Oh how I wanted to like this book as I enjoyed The Sympathizer so much. Unfortunately, I struggled reading it. The story line has the Sympathizer and his quasi friend Bon in Paris where they meet up with his somewhat aunt and her salon attending friends. Though against their reeducation and beliefs, they forge into he world of capitalism by selling narcotics. The story dragged on in places as well as it had too much stream of consciousness to hold my attention. It was so easy for me to put this book down to encage in something else. Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy.

I was given the opportunity to read and review this book through Net Galley and I am so glad! The story sucked you in and you'll find yourself thinking about the characters long after you finish the book. Can't wait to read more by this author!!

Review posted at BookBrowse: https://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/reviews/index.cfm/ref/pr270720.

Abbreviated review: Just like The Sympathizer, The Committed is not a pleasant book, but it is an important book. I wouldn't even really call it an enjoyable book, although it is a joy to read Nguyen's masterful turns of phrase and skillful wordplay. He truly is an exceptional writer and it is this gift, along with the pulpy nature of the storyline, that keeps us reading curiously, pushing through our discomfort to engage with the ideas and philosophies that Nguyen presents. It is in this sense that the sequel furthers the mission that the first book began, by pushing boundaries and confronting difficult truths

Did this live up to The Sympathizer? Not for me 😥 I didn't love this book and it pains me!! The Committed had some thought provoking moments but I felt that it lacked momentum and didn't expand and grow on the themes as much as I wanted. The way the narrator was described felt very repetitive ("a man of two minds" over and over). Part of the trouble for me was that in the first book, it was interesting getting to know this enigmatic character and seeing how he reacted to the situations he was in. There was also the sense of urgency with the war and the secrets he was hiding. Here, there isn't that urgency and you already know the back stories of everyone, which made it hard for me to stay engaged. It felt like the characters had already peaked and I was craving more from them and their journeys. The ending dropped a few juicy twists and gave me some of what I wanted, but I wish there was more.

While this book was disappointing for me, I didn't hate it. It was nice to see this side of Paris, with the focus on immigrant and refugee communities. The writing has the familiar mix of dark humor and ideological thoughts. The way that various thinkers like Althusser, Fanon, and Kristeva are situated into the text is both indulgent and impressive. If you're a fan of The Sympathizer, you probably won't hate this either, but expect something a little different!

Bon and the sympathizer, the man with two faces and two minds, arrive to Paris, light of luggage, as refugees. Is the year 1981. They are welcomed by the sympathizer's "aunt", an editor from a small publishing house, who sponsored them in order for them to be able to leave the refugees camp in Indonesia.
The Boss, an acquaintance from their time in the refugees camp, introduce them to Le Cao Boi who is going to get them involved in the drug trade.
I haven't read The Sympathizer, the first installment of this saga. In spite of that, the thriller is very well rounded and enjoyable.
The stream of consciousness and the lack of quotation marks makes it a little confusing sometimes. I like the irony of some of the insights the characters express about american and french societies.
The protagonist and narrator has a keen sense of observation so he is constantly highlighting the ideological contradictions not only of his comrades but also of himself exposing, maybe unintentionally, the hypocrisy of certain sectors of society.
Beautiful prose full of humor and sarcasm.

The Committed is the sequel to The Sympathizer and follows our nameless antihero who is no longer a spy as he stumbles into Paris and a life of drugs, crime, gangs, and politics. "We were the unwelcome, the unwanted, the ignored, invisible to anyone but ourselves": this is how this work begins. The protagonist of the new novel is still the young Captain of the South Vietnamese army who, in the "Sympathizer", after the fall of Saigon in 1975, flees to the United States and, unbeknownst to his friend and blood brother Bon and the chief general of the South Vietnamese National Police, sends his reports to Man, his trainer in the Vietcong ranks. After spending his American years in the condition of alienation and invisibility typical of a refugee and a communist spy, in the early 1980s, with the passport of a certain Vo Danh in his pocket, the sympathizer lands in Paris in the company of the inseparable Bon. France, the country of long colonial domination in Indochina, granted the two blood brothers the coveted right of asylum. It is an opportunity for both of us to leave behind the painful wounds of the past. An opportunity to be cultivated through the purest of capitalist activities, offered by the Vietnamese Boss who moved from the Palau Galang camp to Paris: drug dealing and trading. For Bon it represents the possibility of ceasing to be an unwelcome guest. For the sympathizer, who has spent a good part of his life believing in something in whose heart there was nothing but nothing, simply another possibility given to nothing.

