Huntsville-Madison County Public Library discussion

The return of the two-faced and two-minded man

In Viet Thanh Nguyen’s 2016 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, ‘The Sympathizer,’ the nameless narrator’s ability to sympathize with opposing viewpoints and ideologies proved to be his super power that made him ideally suited to be a double agent. As we find out in the conclusion of that masterful novel, it also proved to be a curse once he was caught, tortured, and reprogrammed by his communist blood brother, the man without a face but a name, Man. On the other side of that divide, was his other blood brother, rabid anti-Communist Bon. These self-described ‘three musketeers’ of childhood became literal blood brothers, each drawing blood from his palm and mixing it with the others.

In ‘The Sympathizer,’ the nameless man’s double nature prompted him to embark on the covert mission of taking back the South Vietnamese homeland, yet in his double agent role as a communist he was really fighting on the side of his handler, Man, yet at the third (and real?) level, he was attempting to save Bon, Man, and, if possible, himself, in a futile, absurd, suicidal mission.

In the sequel, ‘The Committed,’ published in 2021, we see that the nameless narrator has survived physically, but his mental state has deteriorated.Either as a result of his reprogramming or simply as a coping mechanism, the Sympathizer’s double nature has multiplied into many points of view:
‘I am able to see any issue from both sides, and while I once flattered myself that this was a talent, now I understand it to be a curse. What was a man with two minds except a mutant? Perhaps even a monster. Yes, I admit it! I am not just one but two. Not just I but you. Not just me but we.”

After escaping from reprogramming and torture, the Sympathizer becomes a refugee again, this time landing Paris in 1981, the home of his French father. No longer an active communist or double agent, he gets sucked into a drug and prostitution ring and lives with his communist aunt. He sells hashish, which seems to be as much a part of the French intelligentsia’s daily diet as their wines, and thinks of cornering the market in selling hashish to the ones that can afford it He also partakes of ‘the remedy’ i.e. cocaine, more than is good for him as well as the business.

Nguyen takes every opportunity to satirize the French through his Sympathizer. In Parisian clubs and brothels, even a bouncer (whom the Sympathizer refers to as the “eschatological muscle”) is familiar with Sartre but prefers Fanon and Cesaire. The Sympathizer actually acknowledges the commonality between himself and the Algerian “muscle,” as they are both non-white and both have been “colonized” by the French.

The narrator does attempt to take a moral stand and is willing to risk his life when “the Boss” orders him to interrogate and torture one of the Algerian dealers from a rival drug ring. The narrator has given him a nickname—Mona Lisa—based on his inscrutable smile rather than his gender. Identifying with him, as he did with the Algerian bouncer, as a fellow non-white colonist, the Sympathizer instead asks him questions about his background. Seeing that he has not tortured him enough, the Boss gives him a hammer and orders him to bash the prisoner’s brains in.

In a scene modeled after the torture scene in the film, ‘Reservoir Dogs,’ complete with dancing interrogator, also containing allusions to the historically inaccurate Russian roulette scene in ‘The Deer Hunter, the Sympathizer is finally forced to confront the moral answer to the question Tolstoy most famously posed, “What is to be done?” At least once in his life, the Sympathizer wants to choose the moral high ground rather than be rendered impotent by his two-sided nature. In an clear revelation, he sees that the obvious answer to “What is to be done?” is “Nothing!.”

This is the moral hill he is prepared to die on. Due to an absurd chain of events, the Boss and his henchmen are dispatched and the Sympathizer’s life is spared. I will not describe the details of how this comes about, not only because it would be too lengthy but because I am not certain, like the Sympathizer himself, that it is really happening. That is one of the flaws of the novel. When we are not sure whether we are on the solid ground of consensual Reality, we are uncertain of Everything. While this shifting ground is unsettling, it does firmly place us in the state(s) of mind of this schizophrenic narrator.

The various meanings of the word “committed” are explored in this novel. The narrator is asked if he is committed to the correct political or social cause, depending on who is asking the question. He is asked what crimes he has committed. Finally, due to the splintering of his personality, he is committed in the literal sense to a hospital called ‘Paradise’ and ordered to write his second confession (the novel ‘The Sympathizer’ being his first.) When a brothel is called Heaven and a rehab hospital called Paradise, I am not too inclined to insist on literal, allegorical, or metaphorical meanings. I recall the New York Times review of ‘The Committed’ in the quote, now twice removed, from the another critic summarizing one of Billy Wilder’s last films, “Flawed and bonkers, but I like it.” If he can end a review on that note, then I should be able to as well.