Good Books!
The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, had been recommended to me by my daughter in September. Although she had not yet read it, she was getting good buzz from her millennial friends who found it helpful in better understanding the Vietnam War era. Present day, “Make America Great Again” bloviating consciously ignores this period in our history - often referred to as the preeminent example of failed American foreign policy. Well, I just finished the book while on vacation and can now vouch for it…with some reservations. The book opens with our unnamed narrator, Captain, recalling events just preceding the fall of Saigon during an interrogation. He is an attache for a South Vietnamese General and has been tasked with making the final list of who will be air-lifted out of the city. Captain, however, is a Communist sympathizer; he is a double agent, a mole, a traitor. He is also the bastard son of a poor Vietnamese woman and a French Catholic priest, educated in American living in Vietnam, an outsider but able to see both sides, thus, the sympathizer. In a nutshell, the story arc details the narrator's relocation to Los Angeles, his advisory role in the production of a movie loosely based on Apocalypse Now, aiding the General’s reformation of an expat army to return to Vietnam to battle for control of the country pillaged by the French and Americans, and as a prisoner of war. In between, there are flashbacks, love scenes and numerous quotable passages that flesh out the story. From one page to the next, both poignancy and snarky humor are omnipresent in this dark, dark comedy and the fact that the eminently flawed protagonist, Captain, is as likable as he is, is a testament to Nguyen’s skill as a writer. Critically speaking, the book was too long and if I’m being completely truthful, the Vietnam era had never been a subject of great appeal to me personally. The Broadway production of Miss Saigon (starring the incomparable Lea Salonga in 1991) and the above-mentioned movie Apocalypse Now, probably provided more historical background than anything I remember learning in school. This book provided an interesting view of that period, through an unlikely sympathetic character of a murderous Communist double-agent.