A nothing, this time, which makes Paris a city with a murky charm and which makes the intellectuals engagés of the French left frequented at the home of the Vietnamese "aunt", to whom Man addressed him, nothing more than a loyal clientele of the Boss's substances . Finally, nothing that makes it difficult to carry out the task that has always harbored in the soul of the sympathizer: the reconciliation between the blood brothers of the past, Bon and Man, that history, with its cruelties and its blind passions and hopes, he placed on opposite sides. This is a richly-detailed, acutely perceptive and truly captivating read and a masterclass in how to pen a literary thriller that has depth and intelligence in abundance. It's exhilarating, refreshingly original and I loved the exploration of existentialism and prominent French philosophers such as Sartre and de Beauvoir and what words of wisdom they shared. The narrator is as unreliable as they come and is intelligent, charismatic, charming, modest, bookish and often immensely funny. Just the sheer complexity and multilayered nature of his character makes him ambiguous, fascinating and thoroughly engaging and his opinions on racism, colonialism, ideology and the vastly different culture and traditions in France and Vietnam were always intriguing. His musings on whether the colonised can ever really be free were also thought-provoking. This is an eccentric crime tale that highlights the complex legacy of the Vietnam War. Highly recommended.

I struggled through this book and at times had a hard time paying attention to what was happening. I am wondering if I would have enjoyed it more if I had it in audio format. Thank you NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for a digital ARC of this title.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for allowing me to read the advanced copy of this. This is a sequel to The Sympathizer, which unfortunately I have not yet read. I would highly suggest reading that before picking this up. I did not connect to the subject matter. While the book is written impeccably, I have minimal interest in the Vietnam War, philosophical musings or fresh colonialism. The main character is very complex and riddled with PTSD and Mental Health problems, both of which need to be included in literary fiction more often. I did enjoy trying to get to know who the real main character was, beneath his ailments. This is a really tough read so proceed with caution (and read The Sympathizer first!).

The amazing sympathizer is back! The long awaited book form the very popular author had arrived. Here we find him doing nothing else but in the world of drugs and the deep black hole of dealing.

2.5 stars, rounded down.

The Committed picks up after The Sympathizer- this time set mostly in Paris.

I very much enjoyed Viet Thanh Nguyen's other books- The Sympathizer won the Pulitzer and deserved it.

The author has mastered how to write beautiful sentences and create vivid descriptions. He can tell an important story. This is the story of a spy with post war mental health decline, without a job anymore, who has been rejected by his new country and will be killed if he tries to go home again. An important story, with a lot of potential to bring awareness to the plight of the refugee, and to mental health.

I realize that many of the characters are going through PTSD, along with other mental health issues. They are also trying to adjust to a world that doesn't need spies or mercenaries, and that their options for a safe home are limited. But the narrative was all over the place, and I just couldn't follow. It felt too scattered, too violent inside the head of the main character.

I can see the intention here, and I think if I had read this in a different mood, at a different time, perhaps I could have enjoyed it more.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for an ARC of this book.

I suspect I'll be the odd person out on this one. This sequel to the Sympathizer almost demands that you have read the first book. It's the 1980s and Vo Danh, who worked for the Communists while serving in the South Vietnamese army is living in Paris with his brother Bon. He strays into drug dealing and then plunges into the French crime scene. While this could have been an exploration of his experiences in the underworld, Nguyen instead chooses to set off on lengthy philosophical pieces that frankly left me yawning. I was a fan of the Refugees and the Sympathizer, but this left me cold. It's received a lot of praise but it just wasn't for me. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. For fans of literary fiction.

"The ambassador likewise proceeded to torture his audience with a bilingual soufflé of cliches, topped with the whipped cream of excessive compliments slathered onto French culture. Real talent was required to use so many words in two languages and say nothing."

In this sequel to the Pulitzer Prize winning The Sympathizer, our protagonist arrives as a refugee in Paris in the 1980s. There he bounces between his aunt's highfalutin crowd of leftist intellectuals and drug dealing gangsters. Part shoot-'em-up action story, part political ponderings, part post-Vietnam war reminiscence, part contrast between the haves and have nots, part commentary on racism and sexism, part investigation into the psychology of our protagonist, The Committed is a smattering of so many diverse things I can't really classify it as one genre.

Part of me feels like a 3 star rating is really unjust for this book, as it's my own fault for picking up a novel has a lot of elements in it that don't really do it for me. I know very little about the Vietnam war. I have minimal interest in politics. Philosophical musings and French colonialism are two more topics that don't gauge my interest. I'd never heard of Adorno, Althusser, nor Cesaire. Needless to say, due to my ignorance on certain subjects and lack of enthusiasm over others, a lot of this book was a slog for me to get through. I didn't officially do a word count or anything, but I'd wager the terms capitalism, communism, and Marxism (and the variations thereof) made up 10% of the words in this here book. No thank you.

