The Sympathizer (Google Books ⧉, Amazon ⧉, Bookshop ⧉)
Contributed by NobleBibliophile506
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References To Other Books
Direct References
Asian Communism and the Oriental Mode of Destruction
All my belongings now fit in the rucksack, my copy of Asian Communism and the Oriental Mode of Destruction in its false bottom, the book so well worn it had nearly split in two along its cracked spine.
Hamlet
[A] sweeping new novel . . . The burden borne by the novel’s title character . . . is that he recognized the appeal of each conflicting worldview he encounters. He’s a modern Hamlet, torn by his ability to see all sides. —Week
The Woman Who Lost Her Soul
It is a strong, strange and liberating joy to read this book, feeling with each page that a broken world is being knitted back together, once again whole and complete. As far as I am concerned, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer—both a great American novel and a great Vietnamese novel—will close the shelf on the literature of the Vietnam War. —Bob Shacochis, author of The Woman Who Lost Her Soul
Matterhorn
Read this novel with care; it is easy to read, wry, ironic, wise, and captivating, but it could change not only your outlook on the Vietnam War, but your outlook on what you believe about politics and ideology in general. It does what the best of literature does: expands your consciousness beyond the limitations of your body and individual circumstances. —Karl Marlantes, author of Matterhorn and What It Is Like to Go to War
What It Is Like to Go to War
Read this novel with care; it is easy to read, wry, ironic, wise, and captivating, but it could change not only your outlook on the Vietnam War, but your outlook on what you believe about politics and ideology in general. It does what the best of literature does: expands your consciousness beyond the limitations of your body and individual circumstances. —Karl Marlantes, author of Matterhorn and What It Is Like to Go to War
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
Not only does Viet Thanh Nguyen bring a rare and authentic voice to the body of American literature generated by the Vietnam War, he has created a book that transcends history and politics and nationality and speaks to the enduring theme of literature: the universal quest for self, for identity. The Sympathizer is a stellar debut by a writer of depth and skill. —Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures
The Sympathizer is a remarkable and brilliant book. By turns harrowing, and cut through by shards of unexpected and telling humor, this novel gives us the conflict in Vietnam, and its aftermath, in a way that is deeply truthful, and vitally important. —Vincent Lam, author of Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures
Fobbit
I think I’d have to go all the way back to Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert to find the last narrative voice that so completely conked me over the head and took me prisoner. Nguyen and his unnamed protagonist certainly have made a name for themselves with one of the smartest, darkest, funniest books you’ll read this year. —David Abrams, author of Fobbit
Catfish and Mandala
Audaciously and vividly imagined. A compelling read. —Andrew X. Pham, author of Catfish and Mandala
Native Speaker
Dazzling prose . . . The narrator’s voice alone is the novel’s universe, its whole self, always displaying a leaping, dangerous intelligence that makes the book nearly impossible to close . . . The Sympathizer exceeds its two nearest relations in concept and form, Chang-Rae Lee’s Native Speaker and Hari Kunzru’s The Impressionist. —Bookforum.com
The Impressionist
Dazzling prose . . . The narrator’s voice alone is the novel’s universe, its whole self, always displaying a leaping, dangerous intelligence that makes the book nearly impossible to close . . . The Sympathizer exceeds its two nearest relations in concept and form, Chang-Rae Lee’s Native Speaker and Hari Kunzru’s The Impressionist. —Bookforum.com
Tree of Smoke
With twists and betrayals worthy of Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke, Viet Thanh Nguyen has written THE novel about the fall of Saigon and its aftermath, a novel that puts Vietnam at the center of the Vietnam War. Part espionage, part existential crisis, and part Hollywood farce, The Sympathizer humanizes and complicates our understanding of one of the most vivid conflicts in history. —Fiction Advocate
Tree of Smoke
Breathtakingly cynical, [The Sympathizer] has its hilarious moments . . . a powerful, thought-provoking work. It’s hard to believe this effort, one of the best recent novels to cover the Vietnamese conflict from an Asian perspective, is a debut. This is right up there with Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke. —Library Journal (starred review)
The Orphan Master’s Son
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s debut has critics everywhere buzzing. In my own reading, I kept think[ing] of Adam Johnson’s The Orphan Master’s Son. It’s equally as impressive, too. —Novel Enthusiasts
Humbert Humbert
I think I’d have to go all the way back to Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert to find the last narrative voice that so completely conked me over the head and took me prisoner. Nguyen and his unnamed protagonist certainly have made a name for themselves with one of the smartest, darkest, funniest books you’ll read this year. —David Abrams, author of Fobbit
On the Genealogy of Morals
Let us not become gloomy as soon as we hear the word “torture”: in this particular case there is plenty to offset and mitigate that word—even something to laugh at. —Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals
The Communist Manifesto
That was my job as his aide‐de‐camp and junior officer of intelligence, to provide him with cribbed notes on, say, The Communist Manifesto or Mao’s Little Red Book.
