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To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer (now an HBO series) comes a moving and unflinchingly personal meditation on the literary forms of otherness and a bold call for expansive political solidarity.
Born in war-ravaged Vietnam, Viet Nguyen arrived in the United States as a child refugee in 1975. The Nguyen family would soon move to San Jose, California, where the author grew up, attending UC-Berkeley in the aftermath of the shocking murder of Vincent Chin, which shaped the political sensibilities of a new generation of Asian Americans.
The essays here, delivered originally as the prestigious Norton Lectures, proffer a new answer to a classic literary What does the outsider mean to literary writing? Over the course of six captivating and moving chapters, Nguyen explores the idea of being an outsider through lenses that are, by turns, literary, historical, political, and familial.
Each piece moves between writers who influenced Nguyen’s craft and weaves in the haunting story of his late mother’s mental illness. Nguyen unfolds the novels and nonfiction of Herman Melville, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ralph Ellison, William Carlos Williams, and Maxine Hong Kingston, until aesthetic theories give way to pressing concerns raised by war and politics. What is a writer’s responsibility in a time of violence? Should we celebrate fiction that gives voice to the voiceless—or do we confront the forces that render millions voiceless in the first place? What are the burdens and pleasures of the “minor” writer in any society? Unsatisfied with the modest inclusion accorded to “model minorities” such as Asian Americans, Nguyen sets the agenda for a more radical and disquieting solidarity with those whose lives have been devastated by imperialism and forever wars.
Born in war-ravaged Vietnam, Viet Nguyen arrived in the United States as a child refugee in 1975. The Nguyen family would soon move to San Jose, California, where the author grew up, attending UC-Berkeley in the aftermath of the shocking murder of Vincent Chin, which shaped the political sensibilities of a new generation of Asian Americans.
The essays here, delivered originally as the prestigious Norton Lectures, proffer a new answer to a classic literary What does the outsider mean to literary writing? Over the course of six captivating and moving chapters, Nguyen explores the idea of being an outsider through lenses that are, by turns, literary, historical, political, and familial.
Each piece moves between writers who influenced Nguyen’s craft and weaves in the haunting story of his late mother’s mental illness. Nguyen unfolds the novels and nonfiction of Herman Melville, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ralph Ellison, William Carlos Williams, and Maxine Hong Kingston, until aesthetic theories give way to pressing concerns raised by war and politics. What is a writer’s responsibility in a time of violence? Should we celebrate fiction that gives voice to the voiceless—or do we confront the forces that render millions voiceless in the first place? What are the burdens and pleasures of the “minor” writer in any society? Unsatisfied with the modest inclusion accorded to “model minorities” such as Asian Americans, Nguyen sets the agenda for a more radical and disquieting solidarity with those whose lives have been devastated by imperialism and forever wars.
144 pages, Hardcover
Published April 8, 2025
86 people are currently reading
6897 people want to read
About the author
Viet Thanh Nguyen
42 books5,578 followersViet Thanh Nguyen was born in Vietnam and raised in America. He is the author of “The Sympathizer,” awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. His most recent book, “To Save and to Destroy,” explores the idea of being an outsider. He is also the author of the short story collection “The Refugees;” the nonfiction book “Nothing Ever Dies,” a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award; the children's book “Simone” along with illustrator Minnie Phan; the sequel to “The Sympathizer,” “The Committed;” the nonfiction book “A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial,” longlisted for the National Book Award; and is the editor of an anthology of refugee writing, “The Displaced,” as well as a co-editor of “The Cleaving: Vietnamese Writers in the Diaspora.” He is a University Professor and the Aerol Arnold Professor of English and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California and a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur foundations. He lives in Los Angeles.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 81 reviews
April 29, 2025
✨ LA Times Festival of Books 2025 ✨
/ Friend of My Mind: Essays on Finding a Home in Literature
/ Sunday, April 27, 2025
/ 10:30 AM
/ Seeley G. Mudd 123
Vietnam Book and Reading Culture Day 2025 #4
While I didn't love THE SYMPATHIZER either time I read it, and have middling thoughts about the show, I find I have much better luck with Viet's non-fic work. It's real. It's raw. I respect him greatly for his political stance. He has proudly preached for the Palestinian people long before we were even discussing the genocide as a whole.
Some of these essays don't contain new information, especially if you read A MAN OF TWO FACES, which is my favorite work of his. In my opinion, it's still an important read. I listened to the audio, which is short. I read a lot of Vietnamese diaspora writers nowadays, but as the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon approaches, I'm trying to read more.
The discussion of Asian Americans as not being a monolith hit hard. We're not the same. Some of us are similar, sure. But lumping us as one gives less credence to our different struggles. Very excited to hear him speak at the LA Times Festival of Books panel Friend of My Mind: Essays on Finding a Home in Literature.
🎧 Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media
/ Friend of My Mind: Essays on Finding a Home in Literature
/ Sunday, April 27, 2025
/ 10:30 AM
/ Seeley G. Mudd 123
Vietnam Book and Reading Culture Day 2025 #4
While I didn't love THE SYMPATHIZER either time I read it, and have middling thoughts about the show, I find I have much better luck with Viet's non-fic work. It's real. It's raw. I respect him greatly for his political stance. He has proudly preached for the Palestinian people long before we were even discussing the genocide as a whole.
Some of these essays don't contain new information, especially if you read A MAN OF TWO FACES, which is my favorite work of his. In my opinion, it's still an important read. I listened to the audio, which is short. I read a lot of Vietnamese diaspora writers nowadays, but as the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon approaches, I'm trying to read more.
The discussion of Asian Americans as not being a monolith hit hard. We're not the same. Some of us are similar, sure. But lumping us as one gives less credence to our different struggles. Very excited to hear him speak at the LA Times Festival of Books panel Friend of My Mind: Essays on Finding a Home in Literature.
🎧 Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media
May 25, 2025
This is a powerful, contemplative collection of essays. The idea of the outsider, or the other, is a compelling one. Nguyen skillfully interrogates it from numerous perspectives, recognizing that it is something that is forced upon certain people but also something that is embraced and cultivated. There is a responsibility of recognizing the multi-interstitial others that battle within many of us for our attention, our allegiance. What parts of ourselves do we lift up, and what are we ashamed of? How does that affect how we live in the world and the art/relationships we create? What responsibilities come along with those manifold identities, whether we asked for them or not? A throughline that I felt compelling across the essays was how we are constantly an other to ourselves, and while this can be a vulnerability it is also a strength. It provides a means of navigating the other other-nesses we inhabit, due to race, immigration status, sexuality, gender, socioeconomic status, political ideology, and so on. What thrums beneath the surface of these essays is that we all—but maybe especially artists—have a responsibility to recognize the incredibly powerful force that othering plays in our lives and identities (whether we identify as an other or not) and then above and beyond recognizing it we need to explore it, question it, and honestly confront it. The essays are ambitious and inspirational, not just for writers or artists but for anyone who is interested in thinking about identity. He weaves in examples of other writers and artists that inspire him and his thinking, and it is a wonderful tapestry of intellectual literary thought, and a wonderful demonstration of wrestling with important ideas through artistic endeavor. Can our constant tension, the internal other that is reacting to the labels and identities thrust upon us from outside of our control, be what ignites our best understanding of who we are in the world? Can our exile be the source of a creativity that may be painful and unfair but also liberatory?
