UB5 Book Club Thread - Book # 1 - The Sympathizer

[OrangeUte]

Okay, here is the unveiling of the first book in our newly established everyone-a-member-if-they-want-to-be book club...

CAUTION - THERE WILL BE SPOILERS IN THIS THREAD.

But, feel free to post what you want to post and analyze what you want to analyze about this book. Remember that disagreements over something that another person took away or interpreted from a book are lame; just say "thank you for your perspective" and then give your own 2 cents about the book. We will all silently judge the caliber of your comments and keep them to ourselves. However, engaging in a conversation is a completely different beast. Challenge and digging into ideas is what makes really good literature a venture worth pursing. Also, if you take some kind of analysis from Sparksnotes or anyone else, you damn well better attribute the idea or comment to them. I don't want to get a letter about this site getting sued for plagiarism because we had a friggin' book club on here.

Once we exhaust a discussion of it, we will have someone else pick another book and create a new thread to talk about the next book.

Book to read for the Club in February 2017 is the Pulitzer winner in 2016 for Fiction, The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen. https://www.amazon.com/Sympathizer-N...ds=sympathizer

[NorthwestUteFan]

. Remember that disagreements over something that another person took away or interpreted from a book are lame;

'Round here we call that little maneuver the 'LA Ute'.

[LA Ute]

'Round here we call that little maneuver the 'LA Ute'.

Thank you for your perspective.

[NorthwestUteFan]

Thank you for your perspective.

See? That wasn't so hard. Good job!

[Applejack]

I'm in! :willy:

[LA Ute]

See? That wasn't so hard. Good job!

...you commie.

[Utebiquitous]

I'm in as well. Thank you OrangeUte. I'll get started this weekend.

[NorthwestUteFan]

...you commie.

Well that lasted about 5 minutes. You are improving!

I am in. I look forward to this book. I hear good things about it. And we could use a good dystopian novel to distract from our dystopian reality.

[LA Ute]

Just downloaded it to my Kindle.

[OrangeUte]

awesome!!!

feel free to start posting as soon as you begin. I will start the book Saturday or sunday and start posting then about it.

[NorthwestUteFan]

Here is a very interesting (excerpt of an) article written by Viet Thanh Nguyen:

http://lithub.com/the-prophecy-of-ma...etnam-to-iraq/

[LA Ute]

Here is a very interesting (excerpt of an) article written by Viet Thanh Nguyen:

http://lithub.com/the-prophecy-of-ma...etnam-to-iraq/

His perspective is left-leaning. It'll be interesting to see how that expresses itself in the book. I don't mind if it does -- I like LeCarre novels and he's consistently anti-West. He says interesting things like "Ideologies have no heart of their own. They're the whores and angels of our striving selves."

[NorthwestUteFan]

His perspective is left-leaning. It'll be interesting to see how that expresses itself in the book. I don't mind if it does -- I like LeCarre novels and he's consistently anti-West. He says interesting things like "Ideologies have no heart of their own. They're the whores and angels of our striving selves."

[LA Ute]

Nah. I'll be fine. Besides, I already paid for the book. There's no turning back now.


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[SeattleUte]

Ha. I've been struggling with this one. I don't like it much at all. But I'm only about 60% through it. I remember I was reading the Pulitzer winner from a couple of years ago, The Orphan Master's Son, and wasn't too crazy about it, then all of a sudden it pivoted--there was this amazing development and scene that transformed the whole book from beginning (retroactively) to end, and now it's one of my favorites. I've been waiting for that kind of magic with this book, but none yet. I'll give you my analysis when I get a chance after finishing it. The problem with awards these days, is they often tend to be very politically motivated. This book seems a prime example.

[LA Ute]

Our author's bio:

http://vietnguyen.info/author-viet-thanh-nguyen

[OrangeUte]

not much analysis yet, but I am 40 pages in and think the set up for the story has been done nicely. as with many books, most actually, that I read, until I get knee deep in the story I have a tendency to cruise over words while my mind travels elsewhere. This has happened quite a few times in this book for me so far. I haven't been disappointed with the writing, and the story really is engaging me, so I don't think it means anything yet.

A few quotes that I liked:

On the effect of the war on the Vietnamese common citizen (page 4): "She was a poor person, I was her poor child, and no one asks poor people if they want war."