Mao’s Little Red Book
That was my job as his aide‐de‐camp and junior officer of intelligence, to provide him with cribbed notes on, say, The Communist Manifesto or Mao’s Little Red Book.
Richard Hedd’s Asian Communism and the Oriental Mode of Destruction
When he arrived a few days later, Richard Hedd’s Asian Communism and the Oriental Mode of Destruction was the paperback he carried.
The Three Musketeers
Ever since our lycée days, we had fancied ourselves the Three Musketeers, all for one and one for all. Man had introduced us to Dumas: first, because he was a great novelist, and second, because he was a quadroon.
Perry Mason mysteries
Besides translating three of the Perry Mason mysteries of Erle Stanley Gardner into our native tongue, he had also written a forgettable Zolaesque novel under a pen name.
Oxford English Dictionary
More technically, the Oxford English Dictionary I consulted at Occidental revealed that I could be called a “natural child,” while the law in all countries I know of hails me as its illegitimate son.
Myth and Symbol in the Literature of Graham Greene
Not only did Professor Hammer find that scholarship for me, he also became my most important teacher after Claude and Man. It was the professor who had guided my American studies and who had agreed to venture out of his field to supervise my senior thesis, 'Myth and Symbol in the Literature of Graham Greene.
Asian Communism and the Oriental Mode of Destruction
They referred to page, line, and word of Richard Hedd’s Asian Communism and the Oriental Mode of Destruction, the cipher Man had so artfully chosen and now the most important book in my life.
Kama Sutra
It’s got nothing to do with the Kama Sutra or The Carnal Prayer Mat or any of that Oriental hocus-pocus of our beloved Department Chair.
The Carnal Prayer Mat
It’s got nothing to do with the Kama Sutra or The Carnal Prayer Mat or any of that Oriental hocus-pocus of our beloved Department Chair.
The Quiet American
His nostalgia stimulated, perhaps, by the literature around him, the professor said, I still remember your thesis on The Quiet American. That was one of the best undergraduate theses I’ve ever read. I smiled demurely and said thanks while Claude, sitting beside me on the sofa, snorted. I didn’t care too much for that book.
The Hamlet
When I asked the Congressman for the title, I was taken aback. Hamlet? No, The Hamlet. The director’s also the writer. Never served a day in the armed forces, just got fed John Wayne and Audie Murphy movies as a kid. The main character’s a Green Beret who has to save a hamlet. I did serve two years on an A-Team in a number of hamlets, but nothing like this fantasyland he’s cooked up.
The Hamlet
When Violet opened the door, she continued with her bewildering manner of discourse in person. Glad to see you could make it, heard a lot about you, loved your notes on The Hamlet. And that’s precisely how she spoke, trimming pronouns and periods, as if punctuation and grammar were wasted on me.
Fodor’s Southeast Asia
Three months later I was en route to the Philippines, my rucksack in the overhead luggage bin, in my lap a copy of Fodor’s Southeast Asia, a tome as thick as War and Peace.
War and Peace
in my lap a copy of Fodor’s Southeast Asia, a tome as thick as War and Peace.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
before I could go any further she laid down her copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull and said, 'You’re lovely, but just not my type. It’s not your fault. You’re a man.
English dictionary
I consulted my English dictionary, where I discovered that a mole could also be a kind of pier or harbor, a unit of measurement in chemistry, an abnormal mass of uterine tissue, and, if pronounced differently, a highly spiced Mexican sauce of peppers and chocolate that I would one day try and very much enjoy.
The Hamlet
Before I retired, I dutifully composed my report to her. The Hamlet was complete, I wrote. But, more important, the Movement had established a revenue source.
Bible
In his schoolroom I learned my Bible and the history of my divine Father, the story of my Gallic forefathers, and the catechism of the Catholic Church.
Bible
He taught me the Word of God, she said, and I learned to read and to count by studying the Bible and memorizing the Ten Commandments.
The Brothers Karamazov
I would have returned to the store to buy such a novel, but instead of The Brothers Karamazov it stocked Sgt. Rock comics.
Sgt. Rock comics
I would have returned to the store to buy such a novel, but instead of The Brothers Karamazov it stocked Sgt. Rock comics.