(Rounded up from 4.5)
(Rounded up from 4.5)
April 18, 2025
Listening to this audiobook transported me back to grad school--othering, double consciousness, Edward Said--all so paradoxical, philosophical, yet somehow still making sense in some capacity. Now with a new perspective as a high school English teacher, I found myself reflecting on the texts I've taught in my classroom and the texts I could teach; on the conversations that could be happening with my students in the classroom about what we expect of authors in certain genres; about my own desires as a reader of literature. I can imagine pulling at the very least some quotations from this text as warmup journal entries or even pairing them with other texts or writers who explore similar ideas.
I would have preferred to read this in print versus audio or maybe found a way to replicate that lecture-hall venue that lends itself to this reading. It wasn't a great on-the-way-to-work book, nor was it one that I wanted to listen to while decompressing for my day. It's a text that desires to be annotated, to be reread. While the audiobook format was well produced and easy to follow in most places, there were sections I had to rewind to understand or ponder more. However, this may say more about my own style of learning than it may about Nguyen's narration.
I'll likely return to the Norton lectures with the accompanying transcripts at some point, especially the first two which I found particularly fruitful for my own thinking. And I'll most definitely be exploring more of Nguyen's writing after getting a taste of his artistic purpose and process.
I would have preferred to read this in print versus audio or maybe found a way to replicate that lecture-hall venue that lends itself to this reading. It wasn't a great on-the-way-to-work book, nor was it one that I wanted to listen to while decompressing for my day. It's a text that desires to be annotated, to be reread. While the audiobook format was well produced and easy to follow in most places, there were sections I had to rewind to understand or ponder more. However, this may say more about my own style of learning than it may about Nguyen's narration.
I'll likely return to the Norton lectures with the accompanying transcripts at some point, especially the first two which I found particularly fruitful for my own thinking. And I'll most definitely be exploring more of Nguyen's writing after getting a taste of his artistic purpose and process.
March 21, 2025
you know when you read a book and all you have to say for every word, every sentence is - 'yes, exactly!' because either a) you've already had the thought, b) you've had the thought but not in that exact way, or c) wow, you've never thought about it in this way? that's how i felt reading this book.
i really liked each essay/speech in this book. it's important and also, importantly, accessible. on the one hand, i really liked (or really disliked) how much i related to so many parts of the book, and on the other, i am disappointed that it needs to be said and then said again.
thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.
i really liked each essay/speech in this book. it's important and also, importantly, accessible. on the one hand, i really liked (or really disliked) how much i related to so many parts of the book, and on the other, i am disappointed that it needs to be said and then said again.
thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.
April 15, 2025
Such a unique read. I wasn’t sure what to expect and although I didn’t agree with all of his ideas, I found so thought provoking. We have very different stories relative to immigration so our perspective varied but I was deeply intrigued by the thoughts and experiences shared and how they shaped the author’s beliefs and lifestyle. I’d say now is the perfect time to hear every possible immigration story you can, especially ones that don’t particularly shape your point of view because the reality is all immigrant stories don’t fall left or right. They’re deeply personal and I know from helping my mom with immigration proceedings for her family, it’s a difficult process, it’s expensive and time consuming but seeing families reunited and under one roof is worth all of it. In this case, I believe this author developed an even deeper connection and pride with his roots from his positive and negative experiences.
May 29, 2025
3.5 stars. What I liked: Ideologically, Nguyen shows himself as similar to the likes of Edward Said, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Frantz Fanon, and more (all of whom he quotes from extensively in these lectures). As these are all writers who I greatly respect, I can get on board with Nguyen’s points here, most of which are about his voluntary vs involuntary identity as a “minor” or an "other," both in the world of literature and the world at large.
I particularly appreciated Nguyen’s essay/lecture about why more Asians should care about Palestine. He raises an interesting point about how, historically, Asian Americans have seemed to relate more to antisemitism rather than racism towards Palestinians, due to our “nearly white” status of being the model minority that makes many of us think that the more we assimilate the beliefs of the so-called “majority” group, the more we will be accepted, or at least fly under the radar of racists. However, Nguyen reminds us that, in our rush to embrace “Asian American-ness” as an alternative to the Oriental stereotypes and labels that existed prior to the Asian American sociopolitical movement, we (mostly East and Southeast Asians) had co-opted our understanding of Orientalism from Edward W. Said, who was referring, basically, to the “Near East” or “Middle East,” including his origin country of Palestine, when he described the term and its implications in his seminal text Orientalism.
By refusing to embrace Palestinians under the umbrella term of Asian-ness, Asians align themselves more closely with the values and desires of the white American empire. Asians’ limited solidarity with both other Asian ethnicities and people of other racialized groups serves as a tool of imperial America by dividing and conquering us. Nguyen advocates for an “expansive solidarity,” in which Asian Americans recognize that the struggles of Palestinians, Blacks, and Indigenous are connected with their own–that all of our experiences of “otherness” are related.
So why only 3.5 stars? In part because some of these lectures will sound familiar to you if you’ve read his memoir, A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, a History, a Memorial (which I can recommend). In another part because I feel like, short as it is, this is one of those texts that may be better read than listened to. I have to be honest and say that I didn’t enjoy Nguyen as an audiobook narrator, and that his uneven reading speed and overdramatic intonation impacted my enjoyment of TO SAVE AND TO DESTROY as an audiobook. And finally, if you’ve already read and are a fan of Said, Fanon, Morrison, Baldwin, etc., then what Nguyen talks about here may not be new information.
I may seek out a physical copy at a later date and reread it to see if his points make more of a lasting impression on me in that format. Overall, though, I still highly respect Nguyen as a writer, thinker, scholar, and activist, and would recommend this book for those interested in reading more nonfiction about Asian American identity, and major vs minor labels in the study of literature.
I particularly appreciated Nguyen’s essay/lecture about why more Asians should care about Palestine. He raises an interesting point about how, historically, Asian Americans have seemed to relate more to antisemitism rather than racism towards Palestinians, due to our “nearly white” status of being the model minority that makes many of us think that the more we assimilate the beliefs of the so-called “majority” group, the more we will be accepted, or at least fly under the radar of racists. However, Nguyen reminds us that, in our rush to embrace “Asian American-ness” as an alternative to the Oriental stereotypes and labels that existed prior to the Asian American sociopolitical movement, we (mostly East and Southeast Asians) had co-opted our understanding of Orientalism from Edward W. Said, who was referring, basically, to the “Near East” or “Middle East,” including his origin country of Palestine, when he described the term and its implications in his seminal text Orientalism.
By refusing to embrace Palestinians under the umbrella term of Asian-ness, Asians align themselves more closely with the values and desires of the white American empire. Asians’ limited solidarity with both other Asian ethnicities and people of other racialized groups serves as a tool of imperial America by dividing and conquering us. Nguyen advocates for an “expansive solidarity,” in which Asian Americans recognize that the struggles of Palestinians, Blacks, and Indigenous are connected with their own–that all of our experiences of “otherness” are related.
So why only 3.5 stars? In part because some of these lectures will sound familiar to you if you’ve read his memoir, A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, a History, a Memorial (which I can recommend). In another part because I feel like, short as it is, this is one of those texts that may be better read than listened to. I have to be honest and say that I didn’t enjoy Nguyen as an audiobook narrator, and that his uneven reading speed and overdramatic intonation impacted my enjoyment of TO SAVE AND TO DESTROY as an audiobook. And finally, if you’ve already read and are a fan of Said, Fanon, Morrison, Baldwin, etc., then what Nguyen talks about here may not be new information.
