In the end, I accepted that and thought it gave depth without being burdensome. Being a sequel, the question arises for the author and the assiduous reader, about how much backstory to put into the second book. As a few people raise glasses to toast, the Boss says “Molotov!” His secretary corrects him and says “The Jews say mazeltov.” I prefer “Molotov” says the Boss, who runs a small and violent drug ring. There is the occasional flash of intellectual humour. Viet Thanh Nguyens new novel, The Committed, is set in 1980s Paris, but it opens on a small boat in the open seas crammed with people escaping their homeland. Amongst the “gangster action” and underpinning the novel is the discussion of racism and colonialism. Then racism erupts beyond intellectual observation into a visceral argument between the protagonist and a wealthy left politician. Still gritty and very masculine, for quite a while it seems like the heavy intellectualism was making the protagonist rather two-dimensional, though the ideas were interesting enough to keep me going. The sequel to The Sympathizer, it is more philosophical and intellectual than the earlier novel. Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC. Nguyen, too, is driven to raptures of expression by the obliviousness of the self-satisfied he relentlessly punctures. All Rights Administered by BMG Rights Management (US) LLC. There’s a reason that Nguyen has invited Cline into The Committed. Copyright (c) 1966 Alpha Editions Musicales. "Et Moi, Et Moi, Et Moi." Words and Music by Jacques Dutronc and Jacques Lanzmann. All rights administered by Round Hill Carlin, LLC. "Seasons in the Sun." Written by Jacques Brel and Rod McKuen. Epigraph by Rithy Panh with Christophe Bataille, excerpted from The Elimination, translated by John Cullen. Recorded by arrangement with Grove Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic, Inc. As he falls in with a group of left-wing intellectuals and politicians who frequent dinner parties given by his French Vietnamese 'aunt', he finds not just stimulation for his mind but also customers for his merchandise - but the new life he is making has dangers he has not foreseen, from the oppression of the state, to the self-torture of addiction, to the seemingly unresolvable paradox of how he can reunite his two closest friends, men whose worldviews put them in absolute opposition.īoth literary thriller and brilliant novel of ideas, The Committed is a blistering portrayal of commitment and betrayal that will cement Viet Thanh Nguyen's position in the firmament of American letters. No longer in physical danger, but still inwardly tortured by his re-education at the hands of his former best friend, and struggling to assimilate into a dominant culture, the Sympathizer is both charmed and disturbed by Paris. There he and his blood brother, Bon, try to escape their pasts and prepare for their futures by turning their hands to capitalism in one of its purest forms: drug dealing. The long-awaited new novel from one of America's most highly regarded contemporary writers, The Committed follows the Sympathizer as he arrives in Paris as a refugee.
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