I have not read the Sympathizer and I did not realize this was a sequel/follow up. So I did enjoy it as some back story is given, but I think you might like it more if you have read the Sympathizer "The Sympathizer" is the main character of the book and it is set in 1980s Paris. It is both full of action and can be very long-winded and philosophical at times, which makes for an interesting combination and one reason why this book may not be for everyone. There are also some torture scenes, so trigger warning there.

Viet Thanh Nguyen can do no wrong in my eyes. He is the modern Vietnamese immigrant, now successful celebrated American writer.

The Committed, the HIGHLY anticipated sequel to The Sympathizer, is perfection. Now, "Crazy Bastard' is in Paris and works dealing hash and heroin. Much like The Sympathizer - the book is stream of conciseness from an unreliable narrator......and that's why it's brilliant.

I've already pre-ordered copies for my mom and sisters.

Thank you NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the opportunity to read this book. Thank you to Viet Thanh Nguyen for being amazing.

The Commited
by Viet Thanh Nguyen

This is a difficult book to read on many levels. Maybe, as described by the author, the American mentality does not lend itself to the types of thinking he attributes to all the various non-white peoples of the world who have been colonized and subjugated by world powers such as France, America, Russia, China etc. This may be true. However, the level of depravity and violence he describes cannot solely be blamed on the colonizers.

The protagonist in this book is a self proclaimed communist, spy, and traitor who has commited many crimes including multiple murders. He has betrayed his closest friends. The many pages made up of long, convoluted, endless sentences dealing with his soul-searching and his desire to be forgiven, made this reader want this book to come to an end. It became very hard to feel empathy for the protagonist when trying to wend my way through the mass of verbiage.

I am a fan of Viet Thanh Nguyen's previous work, "The Sympathizer," a spy novel. I don't generally care about spy novels, but this one, set against the backdrop of the fall of Saigon, was amazing. It won all the awards, and deservedly so. This book doesn't reach the lofty heights of "The Sympathizer" but it is still a well-written book that suffers from the comparison to its predecessor.. It continues the story of the main character from "The Sympathizer," who with his friend Bon has moved to Paris and ends up dealing drugs. As the reader, you will sympathize with him, even if you think drug dealing is immoral. During his dealing, he may make money, but his psyche suffers as he sees the effect that his dealing has not only on himself, but the people around him. The language is beautiful, as Nguyen has a knack for making what could be a rote sentence into something far more artistic and beautiful on the tongue. But it does lag in areas and the storyline can sometimes be frustrating. Still, it takes us away to 1980s Paris, and that journey alone is worth the price of this book.

Follow up to The Sympathizer (amazing!) - the Vietnamese spy is now in Paris, it is the early 1980s. He survived a reeducation camp and ends up selling drugs to the French bourgeoisie.
Philosophy, French music, gritty turf wars, search for identity. There's an awful lot going on in this beautifully written novel.

A brilliant sequel to a highly regarded debut. This gifted and original writer has much to say, and handles the tone and content, the combination of narrative and philosophy, humor and tragedy with enormous ability. Deftly plotted, with surprises aplenty, and events both high and low, this is a something for everyone novel. Rare.

Viet Thanh Nguyen's follow up to his brilliant novel The Sympathizer trails the narrator (he's either crazy bastard or Le Chinois or Joseph Nguyen as the situation calls for it) as he lands as a Vietnamese refugee in his mid-thirties in the Paris of 1980s. He briefly shacks up with his communist intellectual aunt, gets employment as a janitor in a clientele-free Asian restaurant that's a front for a gangster, starts selling hashish to Parisian leftist intellectuals and sometimes even confronts them of their racial fetishes, masked as racial equality. The book is breathlessly paced and filled with searing, stream of consciousness prose that is sure a delight for some (read, me) but may not sustain other people's attention. In any case, I imagine you'd have to be invested in The Sympathizer a fair deal to pick this book up. Nguyen's prose takes the reader on a whirlwind trip across Paris in the 1980s and provides a fair bit of scathing commentary about racism, capitalism, communism and sundry. Quite enjoyed reading it.

ps: I think Grove Atlantic & Netgalley for the eARC .

Not for me! Brilliantly written and very humorous, but this was more of an extended essay on colonialism than a novel for me. Couldn't make out the plot due to all the extended (and heavy handed) musings from the narrator. Stopped reading about halfway through.

