Having had “The Sympathizer” on my “to read” list for a couple of years already, I decided that it was the right timing to start reading it while traveling in Vietnam. If you intend on picking it up too, my first suggestion would be to have at least a basic understanding of Vietnamese history, how the French, the Americans and the Communists had an influence on the nation. I had to catch up on that myself since I couldn’t get into the book without it at all.

What was it like to live in a time when one’s fate was not war, when one was not led by the craven and the corrupt, when one’s country was not a basket case kept alive only through the intravenous drip of American aid.

p. 21

I think this book was an interesting example of presenting a main character who is despicable, sexist, who has dubious morals and inviting the reader to evaluate the entirety of this text without getting influenced by moral judgements. Not a single character evoked sympathy within me and I probably wouldn’t have finished the book if I wouldn’t have forced myself to. This is a very personal and subjective opinion but I just didn’t really like it. I stopped reading it after 20 pages for the first time and only got through it after a second attempt. The moment I had to start writing out character maps in order to understand who was who, was when I lost my patience (this also happened another time later on in the book). That’s why I’d settle on a rating of 2/5 ★. It wasn’t absolutely horrible, I didn’t really enjoy reading it though and I wouldn’t suggest it to anyone else.

As the plot summary says it, “The Sympathizer” is set in the end of the Vietnam war, following the steps of an undercover agent. The ending (so pretty much the last 20 out of a total of 500 pages) was the only thing that managed to wrap up the whole story and give a deeper meaning to it for me. Maybe I wasn’t in the right headspace while reading it, so once again, the perception was very personal. Living through the reality of the war still going on in Ukraine, some topics that were touched upon were just too raw for me, connected with recent, close to home and close to my heart events. You need to be ready for this kind of story, it’s the exact opposite of a feel-good book and it did end up dragging me down. There are a ton of trigger warnings you would need to be aware of in case that you would like to read it yourself: violence, rape, pedophilia, torture, war topics etc. It’s written with extremely cruel, brutal and vivid details which are difficult to digest.

Where’s the foot? said the dark marine. I think it was just blown away, said the philosophical medic. Bits of pink flesh and skin and tissue hung on the ferns, already crawling with ants.

p. 393

Taken more generally, the author presents the juxtapositions of the East and the West, the differences between cultures, educational models and relations between various types of people. It shows the worst of human behaviour and humanity, while you find yourself within the monologue of the main character, sounding like a sociopath, who managed to find the meaning of his life in a sect-like ideology (whereas you understand with time how he got to be that way). Once you get through about half of the book, it does start to flow better. Most importantly it paints a harrowing picture of a nation that has been tormented by so much violence.

Military amputees flapped empty sleeves like flightless birds, mute elderly beggars fixed cobra eyes on you, street urchins told tales taller than themselves about their pitiable conditions, young widows rocked colicky babies whom they might have rented, and assorted cripples displayed every imaginable, unappetising illness known to man.

p. 34

I can see this book being appealing to those who are more cold blooded, who aren’t afraid of grotesque storylines and who are interested in a different kind of view onto the history of Vietnam through the eyes of an individual, told in a very unusual way.

★★☆☆☆ (2/5)

_{Edition: ISBN 978-1-4721-5136-0
Corsair, 2016 (Originally published in 2015)}