Jenny (Reading Envy)'s Reviews > The Sympathizer

I read this book for many reasons - Pulitzer winner, and a book club pick for my in-person group. We discussed it last night, and I wanted to wait to weigh in until that discussion, but also until I had finished reading the author's non-fiction book Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (on the long list for the National Book Award as we speak.)

When you read the two books back to back, it is easy to see how the eleven years of research that went into the non-fiction academic treatment of a book on war and memory also provided the natural breeding grounds for a biting novel about the Vietnam War. Or, should I clarify, the war we refer to as the Vietnam War, or even more often, just "Vietnam." And I need to clarify because Nguyen is writing this novel from the Vietnamese perspective, not necessarily catering to what white Americans want to hear. The author claims status as a forever refugee, a product of war, his entire life trajectory a result of having to leave his home as a child. (A curious person can learn even more about the author's perspective in this illuminating interview.)

In case it sounds like I am saying this is a didactic novel, I would beg to differ. The different point of view is very effective, but also necessary. Why are we only seeing the story of a war in a country not our own through the lens of war movies we make? (If this topic interests you, definitely read his non-fiction work.) But the entire novel is also slowly revealed as a confession, written by a central unnamed character (I'm guessing his name is Viet) during his time in a Reeducation camp. These camps were real things, and the last 100 pages are a brutal account of psychological and physical torture and brainwashing.

So there is the point of view (powerful), the approach (confession), but the greatest element of the novel for me is the writing. Nguyen plays with the English language in a way I haven't seen. I don't think he would claim his background as the reason because he has been in the United States for most of his life, in fact is an English professor, among other duties. But I was constantly amused/surprised by his use of words, taking a word like perineum that is almost inclusively a body part and using it to refer to a time of day that is hidden from view, gross, and better slept through:

"...We followed our usual routine and drank with joyless discipline until we both passed out. I woke up in the perineum of time between the very late hours of the evening and the very early hours of the morning, grotty sponge in my mouth..."

That is an example of me stopping, putting the book aside, looking up the word, asking, "Do we use that word that way?", finding we don't, but deciding we should because obviously it works. It is this clever crafting of words that kept me reading, more than the events, more than the unnamed agent antics of the central character ("a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces....")

I really love the last three pages, but I will leave those for the reader to mull over.