The Bible
Longer than the Bible and a hell of a lot more fun, they stretched forever, like an Indian yogi or an American highway shimmering through the Great Plains or the southwestern desert.
Dr. Hedd's Book
I wasted no time in presenting my copy of his book for an autograph. I see you’ve read this rather closely, the doctor said, riffling through pages dogeared so exhaustively that the book swelled as if waterlogged.
KUBARK
I could see the pages of the book that Claude was referring to, the interrogation manual we had pored over in his course, the book that went under the name KUBARK. It had definitions of several character types the interrogator was likely to meet.
Bible
I carried his leg as far away from me as possible, its weight growing more and more, like the Bible my father made me hold in front of the classroom as punishment for some transgression, my arm outstretched with the book on the scale of my hand.
Asian Communism
I lay down with my head on my rucksack, which, besides my rations, contained Asian Communism and the Oriental Mode of Destruction, tucked away in my rucksack’s false bottom in case I ever needed it again.
Oriental Mode of Destruction
I lay down with my head on my rucksack, which, besides my rations, contained Asian Communism and the Oriental Mode of Destruction, tucked away in my rucksack’s false bottom in case I ever needed it again.
How the Steel Was Tempered
Of course, I can understand why you didn’t quote How the Steel Was Tempered or Tracks in the Snowy Forest. You wouldn’t have had access to them, even though everyone of my generation from the north has read them.
Tracks in the Snowy Forest
Of course, I can understand why you didn’t quote How the Steel Was Tempered or Tracks in the Snowy Forest. You wouldn’t have had access to them, even though everyone of my generation from the north has read them.
Das Kapital
I just wonder what you would say about Karl Marx, Comrade Commandant. Das Kapital isn’t exactly written for the people?
The Bible
As he taught me in our study group, both the Bible and Das Kapital provided answers.
Das Kapital
As he taught me in our study group, both the Bible and Das Kapital provided answers.
The Three Musketeers
We are the Three Musketeers, aren’t we? Or perhaps now we are the Three Stooges.
KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation, 1963
We found this in your quarters at the General’s villa. Q. What is the title? A. KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation, 1963. Q. What is KUBARK? A. A cryptonym for the CIA. Q. What is the CIA? A. The Central Intelligence Agency of the USA. Q. What is the USA? A. The United States of America. You see that I hide nothing from you, the commissar said, leaning back.
Alice in Wonderland
He had mastered the Ivan Is a Dope technique, the Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing technique, the Alice in Wonderland technique, the All-Seeing Eye technique, the Nobody Loves You technique.
the Bible
if the Bible had never been written and Jesus Christ never sacrificed
Asian Communism and the Oriental Mode of Destruction
From beneath his desk he retrieved our battered rucksack and our copy of Asian Communism and the Oriental Mode of Destruction. The last we had seen it, the book was nearly falling apart, creased deeply at the spine. The binding had finally torn apart, and a rubber band bound the book’s two halves. We tried to refuse it, but he slipped the book in the rucksack and pressed it on us. In case you ever need to send me a message, he said.
The Fall of Saigon
For the fall of Saigon and the last days of the Republic of Vietnam, I consulted David Butler’s The Fall of Saigon, Larry Engelmann’s Tears Before the Rain, James Fenton’s “The Fall of Saigon,” Dirck Halstead’s “White Christmas,” Charles Henderson’s Goodnight Saigon, and Tiziano Terzani’s Giai Phong! The Fall and Liberation of Saigon.
Tears Before the Rain
For the fall of Saigon and the last days of the Republic of Vietnam, I consulted David Butler’s The Fall of Saigon, Larry Engelmann’s Tears Before the Rain, James Fenton’s “The Fall of Saigon,” Dirck Halstead’s “White Christmas,” Charles Henderson’s Goodnight Saigon, and Tiziano Terzani’s Giai Phong! The Fall and Liberation of Saigon.
White Christmas
For the fall of Saigon and the last days of the Republic of Vietnam, I consulted David Butler’s The Fall of Saigon, Larry Engelmann’s Tears Before the Rain, James Fenton’s “The Fall of Saigon,” Dirck Halstead’s “White Christmas,” Charles Henderson’s Goodnight Saigon, and Tiziano Terzani’s Giai Phong! The Fall and Liberation of Saigon.
Goodnight Saigon
For the fall of Saigon and the last days of the Republic of Vietnam, I consulted David Butler’s The Fall of Saigon, Larry Engelmann’s Tears Before the Rain, James Fenton’s “The Fall of Saigon,” Dirck Halstead’s “White Christmas,” Charles Henderson’s Goodnight Saigon, and Tiziano Terzani’s Giai Phong! The Fall and Liberation of Saigon.
