A Pulitzer prize winning novel from first time writer, Nguyen, set during the closing days of the Vietnam war and its aftermath, both in the United States and Vietnam. The nameless narrator, caught between the East and West gives rise to the voices of the Vietnamese, unlike most of the novels and films about the Vietnam War. This, alone, makes the book worth reading besides the fact it's a compelling read, as the narrator, an aide to the General, watches as Saigon falls, and he along with the General, must flee their country and both end up living in California. The novel is a form of confession to the 'commandant,' the Communist leader to whom the narrator supposedly holds his allegiance.
The narrator's story is complicated by the vow he made with two high school buddies to take care of each other, one Bon, a sniper for the CIA, the other, Man, a leader with the Viet Min and anti US. Thus, the narrator is pulled in two directions even in his friendships. Unfortunately, as the narrator suggests, loyalty to a cause, to a people, to a friend is not that simple. Thus, the novel veers back and forth between East and West, Vietnam and the US and the narrator ends up at the end in a re-education camp, to be 'remade' but finds that the ideals that he fought for are betrayed by not only the US but the 'commandant' and those now in power in Communist Viet Nam. Here he explains the dilemma of the novel, of any history, that there are always two sides, yet we often only see one.
“I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds, . . . able to see any issue from both sides. Sometimes I flatter myself that this is a talent,” he continues, but “I wonder if what I have should even be called talent. After all, a talent is something you use, not something that uses you. The talent you cannot not use, the talent that possesses you — that is a hazard.”
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