The Sympathizer is framed as a confession of a prisoner addressed to the commandant of the prison in which he is detained. The narrator, who is the sympathizer of the title, is never identified by name, even as the sympathizer of the title. The identity of the commandant is one of the great plot twists of the book, indeed, one of the great plot twists in literature.
The circumstances of the narrator – past and present – are revealed by the confession. Indeed, the confession is much criticised by commandant and his assistant, the commissar, for its rambling nature, more like a novel than a confession.
The Sympathizer is a response to American and, more generally, western coverage of the Vietnam war. Vietnamese people are invisible in most such coverage except as objects against which American heroes vaunt their heroism.
Nguyen constructs his first person narrator as the perfect vehicle through which a more nuanced and less monolithic portrayal may be achieved. The opening two sentences of The Sympathizer reads: “I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps, not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds.”
At the beginning of the novel, the narrator is a captain in the Vietnamese army. He is assigned to the counter-espionage section of the Republic of Vietnam’s police force. As a result, he is expected to interrogate and torture suspected Viet Cong spies and operatives. He is the trusted aide-de-camp of the general in charge of that section of the police force.
The narrator has a mentor and handler, Claude, who is a CIA officer responsible for assisting the counter-espionage work of the RVN. Claude is a very charming and likeable figure who carries more than a passing resemblance to the eponymous Quiet American of Graham Greene’s novel set two decades earlier in a similar part of Indochina. Claude saw the latent talent of the narrator when the narrator was just nine years old and had mentored him and assisted his education and career development since that time. The education had included time in an American college which the narrator had used well to develop proficiency in understanding American culture and an ability to understand and to communicate with Americans.
It is Claude who carefully taught the narrator and the fellow members of his cohort in the sophisticated techniques of psychological torture used by the CIA and expected of those recruits in their important work. It is Claude who, approvingly, supervises the narrator’s work when he is called to exercise his techniques upon suspects who are fellow Viet Cong. He must, of course, do such work with appropriate skill and intensity so as not to blow the cover of his important placement at the heart of the enemy’s intelligence apparatus.
The narrator is one of a trio of blood brothers who, as teenagers, had cut their respective wrists and merged their actual blood promising eternal loyalty to one another. The other two are Bon and Man. This loyalty and love have been maintained despite Bon’s enthusiastic membership of the RVN military and his love of killing in the interests of his cause. And this loyalty has persisted despite, unbeknownst to Bon, both Man and the narrator being devoted spies for the Viet Cong. Indeed, Man is higher in the organisation and operates as the narrator’s handler receiving his information and directing his spying activities.
The Sympathizer opens in the final days of the surrender of Saigon. The narrator is organising, in liaison with, and receiving assistance from, Claude, the escape of his general and his family and his hangers on in one of the last planes to depart the capital. Both the general and Man make the decision that the narrator should leave on the plane. In consultation with the general, the narrator gets to make most of the decisions as to who will be on that plane and who will miss out. As part of his devotion to Bon, he makes sure there are places for Bon and his wife and child.
The action moves forward to the new life in America with the narrator still acting as the general’s right-hand man, assisting the general and his family with coping with the new life in an unwelcoming country which makes little allowance for the important positions they once held in a country treated as one of America’s most important allies and strategic assets. He is also required to assist with the general’s grandiose plans to re-conquer his former home in a guerilla infiltration across the Laotian border via Thailand. When the general, in his paranoia, decides that one of his former majors may be a spy whom the narrator must arrange to assassinate, Bon’s love of killing is of great assistance to the narrator.
As the action goes forward, the confession also goes back, giving important background to the narrator’s position. The narrator is the product of a liaison between a French Catholic priest and one of his devoted practitioners. These familial origins make the narrator a perpetual outsider, looked down upon by his Vietnamese peers and regarded as Asian by westerners, whether European or American. The Catholic priest father is neither remorseful nor conscious of any fatherly duty and seems to go out of his way to make the narrator’s childhood as poor and unpleasant as possible. The narrator more than hints that his inability to truly belong, or his corresponding ability to belong everywhere, assist him in the double lives he must live as a spy.
