Reported By:
| Edited By: DNA Sunday Team |Source: DNA |Updated: Dec 05, 2017, 02:02 PM IST
A sympathizer supports the ideology of the side he associates with, agreeing with their beliefs and railing against their opponents. In Vient Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning look at the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the sympathiser is actually a subversive, a mole who pretends to sympathise with the southern forces while spying and collaborating with the north.
This is not a spoiler: the narrator, referred to only as Captain, candidly admits this in the first words of the book. Related as a flashback – though it is not clear why – the narrative begins during the last days of the Vietnam War. Captain, a member of the secret police and thus close to the echelons of power, flees the country with a select group of people. These include his boss, a general, and one of his two closest friends, Bon. The third of the trio, Man, also a mole, remains behind to help the invading northern forces.
They arrive in America as refugees but because they were on the side ‘aided’ by the Americans, they are granted residency and set up for a new life. The description of life as refugees is both fascinating and poignant. Having escaped death, one assumes, indeed expects, them to be grateful for whatever they get, along with “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. However these men – once entitled members of the establishment – now eke out nondescript livelihoods as waiters, gardeners, delivery men, small shop owners. The nuanced description of their lives drives home their daily emasculation and humiliation, and powerfully personalises the present-day ‘issue’ of refugees the world is struggling with.
It also goes to explain the difficulty refugees face in settling into their adopted country, and the constant yearning for ‘home’, often when that version of home no longer exists. Even if suppressed during waking hours, the smells, sounds and sights of home invade their dreams. Everyone longs for recognition and respect, something a refugee finds hard to come by.
Written in a sardonic tone, especially when referring to the politics of war, this debut novel is a self-deprecating, wry tale of one who never fits in, who hides in plain sight, who must always wear a mask, and can never be himself. The protagonist’s harsh sense of humour targets first his own existence as an illegitimate ‘half-breed’, and then engulfs everything around him, from his countrymen to his country, from the idealism of war to the savagery of it. Nothing is spared: not communism, not the slogans, not the US, not even his own life.
Among the only thing that continues into adulthood with the same fervor is a childhood pact of friendship, solemnised in the traditional method of hand cutting and combining the flowing blood in handshakes. So much so that when, in the opening pages, Captain prepares to flee Vietnam, the only person he wants to take with him is Bon, one-third of the pact. The third partner is Man, who stays behind to keep him in touch with their bosses in the north. During their years in America, Captain remains in constant touch with Man, faithfully reporting and following instructions. When the general plans an insurrection into Vietnam with a band of rag-tag ‘revolutionaries’ to fight the communists, Bon volunteers. In honour of that childhood pact, Captain goes along to protect him, despite Man’s firm instruction not to return home. And, as was only to be expected from a rag-tag band of revolutionaries, they are ambushed and captured.
At this point, the story takes an unexpected turn. Certain things, such as the need for the flashback, become clear. But simultaneously, things get dark, and then darker and more complex. It is not really possible to say more without giving away the ending of novel. Suffice to say that is a forceful and brutal, yet compelling path, at once deliciously cynical and ironic.
The Sympathizer is an indictment of war and revolution, soldiers and revolutionaries, ideals and slogans. A painfully enjoyable read.
