I liked the book, but wasn't aware that there was a series being made.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:43 AM on March 31

Oooh I didnt know either.

The book is absolutely brilliant.
posted by supermedusa at 9:38 AM on March 31

I'm surprised it didn't get canned after Nguyen came out in support of a Gaza cease-fire and was dropped like a hot potato from book-readings.
posted by warreng at 9:41 AM on March 31 [2 favorites]

I'll admit I'm alarmed by every plot synopsis kind of gently sliding off the plot, lol, but my library has it and I'm gonna check it out.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:27 AM on March 31 [1 favorite]

kittens for breakfast read it for the prose alone. this guy can write!!! just absolutely crackling brilliant prose in there.
posted by supermedusa at 10:50 AM on March 31 [1 favorite]

Amazing book. Will give the show a watch.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 11:20 AM on March 31

Sounds like a lot of The Sympathizer lovers here..My modest descent: I like Viet Thanh Nguyen's stated politics and I thought the book had an engaging premise and was well written. I appreciated the ambition of the book and the effort to bring nuance to the intensely ideological space of reflections on the American War/Vietnam War, but I wasn't satisfied that the books' execution was able to meet the ambition. As I recall, I was especially disappointed by the storyline about torturing and raping the female agent, that I felt fell into dehumanizing and predictably gendered tropes. I was disappointed because I imagine Nguyen to have more nuanced and thoughtful gender politics than that. I can't imagine that a TV adaptation will bring nuance that the book lacked. But I am glad to live in a very different age of TV story telling than the one I grew up where such a story would never be adapted.
posted by latkes at 12:05 PM on March 31 [1 favorite]

Latkes, I've watched a lot of interviews with Nguyen, and I don't remember which one, but in one of them, he basically says that he wrote The Sympathizer most of the way through before he realized that he had written his protagonist as an alcoholic, insane, misogynist. The sequel, The Committed, in part, was written to also sort of "fix" and deal with the misogyny of the character.

The Committed also deals more overtly with the aftermath of French colonialism and also specifically with anti-Arab/Algerian racism.

I really liked both novels, but as I only finished both of them fairly recently, I don't know how successful he is with all of these complicated issues/threads. I love the writing and his thoughtfulness overall.

I'm still kind of iffy on the choice to make Robert Downey, Jr play a whole bunch of characters but we'll see how the show actually works.
posted by toastyk at 12:18 PM on March 31 [1 favorite]

I sought the book out because so many people loved it (like I see here) but wow, I barely got through the first chapter. Different people like different things!
posted by stevil at 2:31 PM on March 31

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