The Sympathizer is a satire in which no one is spared, especially not the narrator himself. In the narrator’s case, his love life after the return to America is a source of much humour. In addition, American cruelty and hypocrisy comes through strongly in the actions and personality of Claude. Nor are the Vietnamese supporters of the RVN or the Viet Cong spared criticism.
The Sympathizer, because of its satire and despite the suffering it portrays, is extremely funny. Comparisons with Catch 22 are not misplaced. Craziness and disorder infect every aspect of the action.
In his new life in America, the narrator gets to engage with the maker of a proposed new film on the Vietnam war. Reluctantly at first but, later, with apparent conviction, the filmmaker hires the narrator as a consultant for the making of the film in the Philippines in order to ensure that the Vietnamese people are fairly portrayed in the film. He becomes a wrangler of the actors hired to play Vietnamese characters, and not much more. His presence provides PR cover for the filmmaker’s unaltered intentions to make the most American of American films, projecting the country’s centuries long belief in its manifest destiny as God’s special country.
This setup allows The Sympathizer to satirise United States filmmaking, especially, when it seeks to portray other cultures and, especially, when the subject matter is war. The most obviously likely target of the satire is Apocalypse Now, but the lesson applies equally to most genres, including the western and its portrayal of native Americans.
The Sympathizer is an engaging and enjoyable read. While the comparisons with Catch 22 and The Quiet American should not be pushed too far, the reader’s enjoyment and desire to read just one more chapter, before midnight strikes and the light must definitely be turned off, is no less than with those two classics.
Just as importantly, The Sympathizer does succeed in presenting a nuanced view of the conflict it portrays. Even when satire is most scorching in its treatment of an individual, a movement, an organisation or a culture, empathy is present at the same time and the reader understands what is seeking to be achieved and through what cultural prisms the world is being perceived.
Viet Thanh Nguyen is a massive talent. The Sympathizer creates a genre of its own and Nguyen is an active writer continuing to publish new works which are likely to challenge our expectations of what a writer can achieve. The Sympathizer was published in 2015. His treasure trove of subsequent books can be found here.
Two quotations form the epigraph of Prophet Song. The first is that famous passage from Ecclesiastes: “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun.
The second is a more obscure passage from Bertolt Brecht:
“In the dark times
will there be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing,
About the dark times.”
One should not judge a novel by its epigraph. One might infer, however, that the passage from Ecclesiastes signals a claim by Lynch that the fictional events that he traverses in Prophet Song are both common place and universal. The Brecht quote, although more obscure, suggests that the need for all forms of art is even greater in societies that are suffering conflict and oppression.
For Lynch, for whom Prophet Song is his fifth novel and whose writing is acclaimed for the poetic and lyrical nature of the prose he produces, the title appears to be a claim both to be providing a song about the dark times and to be satisfying that need for societies that are experiencing such suffering.
It seems inapposite, despite Ireland’s centuries long history of colonial oppression by its neighbouring empire and the sectarian violence that is the enduring legacy of that oppression, that Ireland would be the setting for a country which has elected a populist government and is sliding into a state of merciless authoritarianism. Especially, for Australian readers, so many of whom carry some Irish heritage with them, whether this is reflected in our current family names or not, Ireland seems too fun loving, too compassionate and too down to earth for extremism to flourish sufficiently to seize the reins of government power.
The unlikely nature of Ireland as a setting adds power to the warning that the reader discerns from every page of Prophet Song.
Eilish Stack is a mother of three children, the youngest of whom is little more than a toddler and two of whom are of school age. Her husband, Larry, is a full-time official of the Teachers’ Union. Larry is still at work as the novel opens. As darkness rapidly falls among the cherry trees in the backyard of their Dublin home, Eilish’s evening is disrupted by a knock on the door by two officers of the Garda National Service Bureau, the political wing of the new government’s police force. They are polite and ask for Larry and, in his absence, leave a card for him to contact them.
