454. The Sympathizer
Rating: ☆☆☆1/2
Recommended by: Valerie Flores
Author: Viet Thanh Nguyen
Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Foreign
371 pages, published April 7, 2015
Reading Format: Book
Summary
Set as the flashback in a coerced confession of a political prisoner, The Sympathizer tells the story of his escape from South Vietnam in the mid-70’s to his life in Los Angeles. Unnamed, the narrator is the illegitimate child of a French father and a poor Vietnamese mother who, as an adult in exile becomes an undercover communist agent, reporting back to the Viet Cong. The book tells the story of a life lived between two worlds and examines the legacy of the Vietnam War.
Quotes
“Nothing is ever so expensive as what is offered for free.”
“We don’t succeed or fail because of fortune or luck. We succeed because we understand the way the world works and what we have to do. We fail because others understand this better than we do.”
“While it is better to be loved than hated, it is also far better to be hated than ignored.”
“Americans on the average do not trust intellectuals, but they are cowed by power and stunned by celebrity.”
“It is always better to admire the best among our foes rather than the worst among our friends.”
“Now a guarantee of happiness—that’s a great deal. But a guarantee to be allowed to pursue the jackpot of happiness? Merely an opportunity to buy a lottery ticket. Someone would surely win millions, but millions would surely pay for it.”
“Besides my conscience, my liver was the most abused part of my body.”
“I had an abiding respect for the professionalism of career prostitutes, who wore their dishonesty more openly than lawyers, both of whom bill by the hour.”
“She cursed me at such length and with such inventiveness I had to check both my watch and my dictionary.”
“Death would hurt only for a moment, which was not so bad when one considered how much, and for how long, life hurt.”
“Americans are a confused people because they can’t admit this contradiction. They believe in a universe of divine justice where the human race is guilty of sin, but they also believe in a secular justice where human beings are presumed innocent.”
“Our country itself was cursed, bastardized, partitioned into north and south, and if it could be said of us that we chose division and death in our uncivil war, that was also only partially true. We had not chosen to be debased by the French, to be divided by them into an unholy trinity of north, center, and south, and to be turned over to the great powers of capitalism and communism for a further bisection, then given roles as the clashing armies of a Cold War chess match played in air-conditioned rooms by white men wearing suits and lies.”
“Remember that the best medical treatment is a sense of relativism. No matter how badly you might feel, take comfort in knowing theres’s someone who feels much worse.”
“The only problem with not talking to oneself was that oneself was the most fascinating conversational partner one could imagine. Nobody had more patience in listening to one than oneself, and while nobody knew one better than oneself, nobody misunderstood one more than oneself.”
My Take
Winner of the Pulitizer Prize and many other awards, The Sympathizer is a heavily acclaimed book. While I often find there is an inverse correlation between the amount of honors and reading enjoyment, I did enjoy this book, which is equal parts amusing, horrific, informative and entertaining. It also provides a unique perspective on the aftermath of the war in Vietnam, both in that country and ours.