Additionally, The Committed's blurb mentions it follows the character from Nguyen's book The Sympathizer, but it didn't flat out say this is a sequel. It is. Since I hadn't read The Sympathizer, I was a bit lost from page one. If you haven't read The Sympathizer already, I'd recommend you do so before tackling this tale. It will save you a lot of head scratching and eyebrow furrowing.

I loved when this book got into the psychological musings of our unreliable narrator. Between the disturbing things he saw and experienced in the Vietnam war and the period shortly thereafter (as was explained in The Sympathizer, I'm guessing), the guy is... not all there in the head. And he recognizes this. He pictures himself as multiple people - me, myself, and I - and some parts of him have conversations with the ghosts of people he's killed. The lines between reality and the imagination blur, but in a way that lets you see what the protagonist is going through and how he sees the world. And I really dug the ending where the explanation for the title of the book is fully revealed.

A new book from the award-winning author of the The Sympathizer. Nguyen continues the story of the former Vietnamese soldier with no name who is now living in Paris with his blood brother Bon. As refugees, they hope France will be better to them than America was. After all France proclaims they believe in "liberty, equality, and fraternity...(but just not yet, at least for you.)" He is known to most in the immigrant community as 'the crazy bastard.' He IS crazy and he IS a bastard after all. He has been a communist and a spy, but now he turns his interests to capitalism, mainly because he needs money to live.

What is he committed to, you might ask? He is committed to nothing, and that has great meaning for him. The book is largely a discussion of ideology, politics, religion, racism, sexism and basically how he and so many others have been unfairly treated by all of these. If you enjoyed the writing style and characters of The Sympathizer, you are likely to enjoy this book as well. I did and give it 4 stars.

I received an arc from the author and publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Many thanks.

I had hard time pushing through The Sympathizer. I had to restart couple of times before I can actually sit down and finish it. When I can actually focus on the story, I was able to enjoy it. I was able to understand the narrator's state of mind and issues he was facing. Even though The Sympathizer was a challenging experience, I was optimistic about The Committed. If I was able to finish the first one and end up enjoying it after few trials, I could do the same for this one. But unfortunately expectation didn't meet the reality.

We continue hearing about the adventures of the nameless man. This time he was in France and ready to shake things up in his father's land. He still had the same reservations and dilemmas that he always had and couldn't make up his mind about anything. Somehow he managed to put himself in these weird positions where someone brutally murdered or tortured. I felt like I was reading the same story over again.

I wish I had more positive things to say about my experience as I appreciate the writing style and storytelling of the author. If you really enjoyed the first book, this is the continuation so be prepared to hear more from nameless man!

The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen is the sequel to The Sympathizer and I recommend that you read that first otherwise this novel will not make as much sense. The Committed begins with the protagonist becoming a refugee for the third time, this time in Paris where he and Bon first touch base with his "Aunt". As he tries to grasp at a sense of belonging in the world of his father, we see the protagonists psyche start to diminish as he is haunted by addiction, ghosts of the past, capitalism, his bi-racial and former double agent duality, and the elitist world in which his Aunt lives. This is not the "spy novel" that the first one was; there is much more subtle character development and philosophical nuance rather than plot driven action. It is fast-paced and well written and I recommend it.

Advanced copy provided courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This story is an immediate continuation of The Sympathizer and won’t make much sense if you have not read it.

Arriving in Paris as a refugee, the Sympathizer is still reeling from the trauma of his communist reeducation camp experiences in Vietnam. He was a communist spy working in America, a double-agent, though he always classified himself as a sympathizer to either cause, not that his blood brother Bon, an anti-communist, knows that. After a horrendous journey he and Bon arrive in Paris to stay with his French-Vietnamese ‘Aunt’, the communist woman who was his correspondence while he was in America. Between mingling with her snooty left-wing intellectual friends, the Sympathizer throws himself into capitalism through drug dealing. Bon is as immensely traumatized as the Sympathizer especially as he made it out of Vietnam alive but his wife and child did not. The Sympathizer knows that Bon will kill him if he ever finds out that he isn’t the die-hard communist hater that he is and that he was once a double agent but Bon is the closest thing to family that he has had since his mother. Unable to resolve his moral and political dilemma and unsure of where his personal beliefs stand he verges on the fence of nihilism and self-destruction.