Things have obviously changed since the recent election of a populist government and the parliament has enacted emergency powers including the ability to suspend protections in the Constitution. Eilish and Larry are stressed by developments (including the invitation to attend for an interview at the Garda offices) but also carry a sense of disbelief that things have progressed as far as the evidence, otherwise, suggests.
Larry’s visit to the Garda reveals to him a file containing a series of outrageous allegations (the contents of which the reader is left to infer). This only increases Larry’s sense of disbelief. “Wait until the general secretary hears about this” is his response.
Larry and Eilish’s discussions centre about a planned strike by teachers and a planned march by the strikers. Eilish flirts with advising caution but, before Larry leaves for work, gives him the go ahead to give the union and the teachers the go-ahead. In the light of future events, Eilish questions her action in giving such advice. One senses that her instincts were for caution but, ultimately, Eilish felt that it was not her place to hold her husband back from following the beliefs that had perfused his whole life’s actions.
Larry disappears and Eilish finds herself possessing a new status among the families of the disappeared.
Prophet Song is one family’s experience of a country’s slide into totalitarianism. Even more so, it is one woman, Eilish’s, experience of such events. She continues to work at her own job outside the family. She continues to look after her family. As time passes, the normal friction associated with children growing up and obtaining their own attitudes and worldview operates in this new everchanging society. Eilish seeks to protect and reassure her children but her sometimes Candide like expressions of optimism that things will get better rather than worse fail to convince, at least, her two older children, Bailey and Molly.
At work, some colleagues sport the badges of the governing party and their influence grows in the running of the organisation. The pressure to come on board or leave increases as well.
An armed resistance emerges. A civil war ensues. Every event impacts upon Eilish and her children. Nothing continues to be heard of Larry’s location or even his continuing existence. This notwithstanding, Eilish continues in her head to discuss the events of the day with and seek advice from her absent husband.
The unremitting darkness of Eilish’s existence is reinforced by the layout of the typesetting. Paragraphs are absent. There are no inverted commas. Everything is observed through Eilish’s experience. Sections of narrative run for pages at a time. A section break occur after those several pages. Each section is like a mini-chapter and the next section commences with a slight break in time or location so that a new narrative commences. The chapters, themselves, do commence, each on a new page, but they carry only numbers.
Despite the bleakness, reinforced in this way by the layout and structure of the novel, the prose that Lynch produces is beautiful and, indeed, lyrical. Prophet Song does feel to the reader like a song notwithstanding that it is, indeed, a song about the dark times.
In an interview with PBS News Hour’s Geoffrey Brown, Lynch references a passage in Prophet Song in which Eilish has the realisation that the end of the world is local. Lynch says that the end of the world is always happening and, sometimes, it comes to our neighbourhood. During and since the writing of Prophet Song, Lynch has had in mind events in Syria, in Ukraine and Russia, and in Palestine.
This truth that the end of the world can find us, wherever we live, even in mundane Ireland and even in our own neighbourhoods, is, perhaps, the prophecy of which Prophet Song is made. “Of arms and the woman”, he sings.
Glory is set in the fictional African country of Jidada.
The action opens with a rally of the governing party in support of the Father of the Nation who has been President of Jidada for forty years and who shows no sign of retiring or resigning. The attendees of the rally know what is expected of them to support the personality cult of their president and wear Jidada Party regalia suitably embossed with the face of the president.
The members of the Seat of Power Inner Circle are in attendance at the rally and occupy chairs within the white tent set up to protect them from the broiling sun. Among the Inner Circle sat the president’s female partner, Doctor Sweet Mother of the nation. The title reflected Sweet Mother’s award of a Ph. D. awarded, as the reader finds out later, in response to a phonecall demanding to know why the university had not already offered the degree in recognition of the caller’s eminent position in the nation.
The Sweet Mother, along with the Father of the Nation and the Vice-President and others, get to address the rally. She uses her speech to castigate the vice-president as a forever traitor to the revolution and the nation. This augurs badly for the vice-president since attacks by Dr Sweet Mother on other heroes of the party and the nation have led, in short order, to their removal from the inner circle and other severe detriments.
