Ratings17
Average rating3.7
"Follows the "man of two minds" as he comes to Paris as a refugee. There he and his blood brother Bon try to escape their pasts and prepare for their futures by turning their hands to capitalism in one of its purest forms: drug dealing. No longer in physical danger, but still inwardly tortured by his re-education at the hands of his former best friend, and struggling to assimilate into a dominant culture, the Sympathizer is both charmed and disturbed by Paris. As he falls in with a group of left-wing intellectuals and politicians who frequent dinner parties given by his French Vietnamese "aunt," he finds not just stimulation for his mind but also customers for his merchandise-but the new life he is making has dangers he has not foreseen. Both literary thriller and brilliant novel of ideas, The Committed is a blistering portrayal of commitment and betrayal."--
Featured Series
2 primary booksThe Sympathizer is a 2-book series with 2 released primary works first released in 2015 with contributions by Viet Thanh Nguyen.
Reviews with the most likes.
When a writer has a voice as propulsive as Viet Thanh Nguyen's, one can forgive their novel's reliance on the occasional plot contrivance. Come for the Milan Kundera-esque absurdist musings filtered through “Pulp Fiction,” stay for the sentences so full of verve and rage that they can barely be contained by the languages in which they are set. (And I would definitely recommend reading “The Sympathizer” first, even if the sequel does fill you in on the relevant details.)
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