I may seek out a physical copy at a later date and reread it to see if his points make more of a lasting impression on me in that format. Overall, though, I still highly respect Nguyen as a writer, thinker, scholar, and activist, and would recommend this book for those interested in reading more nonfiction about Asian American identity, and major vs minor labels in the study of literature.
May 18, 2025
at times, it feels like viet running through his greatest hits but he is so articulate and intelligent that im totally okay with it. ton of new (to me!) books he mentions that are now on the reading list
April 26, 2025
This was such a personal, thoughtful and honest read. With the audiobook being narrated by the author himself, I enjoyed listening to Nguyen’s soft-spokenness, yet firm wisdom that I often find myself failing to put into words. Exile, immigrant or refugee — as part of the Vietnamese diaspora, I’m proud of how his work is abundant in musings to exactly these questions that you are faced with everyday if you have a clear immigrant background.
While the book didn’t necessarily offer me super new perspectives, I was nonetheless captured by his power of words, making it an important book read this year for me so far.
While the book didn’t necessarily offer me super new perspectives, I was nonetheless captured by his power of words, making it an important book read this year for me so far.
April 5, 2025
finished copy gifted by the publisher
beautiful and illuminating lectures on writing as an other, the responsibility of writing / exploiting one's otherness, and the commitment of expanding that otherness to encompass all who are oppressed globally. Throughout the lectures, Nguyen weaves his personal life - his parents' otherness as refugees, his own otherness as a 'minority', etc. - and writers who have impacted his understanding of himself as an "other". While academic at times, TO SAVE AND TO DESTROY is a demonstration of how a modern great writer, thinker, and educator, constantly reflects on one's selfhood and complicity via a clear-eyed view that's not afraid to say, "we still have much work to do, but we can do it together."
phenomenal
beautiful and illuminating lectures on writing as an other, the responsibility of writing / exploiting one's otherness, and the commitment of expanding that otherness to encompass all who are oppressed globally. Throughout the lectures, Nguyen weaves his personal life - his parents' otherness as refugees, his own otherness as a 'minority', etc. - and writers who have impacted his understanding of himself as an "other". While academic at times, TO SAVE AND TO DESTROY is a demonstration of how a modern great writer, thinker, and educator, constantly reflects on one's selfhood and complicity via a clear-eyed view that's not afraid to say, "we still have much work to do, but we can do it together."
phenomenal
April 29, 2025
Audio.
A collection of lectures about otherness and writing. I found this collection to be thought provoking on topics like translating in writing as a form of domestication, ex. “Pho, a type of Vietnamese noodle soup, … ”
It touched on what it means to be a refugee and how to use that story and voice in a language that isn’t your first, duality as a displaced person, and otherness as a stubborn strength.
I think the audience is Asian American writers but it is an informative perspective for other writers from marginalized groups.
The cadence of the audiobook though… it’s read with many pauses in a sort of poetic performance. I found it distracting.
A collection of lectures about otherness and writing. I found this collection to be thought provoking on topics like translating in writing as a form of domestication, ex. “Pho, a type of Vietnamese noodle soup, … ”
It touched on what it means to be a refugee and how to use that story and voice in a language that isn’t your first, duality as a displaced person, and otherness as a stubborn strength.
I think the audience is Asian American writers but it is an informative perspective for other writers from marginalized groups.
The cadence of the audiobook though… it’s read with many pauses in a sort of poetic performance. I found it distracting.
April 17, 2025
TO SAVE AND TO DESTROY by Viet Thanh Nguyen compiles together his series of Norton Lectures where he delved into what it is to be considered an other.
Throughout, he offers insights into other authors as well as the development of his own work. I appreciated his wordplay, as it would heighten connections he was making, such as when he describes the following: “...giving me the confidence needed to portray her, and, in the end, betray her,” as well as the clever contrast of mother tongue/other tongue.
Nguyen narrates the audiobook, so it allows listeners a similar experience to those who were able to listen to his lectures in person.
(Thank you to Dreamscape Media for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.)
Throughout, he offers insights into other authors as well as the development of his own work. I appreciated his wordplay, as it would heighten connections he was making, such as when he describes the following: “...giving me the confidence needed to portray her, and, in the end, betray her,” as well as the clever contrast of mother tongue/other tongue.
Nguyen narrates the audiobook, so it allows listeners a similar experience to those who were able to listen to his lectures in person.
(Thank you to Dreamscape Media for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.)
May 28, 2025
Six chapters, six great essays about him writing as "other." It says more about writing itself, but also his family and other writers influenced him throughout years as a writer.
May 3, 2025
This was masterful. The circumstances under which I received the book magnified my enjoyment. I met Nguyen on Thursday at a book talk with Hua Hsu. I loved hearing about their experiences of the Bay Area and Nguyen’s moral insistence on denouncing genocide and recognizing the US as the empire it is. On reading it, I was intrigued by his pairing of Jewish and Asian Americans in their ascendancy in American society and the manifold effects this has on their stances towards Israel and Palestine. As a Chinese Jewish American, his words help me make sense of my ethnic communities and my own conflicted being. Nguyen also thoughtfully cites poetry and prose, each bit made me eager to make the reference my next read. I look forward to reading more from Nguyen.
March 18, 2025
5 stars
Prospective readers should be mindful that unlike Nguyen's most popular work, this is a series of nonfiction essays (vs. a fabulous fictional novel). While I'd often encourage only an academic audience to read this, I think there is so much relatable content here that it could appeal to many audiences. That noted, I am part of that academic audience, so my opinion may be ever so slightly tainted.
Nguyen narrates the audio version of his book, and that is particularly fitting with the personal nature of the content as well as the original modality through which these essays were delivered: Norton lectures. Fans of Nguyen's and those interested in modern writing, identity, and postcolonialism will find so SO much to be enthusiastic about here.
I really enjoyed this efficient listen, and I can't wait to recommend it to my students.
*Special thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for this alc, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
Prospective readers should be mindful that unlike Nguyen's most popular work, this is a series of nonfiction essays (vs. a fabulous fictional novel). While I'd often encourage only an academic audience to read this, I think there is so much relatable content here that it could appeal to many audiences. That noted, I am part of that academic audience, so my opinion may be ever so slightly tainted.
Nguyen narrates the audio version of his book, and that is particularly fitting with the personal nature of the content as well as the original modality through which these essays were delivered: Norton lectures. Fans of Nguyen's and those interested in modern writing, identity, and postcolonialism will find so SO much to be enthusiastic about here.
I really enjoyed this efficient listen, and I can't wait to recommend it to my students.
*Special thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for this alc, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
Read
April 25, 2025Unfortunately, I REALLY did not like this.
Who is the intended audience?? The arguments retrod lots of familiar ground—representation politics, "voice for the voiceless," Asian monoliths and model minorities, imperial American soft power, the self and the other, etc etc.—all pretty basic for anyone familiar with postcolonial theory or 1990s strains of Asian American activism. Which would be fine if this was a book of public-facing scholarship making those ideas accessible! But these essays are so loaded with academic language and references (some I knew, many I didn't) that I struggle to imagine what kind of reader they're for. Of the referenced scholars and critical texts I'm familiar with, I often found Nguyen's summary and analysis deceptively simplistic and/or argumentatively convenient, which left me wary of his analytical treatment of works that were new to me.
