in Vietnam. We are strung along with the narrator as he grapples with insecurity and alienation in this new land. Within his minds-eye, we bear witness to a story of love, betrayal, and heartbreak as the Captain confronts the juxtaposition of his fractured self: a Vietnamese foreign to his own land, a communist who thinks and acts like a Bourgeois Elite, a raised Catholic who finds no shame in sex and liquor. Along the way, Nguyen explores the heartbreaking destiny of immigrants who learn the sham of the American Dream, who are resigned to menial labour and cruel judgement from the masters of a country that will remain foreign to them, now and forever.
Nguyen’s novel is nothing short of extraordinary. Rarely do we find novels that meld history and fiction so seamlessly; rarer still are novels that force readers to upend their own preconceived notions of a war that has long ended, yet whose effects remain prevalent and lasting. A fascinating addition into the literary canon of a war that has horrified and endured in the minds of so many.
4.7/5
