Leisure Reading

Historic Political Fiction

The Sympathizer

by Viet Thanh Nguyen

It is April 1975, and Saigon is in chaos. At his villa, a general of the South Vietnamese army is drinking whiskey and, with the help of his trusted captain, drawing up a list of those who will be given passage aboard the last flights out of the country. The general and his compatriots start a new life in Los Angeles, unaware that one among their number, the captain, is secretly observing and reporting on the group to a higher-up in the Viet Cong.

The Sympathizer is the story of this captain: a man brought up by an absent French father and a poor Vietnamese mother, a man who went to university in America, but returned to Vietnam to fight for the Communist cause. A gripping spy novel, an astute exploration of extreme politics, and a moving love story, The Sympathizer explores a life between two worlds and examines the legacy of the Vietnam War in literature, film, and the wars we fight today.*

Reviewed by Olivia Chin - Scholarly Communications Librarian

I don't tend to read war novels, except that I have always loved Catch-22  by Joseph Heller (I see the irony). It's been one of my favorite books of all time ever since I was in high school. I have re-read Catch-22 more than any other book. The absurdist humor paired with the abject terror and monstrosity of war just grips me. 
 
For me personally, The Sympathizer is a spiritual successor to Catch-22. The Sympathizer is a historical spy novel about having two minds, two identities, and two sets of values that can't work together but must. The narrator, a man of French and Vietnamese descent, works as a double agent between his divided Vietnam, aiding American forces while writing secret letters to his Communist friend and superior. Author Viet Thanh Nguyen set out to critique everyone that was involved in the war in Vietnam: North Vietnam, South Vietnam, the U.S., movies made after the war, etc., and he does an excellent job at looking at a variety of perspectives from the war. 
 
Growing up, I didn't get much of an education about what happened in Vietnam or afterward. As the narrator agonizes over in the book, the media and art about a war may very well live longer than the memory of the actual war itself, and that rang true for me personally. I saw crazy movies about Vietnam before reading about what really happened. It was a relief to read The Sympathizer, even though it is fictional, to better understand the war itself, the various people involved, and the aftermath. 
 
This book has stayed with me for a long time and become one of my all-time favorites. It's brilliantly smart, hilariously absurd at times, and devastatingly sad. Highly recommend; just mind the trigger warnings.  
 
TW: graphic depiction of rape and war violence

You can find this book in the Hodges Library Leisure Reading Collection. Check it out and let us know what you think of the book! Make sure to tag your responses on social media with #utksharedshelf so we can see what you think! 

* Book Description and image provided by Goodreads