And don't get me started on the Palestine chapter—while I admire his longtime commitment to Palestinian advocacy, in what world does "expansive solidarity" mean.... expanding our understanding of Asia to include Palestine, and therefore encompass Palestinians under the "Asian American" solidarity umbrella?? Why are we circumscribing solidarity with geopolitical borders when it's meant to work past them? Don't we have better things to do with our political efforts?
I also have more gripes with many of the essays' argumentative flow but that feels petty so I'm going to stop here.
Who is the intended audience?? The arguments retrod lots of familiar ground—representation politics, "voice for the voiceless," Asian monoliths and model minorities, imperial American soft power, the self and the other, etc etc.—all pretty basic for anyone familiar with postcolonial theory or 1990s strains of Asian American activism. Which would be fine if this was a book of public-facing scholarship making those ideas accessible! But these essays are so loaded with academic language and references (some I knew, many I didn't) that I struggle to imagine what kind of reader they're for. Of the referenced scholars and critical texts I'm familiar with, I often found Nguyen's summary and analysis deceptively simplistic and/or argumentatively convenient, which left me wary of his analytical treatment of works that were new to me.
And don't get me started on the Palestine chapter—while I admire his longtime commitment to Palestinian advocacy, in what world does "expansive solidarity" mean.... expanding our understanding of Asia to include Palestine, and therefore encompass Palestinians under the "Asian American" solidarity umbrella?? Why are we circumscribing solidarity with geopolitical borders when it's meant to work past them? Don't we have better things to do with our political efforts?
I also have more gripes with many of the essays' argumentative flow but that feels petty so I'm going to stop here.
May 20, 2025
This is the kind of book that needs to be read and mulled on and read again. But what I can say for now is that I loved it. To Save and to Destroy is—all at once—a study, a love letter, a lament, a callout, and a meditation on the intricate paradoxes of being Asian-American and telling stories as one.
Nguyen verbalizes things I thought were "just me" in a way that almost reminded me of C.S. Lewis. He's a very different kind of writer in many ways, but the way he encapsulated things I've thought or felt or wondered myself impacted me very similarly. From his complicated relationship with Western classics, to his descriptions of what it's like to try and figure out how to relate to your/your family's own story. My connection point to the specific Asian-American experience Nguyen had himself (my parents are the same generation of Vietnamese-American that he is) probably does account for at least some of my connection to the book. But he also has a way with words and of seeing the world that pinpointed things I've struggled to verbalize myself.
Even though I come from a somewhat different worldview than Nguyen, I found his intellectual honesty inspiring. And really beautiful. He's direct but also writes with a lot of grace and compassion. Most of all (at least on this reading), I resonated with his conclusion that while wholeness might be elusive for those of us who have very obvious contradictions or mismatched pieces in our lives, we can find wholeness in embracing all those pieces with both honesty and love. Which is hard to do, but the final chapter on the hidden joy of otherness reminded me that it is possible.
In conclusion—I didn't realize how much I needed this book, and I know I'll be coming back to it.
Nguyen verbalizes things I thought were "just me" in a way that almost reminded me of C.S. Lewis. He's a very different kind of writer in many ways, but the way he encapsulated things I've thought or felt or wondered myself impacted me very similarly. From his complicated relationship with Western classics, to his descriptions of what it's like to try and figure out how to relate to your/your family's own story. My connection point to the specific Asian-American experience Nguyen had himself (my parents are the same generation of Vietnamese-American that he is) probably does account for at least some of my connection to the book. But he also has a way with words and of seeing the world that pinpointed things I've struggled to verbalize myself.
Even though I come from a somewhat different worldview than Nguyen, I found his intellectual honesty inspiring. And really beautiful. He's direct but also writes with a lot of grace and compassion. Most of all (at least on this reading), I resonated with his conclusion that while wholeness might be elusive for those of us who have very obvious contradictions or mismatched pieces in our lives, we can find wholeness in embracing all those pieces with both honesty and love. Which is hard to do, but the final chapter on the hidden joy of otherness reminded me that it is possible.
In conclusion—I didn't realize how much I needed this book, and I know I'll be coming back to it.
May 4, 2025
So much packed into this relatively short book, I would recommend it to anyone curious about the question addressed: What does the outsider mean to literary writing? Originally delivered as the author's Norton Lectures (I believe it is required by law that the word "prestigious" should precede the phrase 'Norton Lectures,' so I'm hoping that by mentioning that here, I can make up for the word not appearing in its proper place), these essays are a fascinating mix of the very personal, the political, and the scholarly, so there's something for everyone, as they say.
A lot of is moving, a lot of it is brilliant, but it is also occasionally funny. For example, I love that the author talked his way into an exclusive seminar with Maxine Hong Kingston when he was a 19-year-old undergrad, and then fell asleep in every session! Part of me is horrified (you fell asleep in the same small seminar more than once?), part of me admires him for admitting it to the world at large, but I couldn't help laughing, too.
A lot of is moving, a lot of it is brilliant, but it is also occasionally funny. For example, I love that the author talked his way into an exclusive seminar with Maxine Hong Kingston when he was a 19-year-old undergrad, and then fell asleep in every session! Part of me is horrified (you fell asleep in the same small seminar more than once?), part of me admires him for admitting it to the world at large, but I couldn't help laughing, too.
June 3, 2025
Woah I can’t believe I forgot to review this book…
Chapter 2 is a must read especially for creators and writers who aren’t white men. It’s an interesting conversation about presenting yourself and your culture through your art/writing.
Later parts of the book are heavier with mentions of current events in Palestine and definitely worth reading.
I will likely be re-reading this when I have time to purchase a copy for myself.
Chapter 2 is a must read especially for creators and writers who aren’t white men. It’s an interesting conversation about presenting yourself and your culture through your art/writing.
Later parts of the book are heavier with mentions of current events in Palestine and definitely worth reading.
I will likely be re-reading this when I have time to purchase a copy for myself.
Read
July 18, 2025(I do not rate memoirs.)
This short memoir continues the story from Nguyen's first memoir, the first book I have read from him. (I own his most famous work, The Sympathizer, and plan to read it soon.) In this one, Nguyen focuses on writing and how it ties to identity and how he struggled to balance the two competing parts of himself. I definitely recommend this book, although with one caveat. Read his first memoir first.
This short memoir continues the story from Nguyen's first memoir, the first book I have read from him. (I own his most famous work, The Sympathizer, and plan to read it soon.) In this one, Nguyen focuses on writing and how it ties to identity and how he struggled to balance the two competing parts of himself. I definitely recommend this book, although with one caveat. Read his first memoir first.
Read
August 23, 2025Could not finish. Not what I was in the mood for. Or that i might ever be. I wasn’t looking for something academic. But I’m still going to give A Man of 2 Faces: a Memoir a go.
