Ms. Hen reviews The Sympathizer

The Sympathizer

Viet Than Ngyuyen

Grove Press

2015

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she saw the author at the Pen Hemingway Award ceremony in April of this year. She thought he was smart and serious and funny and self-deprecating all at the same time. She was curious about his novel that won so many awards and had garnered such respect, so she decided to read it.

The first thing she noticed about THE SYMPATHIZER is that the writing is dense. It is extremely different from the last novel she read, A FREE LIFE, which was such an easy read that she breezed right through it like walking through the park on a spring day. She understands the benefits of a book that is dense, but it took a lot of time and trudging for Ms. Hen to get through.

This novel is about a young Vietnamese man during the Vietnam War who is the child of a French priest and his maid. He never knew who his father was until his mother told him when he was old enough to understand. He becomes a double agent, because he can see situations from both sides. He becomes educated in the United States, and speaks perfect English. The novel is his confession when he becomes captured.

Ms. Hen couldn’t help but notice that all the female characters in this novel are either sex objects or mother objects. She finds that disturbing. She can’t understand why a novel that is so decidedly against women could win so many awards. She thinks that someone might say, “But that’s not what this novel is about! It’s political and it’s about war and people’s decisions they make and how someone’s life could get messed up!” She understands this argument, because she can see problems from both sides like the character in the novel. But the lack of complex women characters is unmistakably noticeable to her. Sure, it’s wonderful that a minority writer wins the Pulitzer and multiple other awards. But Ms. Hen thinks it’s disconcerting that he doesn’t respect women characters enough to make them more interesting than a whore or a mother.

When Ms. Hen read this, she was reminded of another writer whose female characters are one-dimensional, Philip Roth. She wanted to find out if critics had written about the two together, so she did some research and discovered that there is a scene in THE SYMPATHIZER that is copied from a scene from a Philip Roth novel that Ms. Hen has not read (and will not read because it sounds perverse) called PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT. Imagine thirteen-year old boys doing disgusting things with food and that’s what it is. Ms. Hen found an article about this. You can read it here:

https://lithub.com/an-unnecessarily-close-reading-of-that-scene-in-portnoys-complaint/

Needless to say, Ms. Hen does not like to read about such things, and was disappointed that such a witty and charming person could be so biased and unpleasant. Ms. Hen didn’t like this novel, and she won’t be reading any other books by this writer again soon.