The Sympathizer

Author: Viet Thanh Nguyen

Viet Thanh Nguyen was awarded the Pulitzer prize for fiction in 2016 and has picked up numerous other awards along the way.  I recently made a trip to North and South Vietnam and fell in love with the country, its people and it’s food. One of our guides in Saigon provided us a window into how the local people viewed the war and I was struck by how they still loved America and Americans. This book is a perfect double-click into pre and post Vietnam War times and Mr. Nguyen is one of the best tour guides you will find. He is the Chair of the English Department and a Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California and you can tell from the writing that he is an accomplished master of prose. 

Mr. Nguyen’s metaphors really bring out the message he is trying to convey and there was many a time when I read and re-read a passage to appreciate the depth of meaning. When he is describing the protagonist being kicked by a prison guard in North Vietnam, he makes profound observations of the foot that is kicking him. "Foot, where would we, humanity, be without you? You delivered us from Africa to the rest of the world, and yet so little is said about you". There's several more lines like this, but I am sure you get the idea already. There are many other quotes that are so descriptive of war-torn Vietnam and the one that is universally true is "All of us who are living are dying. The only ones not dying are the dead”. 

The book opens with a Vietnamese general and his near and dear ones fleeing Saigon, but then continues with the first generation Vietnamese immigrants in Southern California. This is where Mr. Nguyen is the most authentic since he is the child of refugees from Vietnam and grew up in San Jose, California. He reflects on how many of the immigrants in the United States are a result of wars waged or abetted by the United States in their original countries. The immigrants from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia are clearly due to the Vietnam War. But I didn’t realize that the Filipinos got here as a result of the Phillipine-American war, and the Koreans are a result of the War between the North and South Korea. 

While the themes are serious the book is very well written with sprinklings of dark comedy thrown in for entertainment. You will learn about the finer points and differences between North and South Vietnam and contrast that with Americans view of the Vietnamese people.