June 16, 2025
I wanted to like this book. hence why its at a 3 and not a 2. i enjoyed the earlier chapters more. but the palestine chapter really irritated me and reading on after it became truly a chore. the false equivalency he makes of the israeli experience and the palestinian experience is not just inaccurate but dangerous. the interesting point he does make is in the erasure of Palestinians and Arabs in general from the liberation of Asians by Asian Americans under the Saidian definition of 'orientalism'. I wish this had been what the full essay was about rather than a tired, hollow argument in identifying with "both sides". i am especially confused by how contradictory he is throughout this essay. what is he actually trying to say? the inconsistency is frustrating and distracting. the essay is about the erasure of Palestinians, and yet the essay is mostly not about Palestinians at all. he later mischaracterizes fanon entirely in his opinions on the liberatory nature of violence for the colonized. im disappointed as i did expect nguyen to be more revolutionary than he actually is. i do not feel like there was much original in this book either, which i suppose wouldnt matter if it at least felt less like it was trying too hard to be academic when it has nothing new to say.
May 26, 2025
"Stories and language have alwaysbeen weaponized by individuals and societies, and anyone who has ever been marked as an other or outsider knows well the capacity of words, images, and narratives to caricature, marginalize, and eliminate, actions of symbolic violence that justify and foreshadow the physical violence conductedagainst those deemed less than human."
"...experiencing the shock of misrecognition so commonplace to those who discover how we perceive ourselves is not how others see us. Being unsettled through misrecognition is a classic moment in the consitution of the other..."
"Hatred may be an effective political emotion, but it is also spiritually corrosive, a human response entwined with inhumanity, with the victim potentially becoming the victimizer, an other aspiring to mystery."
"...almost all of my reading in this second home of the library was not about me or anyone who looked like me. Almost everything I read was by and about white people, and through those books, and through TV and the movies, also almost all about white people, I became an anthropologist of white people, knowing them far, far better than they knew me or those like me."
"Stil, I dedicated myself to this complicated tongue, an act inseparable from becoming an Asian American, a person of color, and someone just beginning to understand that he had been colonized and needed to decolonize himself."
"When those whie writers were writing, did they imagine they would be speaking to a young Vietnamese refugee boy? Probably not. Was I neverthless spoken to, even though they were other to me? Yes. Because their voices were beautiful, and because I knew that if I wanted to survive in this country, I had ti keeo quiet and liste to these other voices, these masterful voices. One lesson I learned intuitively was that all those white writers I read and admired didn't need, shouldn't need, to worry about whether a young Vietnamese refugee boy was ever going to read them. It was not their obligation...My obligation was to speak as if everyone could already understand what I said."
"As Arundhati Roy puts it, "There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless.' There are only the deliberately silenced, or the perferably unheard."
"For Asian Americans, even claiming an individual voice is fraught, for our place in the United States is to be the silent, acquiescent, apologetic model minority. We are neither expected to write nor to fight. We are not expected to speak alone, much less speak together. And yet, in the face of the anti-Asian violence that is perpetual in American society, routine in American warfare in Asia, and which resurged during the pandemic in the united States and many other countries, finding and claiming both our individual and collective voices is crucial. And here, what is powerful about literature and storytelling as art and as weaponsis that they teach us hour otherness has been used to divide us and isolate us, and how our otherness can be used to draw us together."
"A lack of explicit politics is the politics of the dominant American literary world, leading many Americans writers to avoid certain open secrets. The open secret dares us to acknowledge its presence. The open secret of AMERICA is that white people founded it on genocide, slavery, war, and white supremacy, the orgy of blood born from colonization which continues staining the self and the other. The open secret of AMERICA is that we do not call colonization by its name. Instead, we give colonization another, more acceptable name: the AMERICAN DREAM."
"The United States is itself a settler colony, and the irony of being a refugee from an American war who earned his citizenship in such a colony is not lost on me. My belonging to the United States, as someone who is both insider and outsider, citizen and other, is made possible by the wars that have made the United States what it is."
"Words like ethnic and immigrant pad the hard foundations of enduring antisemitism and anti-Asain racism, as well as racialized and colonizing capitalism. to speak of capitalism without racism or colonialism exiles their embarrassing necessity in the same way that some can forget how enslavement, genocide, and exploitation enriched the West."
"To be included, Asian Americans have to contain ourselves, daub on the makeup of assimilation to hide our seams and our monstrousness, learn what is acceptable to do and say and what is not. But to engage in a politics and a literature of expansive solidarity requires opening the self to others and saying what should not be said."
"The more American we become, the more we may affirm this country's settler colonialism with our silence about how we can be citizens and colonizers at the same time. The condition of our belonging, our incluson, is our silence."
"Being minor is partly about numbers and partly about power. Where they meet shapes our perception of who is minor and what that means. Even those comfortably in the majority, whether through size of power, may feel minor if their privileges become contested. The majority, however defined, strikes back partly out of fear that the minority seeks to replace them, doing essentially what the majority might have done to others in order to become major. This fear extends to culture as well, where symbolic war manifests in the struggle over whose stories are told and taught."
"By the time Baldwin died in France in 1987, however, the resurgence of the the American Empire, against what Ronald Reagan called the "Evil Empire" of the Soviet Union, was quite visible, although the United States is not so much an empire of territory, as in the British and French cases, but a constellation of military bases around the world."
"Empires and war machines deploy the language of neutrality, bureaucracy, and symmetry to disguise the impact of their asymmetrical policies and weaponry. Stealth bombers require stealth language."
"...experiencing the shock of misrecognition so commonplace to those who discover how we perceive ourselves is not how others see us. Being unsettled through misrecognition is a classic moment in the consitution of the other..."
"Hatred may be an effective political emotion, but it is also spiritually corrosive, a human response entwined with inhumanity, with the victim potentially becoming the victimizer, an other aspiring to mystery."
"...almost all of my reading in this second home of the library was not about me or anyone who looked like me. Almost everything I read was by and about white people, and through those books, and through TV and the movies, also almost all about white people, I became an anthropologist of white people, knowing them far, far better than they knew me or those like me."
"Stil, I dedicated myself to this complicated tongue, an act inseparable from becoming an Asian American, a person of color, and someone just beginning to understand that he had been colonized and needed to decolonize himself."
"When those whie writers were writing, did they imagine they would be speaking to a young Vietnamese refugee boy? Probably not. Was I neverthless spoken to, even though they were other to me? Yes. Because their voices were beautiful, and because I knew that if I wanted to survive in this country, I had ti keeo quiet and liste to these other voices, these masterful voices. One lesson I learned intuitively was that all those white writers I read and admired didn't need, shouldn't need, to worry about whether a young Vietnamese refugee boy was ever going to read them. It was not their obligation...My obligation was to speak as if everyone could already understand what I said."
"As Arundhati Roy puts it, "There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless.' There are only the deliberately silenced, or the perferably unheard."
"For Asian Americans, even claiming an individual voice is fraught, for our place in the United States is to be the silent, acquiescent, apologetic model minority. We are neither expected to write nor to fight. We are not expected to speak alone, much less speak together. And yet, in the face of the anti-Asian violence that is perpetual in American society, routine in American warfare in Asia, and which resurged during the pandemic in the united States and many other countries, finding and claiming both our individual and collective voices is crucial. And here, what is powerful about literature and storytelling as art and as weaponsis that they teach us hour otherness has been used to divide us and isolate us, and how our otherness can be used to draw us together."
"A lack of explicit politics is the politics of the dominant American literary world, leading many Americans writers to avoid certain open secrets. The open secret dares us to acknowledge its presence. The open secret of AMERICA is that white people founded it on genocide, slavery, war, and white supremacy, the orgy of blood born from colonization which continues staining the self and the other. The open secret of AMERICA is that we do not call colonization by its name. Instead, we give colonization another, more acceptable name: the AMERICAN DREAM."
