The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

On Monday, February 6th, the Booked for the Day Book Group met to discuss, The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen.  Here are a few things we discussed during the meeting:

I wanted to start the summary with books you may enjoy if you did like The Sympathizer. These suggestions are from the blog, RA for All.

The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson and The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga [both Fiction]

Like The Sympathizer, these award winning titles all share a strong, first person narration by a protagonist living in the “East” [North Korea and India respectively] who makes morally ambiguous decisions, yet despite his serious flaws still manages to captivate the reader. Contemplations of the true meaning of freedom also appear in all three novels.  Each is a compelling, literary fiction-psychological suspense genre blend where readers learn about a different part of the world from a new, honest, and often unsettling, point of view.

Beloved by Toni Morrison

In interviews, Nguyen has mentioned how reading this novel opened his eyes to how a hyphenate American can tell a story that is both beautiful and brutally honest about the experience of “the other” in America while still honoring and respecting the others place as an American. Nguyen has also cited Morrison’s comments that she writes for African American readers first and foremost as permission for him to write directly to a Vietnamese audience as an American writer. After reading The Sympathizer, despite their surface differences, the similarities between the underlying message of these novels is striking.

Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon series beginning with The Kill Artist

If you liked the introspective spy protagonist in The Sympathizer but wished the story had more action, then this series is perfect for you. From NoveList’s series description, “Balancing action-packed thrills with nuanced portraits of volatile Middle-Eastern politics, these gripping spy thrillers follow a tough yet introspective Mossad agent-cum-art restorer as he unravels intricate international plots, leads his team on violent missions, and reflects on haunting traumas in his personal life as well as in Israeli history.”

We had a nice turnout for the discussion but only four members finished the book. Everyone else started the book but had no desire to finish. Out of the four members who finished, some had concerns as to who they would recommend the book to. But the four who read the book were glad they read but unfortunately they did not enjoy reading it.

• Most of the group thought the book was beautifully written with many wonderful phrases. One of our members read one of her favorites to the group.
• The entire book is the narrator's confession to the commandant written in a prison cell under extreme conditions. It is evident that he is riddled with guilt, hallucinating and unsure of what he believes in (the only thing that matters is nothing). So it was no surprise that one member said it was “both repetitive and demonic.”
• One of our members had an article about Viet Thanh Nguyen new book, Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War. None of the group thought that they would be reading it.
• One of the points that everyone could agree on was that Sympathizer gives the Vietnamese a voice. Until now, it has been largely a one-sided discussion where we've heard about the Vietnam War mostly from the point of view of American soldiers, politicians and journalists.

These are just a few things mentioned during the discussion. Please feel free to add any of your thoughts in the comment section.