This novel is a sequel to the fabulous The Sympathizer. This book picks up where the earlier tale leaves off and underscores absurdity in a similar way. But, likely because The Sympathizer was so successful, this novel fell flat to me and sort of watered down the first novel.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.
Find the full review and others at: https://bookclubbed.buzzsprout.com/1572124/7443568-the-committed-political-binaries-are-not-a-personality

Viet Thanh Nguyen is a sterling writer. There is no doubt in regard to his political convictions, his vision for The Committed, and the wide swath of political theory he has at his disposal. There are times when the writing sings, and he handles the violence with a Reservoir Dogs tone.

Unfortunately, the majority of this book is long-winded, repetitive political theory laundered through the protagonist attempting to secure an identity in Paris. This is understandable in a sense, given the character’s backstory and the inextricable link between colonizer/colonized and his status in France. However, capitalist diatribes by secondary characters are exhausting, especially when they are so banal. We get it, I wanted to plead with the author, please move on to something else.

The author overrides the protagonist, postcolonial lens fused to his face so he can’t possibly interpret his world in any other sense. It borders on solipsism, and the reductive musings on “nothing” isn’t nearly as interesting as the author makes it out to be. There is inscrutable wordplay (and rhetorical questions) that we are supposed to assume is clever if no meaning can be drawn out of it.

The conversations are interrupted by brief spasms of violence centered around drug warfare and territory control. At that point, however, every character is a vehicle for their political beliefs and I couldn’t have cared less about what happened to them.

At points in the novel, Nguyen draws on Fanon so much that you might be better served just reading the source material.

I’m blown away, again. The Sympathizer was one of the best books I’ve ever read. I loved living in the main character’s head as he relentlessly unfolded his story of identity, confusion, and belonging. I was a few sentences into The Committed when I remembered how much I loved the previous book and how nice it was to be back in the main character’s head.

The setting is different, lots of new characters and challenges, but it’s 100% as good and compelling as ever. The writing is spectacular, there are so many hilarious and poignant moments. The main character continues to struggle with identity. He doesn’t fit perfectly wherever he is. He’s victim of colonialism who doesn’t really have a home.

It’s compelling, tense, funny, and totally unique. A perfect sequel. Hopefully there’s a part 3!

I didn't read The Sympathizer so I'm less familiar with the author and the main character than others. I still very much enjoyed this book both for the storylines and the themes throughout. The story becomes very different in the end and it's definitely a book where the ending makes you go back and reread the beginning. I was many times left wondering what was real and what was in the narrator's head. I'm still left questioning what really happened, which definitely isn't a bad thing. Not only is the story ultimately thought-provoking but the expressed themes of colonialism, war, and capitalism/socialism/communism were also quite provocative as well. Not a perfect book overall, but definitely a great and memorable read.

(I read an advanced copy via NetGalley.) If you want to know my thoughts on how much respect I have for Nguyen, read my long-okay-it's-really-long review of THE SYMPATHIZER. Here for my review of THE COMMITTED, I'm going to try to keep it short. This novel is BRILLIANT. I loved the first book but this sequel really brought it a notch up. I love love love that the sequel seamlessly picks up where the first book drops off and reveals more of the unnamed narrator including a reveal of his supposed name!!! There was a lot of philosophy talk around Fanon, Adorno, and Cesaire -- all of whom are strangers to me. The philosophy combined with commentary on the binary of communism and capitalism were fascinating but at some points overwhelming. Nguyen really envelopes the reader into the narrator's world to the point where I felt like I was high for 42% of the book (heh). The last little tidbit I'll point out is Nguyen's fantastic play on words; without giving too much away, the title and some proper nouns are puns! I loved this book and cannot wait to discuss THE COMMITTED with the rest of my bookish friends, and I'm also beyond excited to add this to my bookshelf when it comes out!

I thoroughly enjoyed Nguyen's prior book, The Sympathizer, and I was very excited to see that he had written a sequel novel. Seeing Paris through the eyes of a refugee, rather than as a European travel destination, was equal parts provoking and disappointing. I enjoy Nguyen's imperfect characters, and the Sympathizer's attempts to reconcile the two opposing halves of his life are heartbreakingly poignant. Overall, I enjoyed The Sympathizer more as a whole, but I do like having the follow-up of what happened after he escaped Vietnam.