"The United States is itself a settler colony, and the irony of being a refugee from an American war who earned his citizenship in such a colony is not lost on me. My belonging to the United States, as someone who is both insider and outsider, citizen and other, is made possible by the wars that have made the United States what it is."
"Words like ethnic and immigrant pad the hard foundations of enduring antisemitism and anti-Asain racism, as well as racialized and colonizing capitalism. to speak of capitalism without racism or colonialism exiles their embarrassing necessity in the same way that some can forget how enslavement, genocide, and exploitation enriched the West."
"To be included, Asian Americans have to contain ourselves, daub on the makeup of assimilation to hide our seams and our monstrousness, learn what is acceptable to do and say and what is not. But to engage in a politics and a literature of expansive solidarity requires opening the self to others and saying what should not be said."
"The more American we become, the more we may affirm this country's settler colonialism with our silence about how we can be citizens and colonizers at the same time. The condition of our belonging, our incluson, is our silence."
"Being minor is partly about numbers and partly about power. Where they meet shapes our perception of who is minor and what that means. Even those comfortably in the majority, whether through size of power, may feel minor if their privileges become contested. The majority, however defined, strikes back partly out of fear that the minority seeks to replace them, doing essentially what the majority might have done to others in order to become major. This fear extends to culture as well, where symbolic war manifests in the struggle over whose stories are told and taught."
"By the time Baldwin died in France in 1987, however, the resurgence of the the American Empire, against what Ronald Reagan called the "Evil Empire" of the Soviet Union, was quite visible, although the United States is not so much an empire of territory, as in the British and French cases, but a constellation of military bases around the world."
"Empires and war machines deploy the language of neutrality, bureaucracy, and symmetry to disguise the impact of their asymmetrical policies and weaponry. Stealth bombers require stealth language."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 25, 2025
Viet Thanh Nguyen's most recent offering, To Save and To Destroy: Writing as an Other is as soporific and academic as his last book, A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memory , was riveting and accessible. The new book is a collection of essays originally presented as Norton Lectures (The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures 2023-2024), so it veers towards academic meandering while attempting to clarify who or what the outsider is in literature; this flaw is inherent in most lectures. Nguyen, like many career academics, becomes mired in inscrutable concepts that obfuscate rather than clarify when in an academic milieu. A shame really because Nguyen has such a perspicacious mind; one that usually soars above the ratiocinations of academia with wit, grace and humor. He is best when he simplifies. Also, many of the concepts addressed obliquely in these lectures are better explained and clarified in A Man of Two Faces, a book I virtually inhaled in two sittings.
To be clear, I greatly admire Viet Thanh Nguyen and will buy any book of his that I stumble across. And I will certainly pay full price for his work on the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, since Harvard University is taking such a courageous and necessary stand against a fascist bully and the incompetent scumbag thugs who control the US government at present.
As far as the lectures, the third one, “On Palestine and Asia” is the strongest of the six. However, I did disagree with some of his conclusions and the framing of the current conflict in Palestine in the usual colonial/oppressor paradigm that is so rife in academic circles today. The Jew remains, at least in my humble opinion, the eternal other, a point which Nguyen does not fully elaborate upon when he briefly brings up the writing of Franz Kafka.* Although Nguyen straddles a fine line and doesn’t explicitly choose sides, I do think that he has largely overlooked the Jew as the eternal outsider in favor of more contemporary outsiders, many of them that do—like the Vietnamese—still have a homeland that is not under attack. I also quibble at the assertion that the Cambodian Genocide (technically more of a “cultural suicide”) is inherently the product of the West because so many members of the Pol Pot regime were educated in France.
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*See Kafka’s minor stories “Schakale und Araber” (“The Jackal and the Arabs”) and Josefine, die Sängerin oder Das Volk der Mäuse” (“Josephine, the singer or the Mouse People”) as well as the major work “In der Strafkolonie” (“In the Penal Colony”) for works that have overt Jewish outsider themes.
To be clear, I greatly admire Viet Thanh Nguyen and will buy any book of his that I stumble across. And I will certainly pay full price for his work on the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, since Harvard University is taking such a courageous and necessary stand against a fascist bully and the incompetent scumbag thugs who control the US government at present.
As far as the lectures, the third one, “On Palestine and Asia” is the strongest of the six. However, I did disagree with some of his conclusions and the framing of the current conflict in Palestine in the usual colonial/oppressor paradigm that is so rife in academic circles today. The Jew remains, at least in my humble opinion, the eternal other, a point which Nguyen does not fully elaborate upon when he briefly brings up the writing of Franz Kafka.* Although Nguyen straddles a fine line and doesn’t explicitly choose sides, I do think that he has largely overlooked the Jew as the eternal outsider in favor of more contemporary outsiders, many of them that do—like the Vietnamese—still have a homeland that is not under attack. I also quibble at the assertion that the Cambodian Genocide (technically more of a “cultural suicide”) is inherently the product of the West because so many members of the Pol Pot regime were educated in France.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*See Kafka’s minor stories “Schakale und Araber” (“The Jackal and the Arabs”) and Josefine, die Sängerin oder Das Volk der Mäuse” (“Josephine, the singer or the Mouse People”) as well as the major work “In der Strafkolonie” (“In the Penal Colony”) for works that have overt Jewish outsider themes.
April 14, 2025
You know a non-fiction book is good, when it evokes so much emotion and grinds those gears.
This is my first book by this author, but one I thought would fit as a great starting point as it is a collection of essays.
What was so great about this was I found myself agreeing with the author on many things, specifically with the complicity of the empire in making human beings feel othered.
Now, let me role my sleeves up, what made this even a better read for me was that I disagreed on many mentions or citations of individuals specifically mentions of politically contentious individuals such as Salman Rushdie or the leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan.
I suppose in Viet Thanh Nguyen’s eyes these individuals are at the forefront of being othered within their own communities, or at least that’s what I was grasping from my read.
I do call out these two individuals because they are contentious within my own communities, I speaking from a middle eastern perspective who identifies with a cultural similarity to Öcalan, but also whole heartedly disagree with both individuals here who have not only othered me within my identity, but also I feel othered by their works, in Rushdie’s case and othered by Öcalan’s actions.
I feel more compelled to call out within my own community, to specifically point figures because their works/actions have created a separation when a collective whole is more beneficial.
I could talk to the ends of the earth about this, so I will keep this as short as possible.
Other topics I found I disagreed with was the othering by exclusion. I don’t use this lightly because if anyone knows exclusion well enough, it’s an individual who is from a minority. One topic mentioned was pho. Yes, pho. The author specifically recalls using pho in a sentence but having to “translate” or give contextual markers for unfamiliar cultural foods/phrases in books. The author disagrees with doing this and believes to leave such context untranslated. But fails to mention that you are not only translating for the white individual but other “others” as well.
For me, these little translations are an invitation. The reader might not know what pho is, but by sharing with the reader that pho, a Vietnamese soup dish, is just that, you are welcome individuals to look further into this, by opening a door.
I can go on and on, clearly I have much to say. But let’s just leave it as a book that will invoke emotion and create discourse. Just don’t talk about it at the family dinner table 😉
Special Thanks to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for an ALC of To Save and to Destroy: Writing As An Other. All thoughts are my own.
