The Sympathizer

• Author: Viet Thanh Nguyen
• Title The Sympathizer
• Published: 2015
• Genre: tragicomic novel
• Triva: Pulitzer Prize List   winner 2016
• Trivia: #20BooksOfSummer List

 

Conclusion:

1. This book grabs the reader with the first sentence:
   ” I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces.”
2. The theme of being divided into two halves (..two faces)
   was laced throughout the text:
   ‘better to be…
   villain than virtuous extra
   to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven
   loved than hated
   hated than ignored.
3. The narrator’s tragic flaw is in the title:
4. He would be better off if he saw things from one side,
5. but he didn’t. He saw it from both sides
6. ch 14: “you’re too sympathetic, the General said….”
7. Writing was at times very original.
8. — She had a mind like an abacus, the spine of a drill instructor,
9. and a body of a virgin even after five children
10. — Cognac made everything beautiful,
11. …the equivalent of a mother’s kiss for a grown man.
12. Religion is a prominent theme in the book
13. The narrator is the bastard the son of a maid and French priest.
14. Again the ‘two faces’ of the narrator are visible (ch 2).
15. —  “We genuflected, but in actuality we were atheists.
16. The text is riddled with ecclesiastical allusions.
17. — holy men like my father, who had not only holes in
18. his socks but also had a hole somewhere in his soul.
19. — in his cassock, this holy man who sweated in his
20. unnatural garb to save us from our tropical sins.

Last thoughts:

1. This was a very intense.
2. There were times I was captivated by the narrator’s observations.
3. There were times I was bored to death.
4. (movie-making in Thailand and re-education camp).
5. The climax began in chapter 19.
6. It was a difficult read (violence, torture) and did not enjoy it.
7. Nguyen ends the book still trying to answer
8. universal and timeless questions about
9. power, revolution, freedom dreaming of eternal sleep
10. …or dreaming of nothing.
11. This is a unique book by a new voice in America.
12. I hope you take the time to read it
13. …and decide for yourself if it is a winner.