3 stars for a book that is overloaded with the tortured mind of a Vietnamese spy now in France. I decided to read this book because i had read and enjoyed 2 books previously by this author.
The steam of consciousness writing, with an emphasis on the ideas of various philosophers is at times confusing and too much information. That, plus depictions of torture, detracted from the enjoyment of the book.
On the plus side, there is some interesting commentary from the Vietnamese point of view on American society, French colonizers and present French society.
One quote, a self description: "Perhaps that was just another name for a man with two faces and two minds. If so, at least I knew who I was, and that was more than could be said for most. The dual images of myself floating in his lenses reminded me that I was not one, but two, not only me or moi but also, on occasion, we or us."
Thanks to Grove Atlantic for sending me this book through NetGalley.
#TheCommitted #NetGalley

I was very intrigued by the plot and the character. Unfortunately, I haven't read the previous book yet, hence I feel I did not fully connect. But will read The Sympathizer in the future and reread this. Sure it will be much pleasurable.

This book is an engaging look into the struggle between worldviews. The Committed follows the lives of two Vietnamese refugees in Paris in the 1980s - secrets are held close, but above all, a commitment and bond to one another holds them together even as their pasts threaten their future. Communism, ideals, who you are, past, and future are all themes that run throughout this novel. This is a heavy read, but it really makes you think. Paris as a backdrop illustrates the contrast between what is real, and what is glittery. The relationships within this book are complex, tangled, love and hate all wrapped up together. This was a great read.

The Committed is the 2021 follow-up to Nguyen's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Sympathizer, but in all honesty, these books could be/should be read as a single volume. The cohesive themes make it impossible to pick up The Committed as a standalone, but allow for The Sympathizer to be incredibly deepened by reading its followup.

A few notes. I'm not sure I'm smart enough-- or ever could be smart enough-- to unearth all of the points that Nguyen puts forward in this text. At its heart, it's a book about colonialism, hidden under a veil of a gangster narrative. Like The Sympathizer, our narrator has a wry sensibility and surrounds himself (on purpose or accident) with philosophers-- even if they wouldn't consider themselves that way. The plot meanders a bit, but as a reader I was so rooted in the voice, I couldn't help but want to follow (even when I couldn't 'follow' every argument). This book is not, nor does it advertise itself to be, light reading, and the violence in every meaning of the word could put off some readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This follow-up to “The Sympathizer” is another crime novel filled with lots of ideas that focus in large measure on the complex legacy of the Vietnam experience. Along with his blood brother, Bon, Nguyen’s protagonist has fled Vietnam for his father’s homeland. They are now refugees in Paris. His former choices, both good and bad, don’t seem to matter much here where moral ambiguity is so prevalent. His Parisian setting gives Nguyen a platform to highlight the crime, violence, racism, prostitution, and drugs so prevalent in the West under capitalism while also questioning the oppression and brutalization of the Vietnamese people under French colonialism, the American intervention, and the Communist regime. Clearly, he sees both capitalism and communism as deeply flawed ideologies with little to offer but war and cruelty.

The Sympathizer and his blood brother, Bon, crash with his French Vietnamese aunt (really no relation) only to be introduced to her intellectual friends and to the French underworld with jobs at “the worst Asian restaurant in Paris.” Since the latter is really only a front for illegal drug dealing, the refugees are enlisted to develop a new clientele among his “aunt’s” intellectual acquaintances. Of course, this leads to the classical drug turf war and the usual violence that comes along with it. The plot is highly convoluted, frequently odd, incredibly violent, and often quite opaque, but Nguyen redeems it with lots of dark comedy that drips with irony.

Indeed, the thriller aspect of the novel is not really very prominent. Instead, Nguyen devotes large amounts of space to French philosophy and his protagonist’s questioning of his own commitments and betrayals. Notwithstanding markedly slowing the pace, these digressions give the novel a literary power absent in most crime genre fiction. Matters include his secret role as a communist spy, his torture at the hands of another friend in a post-war reeducation camp, his identity as an Asian minority, and especially his betrayal of Bon, a staunch anti-communist who lost his wife and child in the war.

I read this right after reading The Sympathizer so I was still riding that high and I wanted to continue on with the Captain who is now a Crazy Bastard or just simply rather crazy.

This one is a mix of crazy action and long philosophical asides. I must admit that I got rather lost in the 'asides' as Nguyen was in a dialogue with philosophies, ideologies, which I am not on point with so I could not really join into that dialogue.

If I had a wish for this book it would be that I wished for a better balance between action and philosophy after all the proof of words is when it's made out into flesh that is action. I wish this particular baby had not been lost in the philosophical bath water.

But for all this I was fully on board with the Captain and his struggles with nothing and contradictions which seem to be a universal condition, and life in general. It's a pity that he has for the moment abdicated from joining us in this world and has decided to fall down the rabbit hole that his thoughts have dug up.

An ARC gently provided by author/publisher via Netgalley.