This is my first book by this author, but one I thought would fit as a great starting point as it is a collection of essays.
What was so great about this was I found myself agreeing with the author on many things, specifically with the complicity of the empire in making human beings feel othered.
Now, let me role my sleeves up, what made this even a better read for me was that I disagreed on many mentions or citations of individuals specifically mentions of politically contentious individuals such as Salman Rushdie or the leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan.
I suppose in Viet Thanh Nguyen’s eyes these individuals are at the forefront of being othered within their own communities, or at least that’s what I was grasping from my read.
I do call out these two individuals because they are contentious within my own communities, I speaking from a middle eastern perspective who identifies with a cultural similarity to Öcalan, but also whole heartedly disagree with both individuals here who have not only othered me within my identity, but also I feel othered by their works, in Rushdie’s case and othered by Öcalan’s actions.
I feel more compelled to call out within my own community, to specifically point figures because their works/actions have created a separation when a collective whole is more beneficial.
I could talk to the ends of the earth about this, so I will keep this as short as possible.
Other topics I found I disagreed with was the othering by exclusion. I don’t use this lightly because if anyone knows exclusion well enough, it’s an individual who is from a minority. One topic mentioned was pho. Yes, pho. The author specifically recalls using pho in a sentence but having to “translate” or give contextual markers for unfamiliar cultural foods/phrases in books. The author disagrees with doing this and believes to leave such context untranslated. But fails to mention that you are not only translating for the white individual but other “others” as well.
For me, these little translations are an invitation. The reader might not know what pho is, but by sharing with the reader that pho, a Vietnamese soup dish, is just that, you are welcome individuals to look further into this, by opening a door.
I can go on and on, clearly I have much to say. But let’s just leave it as a book that will invoke emotion and create discourse. Just don’t talk about it at the family dinner table 😉
Special Thanks to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for an ALC of To Save and to Destroy: Writing As An Other. All thoughts are my own.
September 2, 2025
TO SAVE AND TO DESTROY is a mix of literary criticism and personal essay by our strongest soldier in Asian American literary discourse on (1) what it means to be a minority writer (2) what it means to be Asian American more broadly, and (3) what it means to be an Asian American writer. This is Viet Thanh Nguyen at his best. The book is broken down into several sections on otherness (in the self and loved ones), the current state of Asian American organizing and what it can become, writing as a sort of spirituality, and so much more. It’s scholarly and also very existential. This reaffirmed my decision to not pursue a PhD, but I will be looking to read several of his cited texts (“The Chinese in Haifa,” WHEREAS, LOST IN THE CITY, etc).
(1) The most compelling writerly sections were his reflections on writing about his parents, writing and fatherhood, and writing as a sort of religious discipline, of accessing a soul that is entirely your own and also entirely unfamiliar.
(2) The section on Asian American organizing posits a useful framework for how we can better build community; it also inspired me to reflect upon every Asian American space I have been a part of. He notes 3 levels of impulses at play (self-defense, inclusion, and expansive solidarity) and makes a case for why our organizing needs to move beyond just self-defense and inclusion.
(3) To be an Asian American writer is to face the inherent contradiction of being a product of colonialism while also being / wanting to be a part of empire (diversity in publishing!). Is there a way for Asian American literature to be anti-imperial? I would have loved to think through these questions when I was figuring out why I wanted to write. To be seen, yes, but in what way? What are the limitations to that? The possibilities? Unlikely I’ll ever find answers.
This was a collection on writing, yes, but it was also a call to be brave. I wish I had this book back in 2023, when I found myself grappling with a desire to write, a complicated relationship to Asian America, and my stance on Palestine. I wish I had this ready for everyone who tried to wage war with me in my DMs lol but I’m glad I have it now!! Picked it up for free (!!) at the Center for Fiction’s Labor Day Sale, and I’m so happy to have my own copy bc I annotated the shit out of it. I recommend buying this one fr.
Despite all the praise, I was not a fan of Viet Thanh Nguyen doing a close reading of his own writing here (felt pretentious). I am a bit more forgiving of The Sympathizer but still don’t think it’ll ever be a book that I actually recommend to people.
(1) The most compelling writerly sections were his reflections on writing about his parents, writing and fatherhood, and writing as a sort of religious discipline, of accessing a soul that is entirely your own and also entirely unfamiliar.
(2) The section on Asian American organizing posits a useful framework for how we can better build community; it also inspired me to reflect upon every Asian American space I have been a part of. He notes 3 levels of impulses at play (self-defense, inclusion, and expansive solidarity) and makes a case for why our organizing needs to move beyond just self-defense and inclusion.
(3) To be an Asian American writer is to face the inherent contradiction of being a product of colonialism while also being / wanting to be a part of empire (diversity in publishing!). Is there a way for Asian American literature to be anti-imperial? I would have loved to think through these questions when I was figuring out why I wanted to write. To be seen, yes, but in what way? What are the limitations to that? The possibilities? Unlikely I’ll ever find answers.
This was a collection on writing, yes, but it was also a call to be brave. I wish I had this book back in 2023, when I found myself grappling with a desire to write, a complicated relationship to Asian America, and my stance on Palestine. I wish I had this ready for everyone who tried to wage war with me in my DMs lol but I’m glad I have it now!! Picked it up for free (!!) at the Center for Fiction’s Labor Day Sale, and I’m so happy to have my own copy bc I annotated the shit out of it. I recommend buying this one fr.
Despite all the praise, I was not a fan of Viet Thanh Nguyen doing a close reading of his own writing here (felt pretentious). I am a bit more forgiving of The Sympathizer but still don’t think it’ll ever be a book that I actually recommend to people.
April 14, 2025
Thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape/Belknap for the ARC!
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other reads like an academic addendum to the author's earlier work, replacing personal urgency with social clarity.
After A Man of Two Faces, a memoir I admired for its confident refusal to simplify identity, I wondered where Nguyen could go next. The answer, it seems, is deeper. To Save and to Destroy is more a re-mediation than a step forward, allowing the author to soften his tone while sharpening his arguments across a series of lectures.
In my review for the aforementioned memoir, I noted that Nguyen’s work seemed to suggest that the best way to honor memory is by leaving it as an open wound. That isn’t the case here, as the author seems prepared to heal—ready to find the language to stitch himself up.
Nguyen is much better equipped to discuss otherness this time around, but he has replaced the spiraling, exploratory approach of his memoir with the circular, emphatic format of an academic lecture. It’s still interesting, particularly if readers are into both historical and modern literature, but it isn’t particularly novel. It can even feel a little redundant. I love hearing Nguyen’s take on people like Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, but only in the same way that one might be curious about what a professor thinks about a given subject.
It’s anecdotal, not essential.
As a whole, in comparison to its predecessor, the book seems more personally cathartic but, surprisingly, less publicly catalytic, even though it is more direct in its calls to action. To Save and to Destroy has an audience in mind, but its timely didacticism seems to underserve them. When, for example, Nguyen writes about genocide in Gaza, it feels anonymously academic—a tragedy to serve as an example to prevent future tragedies.
It’s abstracted, which feels a bit antithetical to the author’s earlier work.