On the American withdrawal from Vietnam (page 4): "Having given us the needles, they now perversely no longer supplied the dope"; and (page 6) "Why is it that the only people who do not know that the Americans are pulling out are the Americans". He has a few humorous lines thrown in, but Viet Nguyen is no George Saunders with comedic relief thus far.

Page 32: "It is always better to admire the best among our foes rather than the worst among our friends."

[SeattleUte]

not much analysis yet, but I am 40 pages in and think the set up for the story has been done nicely. as with many books, most actually, that I read, until I get knee deep in the story I have a tendency to cruise over words while my mind travels elsewhere. This has happened quite a few times in this book for me so far. I haven't been disappointed with the writing, and the story really is engaging me, so I don't think it means anything yet.

A few quotes that I liked:

On the effect of the war on the Vietnamese common citizen (page 4): "She was a poor person, I was her poor child, and no one asks poor people if they want war."

On the American withdrawal from Vietnam (page 4): "Having given us the needles, they now perversely no longer supplied the dope"; and (page 6) "Why is it that the only people who do not know that the Americans are pulling out are the Americans". He has a few humorous lines thrown in, but Viet Nguyen is no George Saunders with comedic relief thus far.

Page 32: "It is always better to admire the best among our foes rather than the worst among our friends."

So far I'd say the first 40 pages are the best part.

[OrangeUte]

Thanks for the comments SU. I look forward to comments on this book from you and all of the others. Hopefully these scenes of artistry as you described one of them, will carry the book through. I have some time today to read at lunch so I hope to bang out a chapter or two.

[chrisrenrut]

I finished this on the drive home from the PAC-12 tournament today. The thing I like about books like this, The Orphan Master's Son, etc. is the opportunity to learn about people from vastly different culture, time, and experiences than me, in an entertaining way. As I read it, I was thinking about SU's initial perception, and I just didn't see it through that lens. I suppose SU being an author himself, looks at a book and really thinks about an author's motivation.

I listen to books, instead of read them, because that it the only way I can find time to get through them (while commuting, exercising, etc.). It has some disadvantages, and I feel like l may miss out on some of the deeper meanings as a result. It's easy to become visually distracted, lose focus or attention, and not as easy to go back and re-read a passage to search for deeper understanding.

The ending of the book to me was a little disappointing, but then again, I'm not sure what I would have expected. Everything was resolved, but I was expecting something more profound.

One recurring theme I noticed was a person or people having to be represented when they could not represent themselves. It came up often and in different situations enough that I think it was part of a larger point the author was trying to make. But I am still going over in my mind what that larger point is.

[OrangeUte]

Our author's bio:

http://vietnguyen.info/author-viet-thanh-nguyen

I listened to a discussion with him on youtube last night. here is one about the author's experience as a refugee in 1975. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOc6Unc_9ws

[OrangeUte]

I listened to a discussion with him on youtube last night. here is one about the author's experience as a refugee in 1975. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOc6Unc_9ws

I do love the fact that a Vietnamese refugee is not only a Pulitzer winner for a novel written in English, but also a Berkeley PhD in English, and a professor at UCLA and Chair at that school's English Department.

[concerned]

I do love the fact that a Vietnamese refugee is not only a Pulitzer winner for a novel written in English, but also a Berkeley PhD in English, and a professor at UCLA and Chair at that school's English Department.

lucky for him he isn't Muslim

[chrisrenrut]

I learned a new word from this book. I am listening to it on Audible, and while talking about the fat major, I assumed the narrator was butchering the pronunciation of "corpulent", because he continued to refer to the major's weight as his most defining feature. I did not know that "crapulent" was a real word. I would have guessed it meant something different from it's Oxford dictionary definition, referring to excessive drinking or intoxication.

[SeattleUte]

I do love the fact that a Vietnamese refugee is not only a Pulitzer winner for a novel written in English, but also a Berkeley PhD in English, and a professor at UCLA and Chair at that school's English Department.

Which makes his contempt for this country all the more ironic.

[OrangeUte]

Which makes his contempt for this country all the more ironic.

I am not far enough in to know if his novel is contemptuous. The interviews with him that I have heard have all been late night talk shows as I don't usually listen to anything analytical on a book until after I read it. sounds like his writing, at least, strikes chords of annoyance?