The book has a completely different tone and approach than the previous book. The Sympathizer was deliberately written as a spy or adventure type of novel. Wanting to take a different approach, the author stated in an interview that,

“I wanted to write a dialectical novel with The Sympathizer and to write a novel deeply influenced by Marxism and Marxist theory.” and to explore ideas such as “what does [a] disillusioned former revolutionary do with himself?” - Viet Thanh Nguyen, “On Writing Memory and Identity: An Interview with Viet Thanh Nguyen“

This novel is by far more philosophical and theoretical than The Sympathizer which, at times is refreshing, but if you were hoping for more of the same spy action you might be disappointed. It’s not that this plot isn’t without action it’s that the author’s state is distressing and even while filling his head with rhetoric from people he would have gone on with previously, he sees flaws in their beliefs and their racist personas and can’t come to terms with the indifferent person he is now. This story is one of trauma, love, friendship, sexism, rhetoric, and racism. The writing quality is still of immense quality and you still feel committed to this sad character and how his story is going end, it just didn’t pack the same punch as The Sympathizer. However, that book is definitely a tough act to follow. The narrator’s inner thoughts are still the best parts of the story and how he manages his trauma, decisions, and realisations. I really enjoyed reading this conclusion of his story and would highly recommend reading this novel to any that enjoyed The Sympathizer.

The powerful sequel to The Sympathizers continues the unreliable narrator’s story after he left America and moved to Paris. Along with his blood brother, Bon, who does not know Vo Danh was a North Vietnamese double agent in America. Bon cannot stand the Communists and so Vo Danh hopes his past remains a secret. Living at his “aunt’s” apartment, he and Bon find unsavory employment with the Boss. There are plenty of hair-raising adventures, along with the more pleasant adventures learning to live in Paris and reconnect with other Vietnamese refugees. Although a sequel, the book is also a standalone because Nguyen weaves what the reader needs to know about past happenings into the story. What stood out to me was how Vo Danh was more worried about the failures of capitalism than the drug world in which they were employed.

This was tough to read, largely because the main character (you don't find out his true name until the very end) is incredibly complicated. We learn about a former communist in the wake of the Vietnam War who'd been embedded as a spy with the South Vietnamese and Americans, who'd gone through a reeducation camp, who had a French father, trying to hide his beliefs from his best friend, and fit in with a new culture and society. The character is not dumbed down or simplified in a way, which was amazing to read about, but not always easy. 
The character's complex background allowed for a really unique perspective on communism vs. capitalism, colonizers and colonization, which I really enjoyed seeing from a non-Western point of view. 

The author's imagery was also really vivid throughout (sometimes when you don't want it, like when he has to clean toilets!) in a way that was completely engaging. It also had some really wryly funny moments.

I didn't always understand what was happening, but I enjoyed the experience of reading it. If you liked The Sympathizer or the Refugee by the same author, you'll definitely enjoy this too.

Thanks to #netgalley for this advance copy of #TheCommitted

Viet Thanh Nguyen is way too smart for me! In all seriousness though, this book is brilliant. Like The Sympathizer, The Committed is multi-layered and there's so much to unpack in 341 pages. I can't pretend to understand it all, as my understanding of Vietnamese history is very green. However, I can say that I really enjoy Viet Thanh Nguyen's writing style and storytelling for this very reason. Oftentimes, literature that focuses on Asian history and cultural dynamics are written for a white audience and feel very dumbed down. However, Nguyen does not do this. He neither dumbs down his story, nor does he hold back when making criticism on colonialism. His commentary is scathing, and to me, this captures the deep and complicated feelings that people from nations that have been formally colonized by western nations feel. It's books like these that make me think about them long after I've read them. These are also the kinds of books that I will keep and reread as my understanding grows over time.

For people that have read The Sympathizer, you must read The Committed. If you haven't read The Sympathizer, I highly recommend that you read it first before jumping to this one.

Thank you netgalley and Grove Press for the chance to review this ARC! I enjoyed The Sympathizer so much and couldn’t wait to see where our MC was going next.

The Committed picks up almost directly after The Sympathizer ends. And while Nguyen’s first novel is one based mostly on the duality of the MCs life in Vietnam and in America, this one shows more of the same views. However in The Committed we get an added lens: the MCs views on the French (in addition to America and Vietnam).

Furthermore, we get to see the MC navigate through his communist heart while starting what perhaps is the most capitalist business adventure there is, drugs.

Nguyen’s satire and descriptive prose is still very present, something I enjoyed a lot. I found myself laughing at the (true) hilarious descriptions of America and Americans. “Americans knew their culture was ubiquitous, whether burgers or bombs.”