Having noted all of this, one of the book’s themes is how otherness wrongfully creates thematic obligations–perhaps I am burdening To Save and to Destroy with stakes it doesn’t need to have. I'm not sure I can fault a book for being unlike another book. I really enjoyed this dive into Viet Thanh Nguyen's brain, and the excellent opening essay is a must-read. It isn’t as if the author is irresponsible—he’s just a little more settled now, even in moments when it seems readers should be unsettled.
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other reads like an academic addendum to the author's earlier work, replacing personal urgency with social clarity.
After A Man of Two Faces, a memoir I admired for its confident refusal to simplify identity, I wondered where Nguyen could go next. The answer, it seems, is deeper. To Save and to Destroy is more a re-mediation than a step forward, allowing the author to soften his tone while sharpening his arguments across a series of lectures.
In my review for the aforementioned memoir, I noted that Nguyen’s work seemed to suggest that the best way to honor memory is by leaving it as an open wound. That isn’t the case here, as the author seems prepared to heal—ready to find the language to stitch himself up.
Nguyen is much better equipped to discuss otherness this time around, but he has replaced the spiraling, exploratory approach of his memoir with the circular, emphatic format of an academic lecture. It’s still interesting, particularly if readers are into both historical and modern literature, but it isn’t particularly novel. It can even feel a little redundant. I love hearing Nguyen’s take on people like Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, but only in the same way that one might be curious about what a professor thinks about a given subject.
It’s anecdotal, not essential.
As a whole, in comparison to its predecessor, the book seems more personally cathartic but, surprisingly, less publicly catalytic, even though it is more direct in its calls to action. To Save and to Destroy has an audience in mind, but its timely didacticism seems to underserve them. When, for example, Nguyen writes about genocide in Gaza, it feels anonymously academic—a tragedy to serve as an example to prevent future tragedies.
It’s abstracted, which feels a bit antithetical to the author’s earlier work.
Having noted all of this, one of the book’s themes is how otherness wrongfully creates thematic obligations–perhaps I am burdening To Save and to Destroy with stakes it doesn’t need to have. I'm not sure I can fault a book for being unlike another book. I really enjoyed this dive into Viet Thanh Nguyen's brain, and the excellent opening essay is a must-read. It isn’t as if the author is irresponsible—he’s just a little more settled now, even in moments when it seems readers should be unsettled.
July 17, 2025
I had earlier enjoyed The Sympathizer and thoroughly enjoyed these essays.
The author has eloquently brought out, and built on the concept of "the other." As he states:
"- In the words of the philosopher Giorgio Agamben, “bare life” means being stripped of all the trappings of humanity, rendering one biologically alive but not human in a cultural, social, civilizational sense. Bare life exists, Agamben argues, in both concentration camps and refugee camps. I would suggest that bare life is also found wherever the refugee is, on a boat or on foot, on the sea or in a jungle. Many of those refugees who survive their crossing or containment and become human again do their best to leave bare life behind, refusing, sometimes, even to call themselves refugees. They instead use a somewhat more palatable name for themselves: the immigrant. But perhaps the memory of that reduction to physical essence always clings to them, as stench, as shadow, as double. As an other that is also, at the same time, them.
- If a Vietnamese person speaks to another Vietnamese person, there is no translation. If I were to write, in the voice of the narrator, “I would like a bowl of pho comma a delicious beef noodle soup comma” - then a sensitive reader would know that I am not talking to Vietnamese people. I would be translating for non-Vietnamese readers. People of the so-called majority, used to never translating themselves, used to always being translated to, might not notice this translation, this catering, this invitation to crawl inside the voice of the writer who has domesticated his otherness by turning himself into a translator. But imagine how you would feel if F. Scott Fitzgerald, in an early draft of the The Great Gatsby, wrote, “Daisy made me a sandwich comma two slices of bread between which there is something delicious comma.”
- As Arundhati Roy puts it, “There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless.’ There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.”
The author has eloquently brought out, and built on the concept of "the other." As he states:
"- In the words of the philosopher Giorgio Agamben, “bare life” means being stripped of all the trappings of humanity, rendering one biologically alive but not human in a cultural, social, civilizational sense. Bare life exists, Agamben argues, in both concentration camps and refugee camps. I would suggest that bare life is also found wherever the refugee is, on a boat or on foot, on the sea or in a jungle. Many of those refugees who survive their crossing or containment and become human again do their best to leave bare life behind, refusing, sometimes, even to call themselves refugees. They instead use a somewhat more palatable name for themselves: the immigrant. But perhaps the memory of that reduction to physical essence always clings to them, as stench, as shadow, as double. As an other that is also, at the same time, them.
- If a Vietnamese person speaks to another Vietnamese person, there is no translation. If I were to write, in the voice of the narrator, “I would like a bowl of pho comma a delicious beef noodle soup comma” - then a sensitive reader would know that I am not talking to Vietnamese people. I would be translating for non-Vietnamese readers. People of the so-called majority, used to never translating themselves, used to always being translated to, might not notice this translation, this catering, this invitation to crawl inside the voice of the writer who has domesticated his otherness by turning himself into a translator. But imagine how you would feel if F. Scott Fitzgerald, in an early draft of the The Great Gatsby, wrote, “Daisy made me a sandwich comma two slices of bread between which there is something delicious comma.”
- As Arundhati Roy puts it, “There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless.’ There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.”
March 27, 2025
Nguyen has written a number of novels, including The Sympathizer and The Committed, which is how I first became aware of him. I'm sure the TV show about the former has brought others of you to him. Like me, you may have initially thought that this would be similar, but instead it is primarily an academic analysis of writing and its intersection with identity, politics, imperialism, and more.
This collection of essays (originally delivered as the Norton lectures at Harvard) is unlike anything I've ever read or heard, and therefore I had some difficulty in deciding on a rating. My hunch is that I am under-rating (i.e. it should be a 5), but I found myself wandering a bit as I listened, most likely my own fault, but nonetheless, the reason for it being slightly lower. Once again, I wish there was a 4.5 option!
As you might expect, Nguyễn narrates the audiobook, which parallels his initial delivery of the essays and also dovetails well with their extremely personal nature. Nguyen is a Vietnamese refugee (not that he would use that word, as you will see when you read), and does an extremely good job talking about "othering", and particularly how to grapple with writing about it and through it. There is a lot to digest here and I personally would likely benefit from a critical reading of the essays and then sitting with them a while. Worth the read for the more "intellectual" among us.
Please note: I received an advanced listening copy from NetGalley & Dreamscape Media in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are strictly my own. Publication date is April 8, 2025.
This collection of essays (originally delivered as the Norton lectures at Harvard) is unlike anything I've ever read or heard, and therefore I had some difficulty in deciding on a rating. My hunch is that I am under-rating (i.e. it should be a 5), but I found myself wandering a bit as I listened, most likely my own fault, but nonetheless, the reason for it being slightly lower. Once again, I wish there was a 4.5 option!
As you might expect, Nguyễn narrates the audiobook, which parallels his initial delivery of the essays and also dovetails well with their extremely personal nature. Nguyen is a Vietnamese refugee (not that he would use that word, as you will see when you read), and does an extremely good job talking about "othering", and particularly how to grapple with writing about it and through it. There is a lot to digest here and I personally would likely benefit from a critical reading of the essays and then sitting with them a while. Worth the read for the more "intellectual" among us.
Please note: I received an advanced listening copy from NetGalley & Dreamscape Media in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are strictly my own. Publication date is April 8, 2025.
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