Giai Phong! The Fall and Liberation of Saigon
For the fall of Saigon and the last days of the Republic of Vietnam, I consulted David Butler’s The Fall of Saigon, Larry Engelmann’s Tears Before the Rain, James Fenton’s “The Fall of Saigon,” Dirck Halstead’s “White Christmas,” Charles Henderson’s Goodnight Saigon, and Tiziano Terzani’s Giai Phong! The Fall and Liberation of Saigon.
Decent Interval
I am particularly indebted to Frank Snepp’s important book Decent Interval, which provided the inspiration for Claude’s flight from Saigon and the episode with the Watchman.
The Phoenix Program
For accounts of South Vietnamese prisons and police, as well as Viet Cong activities, I turned to Douglas Valentine’s The Phoenix Program, the pamphlet We Accuse by Jean-Pierre Debris and André Menras, Truong Nhu Tang’s A Vietcong Memoir, and an article in the January 1968 issue of Life.
We Accuse
For accounts of South Vietnamese prisons and police, as well as Viet Cong activities, I turned to Douglas Valentine’s The Phoenix Program, the pamphlet We Accuse by Jean-Pierre Debris and André Menras, Truong Nhu Tang’s A Vietcong Memoir, and an article in the January 1968 issue of Life.
A Vietcong Memoir
For accounts of South Vietnamese prisons and police, as well as Viet Cong activities, I turned to Douglas Valentine’s The Phoenix Program, the pamphlet We Accuse by Jean-Pierre Debris and André Menras, Truong Nhu Tang’s A Vietcong Memoir, and an article in the January 1968 issue of Life.
A Question of Torture
Alfred W. McCoy’s A Question of Torture was crucial for understanding the development of American interrogation techniques from the 1950s through the war in Vietnam, and their extension into the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
To Be Made Over
For the reeducation camps, I made use of Huynh Sanh Thong’s To Be Made Over, Jade Ngoc Quang Huynh’s South Wind Changing, and Tran Tri Vu’s Lost Years.
South Wind Changing
For the reeducation camps, I made use of Huynh Sanh Thong’s To Be Made Over, Jade Ngoc Quang Huynh’s South Wind Changing, and Tran Tri Vu’s Lost Years.
Lost Years
For the reeducation camps, I made use of Huynh Sanh Thong’s To Be Made Over, Jade Ngoc Quang Huynh’s South Wind Changing, and Tran Tri Vu’s Lost Years.
Francis Ford Coppola: Close Up
These works were also helpful: Ronald Bergan’s Francis Ford Coppola: Close Up; Jean-Paul Chaillet and Elizabeth Vincent’s Francis Ford Coppola; Jeffrey Chown’s Hollywood Auteur: Francis Coppola; Peter Cowie’s The Apocalypse Now Book and Coppola: A Biography; Michael Goodwin and Naomi Wise’s On the Edge: The Life and Times of Francis Coppola; Gene D. Phillips and Rodney Hill’s Francis Ford Coppola: Interviews; and Michael Schumacher’s Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker’s Life.
Francis Ford Coppola
These works were also helpful: Ronald Bergan’s Francis Ford Coppola: Close Up; Jean-Paul Chaillet and Elizabeth Vincent’s Francis Ford Coppola; Jeffrey Chown’s Hollywood Auteur: Francis Coppola; Peter Cowie’s The Apocalypse Now Book and Coppola: A Biography; Michael Goodwin and Naomi Wise’s On the Edge: The Life and Times of Francis Coppola; Gene D. Phillips and Rodney Hill’s Francis Ford Coppola: Interviews; and Michael Schumacher’s Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker’s Life.
Hollywood Auteur: Francis Coppola
These works were also helpful: Ronald Bergan’s Francis Ford Coppola: Close Up; Jean-Paul Chaillet and Elizabeth Vincent’s Francis Ford Coppola; Jeffrey Chown’s Hollywood Auteur: Francis Coppola; Peter Cowie’s The Apocalypse Now Book and Coppola: A Biography; Michael Goodwin and Naomi Wise’s On the Edge: The Life and Times of Francis Coppola; Gene D. Phillips and Rodney Hill’s Francis Ford Coppola: Interviews; and Michael Schumacher’s Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker’s Life.
