Summary and Analysis of The Sympathizer

Based on the Book by Viet Thanh Nguyen

• Publisher: Worth Books
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781504044806
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Crítica literaria norteamericana

So much to read, so little time? This brief overview of The Sympathizer tells you what you need to know—before or after you read Viet Thanh Nguyen's book. Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader. This short summary and analysis of The Sympathizer includes:

• Historical context
• Chapter-by-chapter overviews
• Profiles of the main characters
• Themes and symbols
• Important quotes
• Fascinating trivia
• Glossary of terms
• Supporting material to enhance your understanding of the original work

About The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen: Viet Thanh Nguyen's Pulitzer Prize–winning book depicts the secret life of an unnamed Vietnamese man, grappling with various identities, whose story begins with the evacuation of Saigon, continues with his life living in America after the war, and ends with a shocking twist. Written in the form of a confession, this darkly humorous tale is a brilliant, long-overdue addition to the canon of immigrant literature. Part spy novel, part political thriller, and part satire, The Sympathizer offers smart, scathing, and timely commentary on the state of race, class, war, politics, and the media. The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of fiction.

Summary

Chapter 1

An unnamed narrator begins his confession to a mysterious figure he calls “the Commandant.” The narrator, we surmise, writes from a prison cell. His story begins in Vietnam, at the end of the Vietnam War: The narrator works as a communist spy. He infiltrated the inner circle of the General, an American sympathizer and head of the South Vietnamese secret police. As a spy, he is forced to persecute communists—he is haunted by a female agent whom he arrested as she was trying to swallow a list of members of the secret police.

With Saigon on the verge of falling and the Americans pulling out, the General must evacuate or face death. Claude, his friend in the CIA, arranges a flight to Guam with seats for only some of the General’s staff and family. The narrator compiles a list of people who will make the flight; he knows that those left off the list will likely die.

The narrator meets up for a good-bye drink with his two best friends, Bon and Man. The three men are blood brothers—each bears the scar of their three-way blood oath on his palm. Man is a communist (and the narrator’s spy handler), but Bon fought for South Vietnam. Bon will flee with the narrator; Man will stay behind. The three friends nearly get into an altercation with three South Vietnamese soldiers—one of the soldiers calls the narrator, who is half-French, a “bastard”—but explosions elsewhere in Saigon distract them.

Need to Know: The narrator frames the novel as a confession written from prison, but the circumstances of his imprisonment remain a mystery. The narrator describes himself as a man capable of viewing any issue from two sides—and this description is borne out in his role as a communist spy infiltrating the anticommunist forces, in his mixed-race heritage, and in his moral ambivalence.

Chapter 2

According to the General’s instructions, the narrator has made arrangements for a select group of the General’s family and staff to leave Vietnam. He obtained visas and transportation to the airport for the group of evacuees, including Bon and his wife, Linh, and their infant son, Duc—by bribing and threatening various officials.

On the morning of their flight, the evacuees ride in a convoy from the General’s villa to the airport. They drive by Saigon’s Lam Son Square, where the National Assembly of the Republic of Vietnam was based, and they pass the basilica where the narrator covertly met with Man, his communist handler and close friend. The last time they met there, Man instructed him to go to America and continue spying on the General. He playfully teases the narrator into admitting that he actually wants to go to the United States, to which the narrator considers its superficial qualities, and the fact that he is not at home anywhere in the world.

The airport is part military base, part evacuation zone. After fighting their way through the chaotic group of refugees and soldiers awaiting escape, the General’s evacuee group settles in to wait for their flight number to be called.

Need to Know: On his last ride through Saigon, the narrator remembers his country’s absurd political history—abused first by the French, then by the Americans, and he contemplated the blood oath made between him, Bon, and Man, binding each to the others, and to their own principles.

Chapter 3

The narrator begins this section by thanking the Commandant for his “notes” on the confession. He states that as a spy he did feel sympathy for the group he infiltrated.

At the airport, the narrator sits on a tennis court filled with refugees. He is wedged between Bon, Linh, and Duc on one side and three Vietnamese prostitutes on the other. The narrator flirts with the young ladies until, after hours of waiting, his flight number is called. The anxious refugees cram into a C-130 cargo plane, but just as it starts moving, a missile strikes—the airport is under siege, though it’s impossible to tell whether the Viet Cong are attacking or whether the South Vietnamese, frustrated with the Americans, have decided to fire on the departing aircraft.

Another C-130 miraculously lands on the runway. It’s the refugees’ last chance to escape, and they run to it. The narrator and Bon make it aboard the departing plane, but Linh and Duc are hit and killed in the fray.

Need to Know: When Saigon falls, the South Vietnamese will likely be killed or imprisoned; the Americans have set up their own economy of goods and prostitution, and the Vietnamese who depended on them are left to struggle. In fleeing Saigon, the Americans betray their South Vietnamese allies and the narrator, who, despite his stated communist loyalties, cannot help but sympathize with them.

Chapter 4

The plane lands and the General’s group is taken first to Camp Asan in Guam, then to Camp Pendleton, near San Diego. The National Liberation Front has taken Saigon. When the General tries to raise morale at the camp, the refugees greet him with anger and contempt—he fled to safety while their friends and family stayed and fought. The General tells the narrator that he thinks there’s an informant among his staff. The narrator, panicking, names an innocent man who he refers to only as “the crapulent major.”

In the year after the war, the Vietnamese refugees scatter across the country. The narrator lives with Bon in Los Angeles and works at Occidental College, his alma mater, as an administrator in the Oriental Studies department. His boss, a white man, gives the narrator patronizing, tone-deaf advice on how to balance his dual Oriental and Occidental heritage.

Over the course of his first year in America, the narrator continues reporting to Man via letters written in invisible ink and sent through an intermediary in Paris. He recounts the Vietnamese refugees’ struggles in America. Man sends the narrator coded replies in the mail, which the narrator deciphers using a book called Asian Communism and the Oriental Mode of Destruction: On Understanding and Defeating the Marxist Threat to Asia by Richard Hedd.

Need to Know: The narrator’s new life in America is rich with irony and dualities. He is a man of Asian (Oriental) heritage who works at Occidental College; he uses an anticommunist book to decode communist missives; the General trusts him—the communist spy—to name the communist spy in their midst. The South Vietnamese must endure the irony: as Vietnamese, they cannot fully assimilate; but as Americans, they cannot stay fully Vietnamese.

Chapter 5

The General plans a celebration for the grand opening of his liquor store on the one-year anniversary of Saigon’s fall. The narrator receives permission to leave work early for the party from his immediate superior, a Japanese American woman named Ms. Mori with whom he has a sexual—but not romantic or committed—relationship. He remembers his first sexual experience: As a child, he once used a raw squid to masturbate. (Afterward, he was sure to take that particular squid for himself when his mother served it for dinner.) He doesn’t find masturbation or sex obscene—he believes violence and war are far more depraved than sexual liberation.

Before the party, the narrator meets with the General and Claude, their friend in the CIA. Claude laments the bad decisions on America’s part that led to Saigon’s fall. The General tells Claude he suspects a communist informant, and names the crapulent major. He orders the narrator to plan the crapulent major’s assassination; he and Bon will carry the murder out. Though the narrator is reluctant to comply, he notes that Bon seems happy for...