The Apocalypse Now Book
These works were also helpful: Ronald Bergan’s Francis Ford Coppola: Close Up; Jean-Paul Chaillet and Elizabeth Vincent’s Francis Ford Coppola; Jeffrey Chown’s Hollywood Auteur: Francis Coppola; Peter Cowie’s The Apocalypse Now Book and Coppola: A Biography; Michael Goodwin and Naomi Wise’s On the Edge: The Life and Times of Francis Coppola; Gene D. Phillips and Rodney Hill’s Francis Ford Coppola: Interviews; and Michael Schumacher’s Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker’s Life.
Coppola: A Biography
These works were also helpful: Ronald Bergan’s Francis Ford Coppola: Close Up; Jean-Paul Chaillet and Elizabeth Vincent’s Francis Ford Coppola; Jeffrey Chown’s Hollywood Auteur: Francis Coppola; Peter Cowie’s The Apocalypse Now Book and Coppola: A Biography; Michael Goodwin and Naomi Wise’s On the Edge: The Life and Times of Francis Coppola; Gene D. Phillips and Rodney Hill’s Francis Ford Coppola: Interviews; and Michael Schumacher’s Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker’s Life.
On the Edge: The Life and Times of Francis Coppola
These works were also helpful: Ronald Bergan’s Francis Ford Coppola: Close Up; Jean-Paul Chaillet and Elizabeth Vincent’s Francis Ford Coppola; Jeffrey Chown’s Hollywood Auteur: Francis Coppola; Peter Cowie’s The Apocalypse Now Book and Coppola: A Biography; Michael Goodwin and Naomi Wise’s On the Edge: The Life and Times of Francis Coppola; Gene D. Phillips and Rodney Hill’s Francis Ford Coppola: Interviews; and Michael Schumacher’s Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker’s Life.
Francis Ford Coppola: Interviews
These works were also helpful: Ronald Bergan’s Francis Ford Coppola: Close Up; Jean-Paul Chaillet and Elizabeth Vincent’s Francis Ford Coppola; Jeffrey Chown’s Hollywood Auteur: Francis Coppola; Peter Cowie’s The Apocalypse Now Book and Coppola: A Biography; Michael Goodwin and Naomi Wise’s On the Edge: The Life and Times of Francis Coppola; Gene D. Phillips and Rodney Hill’s Francis Ford Coppola: Interviews; and Michael Schumacher’s Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker’s Life.
Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker’s Life
These works were also helpful: Ronald Bergan’s Francis Ford Coppola: Close Up; Jean-Paul Chaillet and Elizabeth Vincent’s Francis Ford Coppola; Jeffrey Chown’s Hollywood Auteur: Francis Coppola; Peter Cowie’s The Apocalypse Now Book and Coppola: A Biography; Michael Goodwin and Naomi Wise’s On the Edge: The Life and Times of Francis Coppola; Gene D. Phillips and Rodney Hill’s Francis Ford Coppola: Interviews; and Michael Schumacher’s Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker’s Life.
Viêt Nam Exposé
Nguyên Van Ky, who translated the proverb “The good deeds of Father are as great as Mount Thai Son,” available in the book Viêt Nam Exposé;
Fodor’s Southeast Asia
the 1975 edition of Fodor’s Southeast Asia;
Race and Resistance
My first engagement with your work is reading your academic book Race and Resistance as an undergraduate.
Playing in the Dark
As a young writer I turned to Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark to think about the ways in which writers of color have been tempted to write for dominant gazes.
Beloved
Toni Morrison says in Beloved that to have to explain yourself to white people distorts you because you start from a position of assuming your inhumanity or lack of humanity in other people’s eyes.
Invisible Man
I was thinking really explicitly about Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, which influenced me a lot.
The Quiet American
I think I was trying to avoid that idea of having any single character stand in for the nation because the book is responding to something like The Quiet American where Phuong, the character in that novel, symbolizes the country over which people struggle.
Indirect References
Works on the Woman Question
She declared her allegiances through the most prominent furnishings in her living room, bookshelves bowed as the backs of coolies with the weight of Simone de Beauvoir, Anaïs Nin, Angela Davis, and other women who had wrestled with the Woman Question.
my book
Didn't you write something to that effect, Dr. Hedd? You have read my book more closely than I expected, General. You are a man who has undoubtedly seen the worst of war, as have I, so you will forgive me if I speak the unpalatable truth about why the Americans lost Vietnam.
my next book
After handing a glass to his buxom companion and another to me, he said, I hope you do not mind, young man, if I use your memorable turn of phrase in my next book. Our female companions looked at me without interest, waiting for my reply.
Referenced By
No books reference this book