The history of Jidada echoes that of many African countries. The country had been a long term colony of a European power. A bitter war of independence had been necessary to end the imperial control of the country. Soon after the leaders of the rebellion had assumed power and commenced to rebuild the shattered former colony, a faction had unleashed a savage repression in order to seize total control of the country. Those who suffered in that repression and the massacres and the cruelties it entailed were largely of different tribal heritages to the faction which seized power. The repression did not spare those who had fought bravely in the war to end imperial control. Indeed, because of the prestige provided by their actions in the war, it was considered necessary to target and to eliminate them and many of their families and to do so with the greatest cruelty.
It is a feature of Glory that all of the characters are animals. Father of the Nation and his vice-president are horses. Dr Sweet Mother is a donkey. The security police, known as the Jidada Defenders are dogs of the most vicious kind. The obvious comparison is with George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Bulawayo has said that the comparison with Orwell’s fictional revolution was the product of conversations among the general public in the wake of the 2017 removal of Robert Mugabe as president of Zimbabwe. The resulting governance of Zimbabwe fell well short of expectations such that people began to say that Zimbabwe was like Animal Farm.
The effect of adopting animalification of people in Glory is a little different. Orwell characterised the tendency, in the wake of a hard fought evolution, to authoritarianism by making the pigs the new ruling faction. It was also the pigs who invented the propaganda to justify the new tendencies giving rise to such enduring terminology such as “newspeak”. Apart from the dogs’ aptitude for violence in the creation of governing order, the actions and personalities of actors in the novel is not generally attributable to what species of animal they are. Indeed, even the tribalism which leads to factionalism is not species based.
The action in Glory is not precisely dated. Past events are however described as occurring in specific years. The political rally with which the novel opens may be seen, by reference to those past events, as occurring in about 2020 or a little earlier. This gives a curious feel to things. Animal Farm, published in 1945, now feels a very old book. A new Animal Farm, set in contemporary times, seems a little askew, in that even Jidadan animals have access to the internet and are strong fans of every kind of social media. One could never imagine Orwell’s animals living in the age of the internet.
Glory is written with a Zimbabwean creole flavour to the English. Frequently, the narration interpolates “tholokuthi” into a phrase or sentence. The context suggests that the word works as a kind of exclamation indicator. Other reviews suggest that its meaning is “only to discover”. “Jidada” is frequently referred to as “Jidada with a da and another da” as if to emphathise the wonderful uniqueness of this country. On occasion, happenings will be disclosed by the narration with the introduction that even the stones and sticks were aware of the particular fact being disclosed. The wonderful complexly African names of every character involved also gives a very localised flavour to the language of the novel.
The opening description of the rally and its protagonists reveals to the reader the sorry pass to which Jidada has come. Soon, however, Dr Sweet Mother is revealed to have overplayed her cards and a palace coup is effected to remove the president and the first femal as is Dr Sweet Mother’s other title. The coup is effected by the dogs who are the Generals who lead and control the Defenders. The vice president is made the acting president, one suspects, as a figurehead, and he is marketed by a new personality cult as the Saviour of the Nation. It is the former Sweet Mother who is portrayed as the chief animal from whom the nation needed to be saved.
The coup is marketed as the New Dispensation and the world at large and the people of Jidada are given to believe that a new liberality, an end to corruption and free, fair and credible elections are about to occur.
At this point, the focus of the third person omniscient narration turns from the national stage and the world through powerful people to a young female goat who is returning to her home village after a self-imposed exile. This is Destiny and the past and the present and the emerging future tend to be observed through the eyes of Destiny, her mother, their neighbours and the animals of the village and the ordinary animals of Jidada. These include cats, ducks, geese, cows and, as we know from Destiny’s presence in the action, goats. At times, the narration turns into the second person plural as if the whole village and the animals of Jidada are confessing what they should have known or should have done differently in the past.
With the focus on the animals of the village and on Destiny and her family, in particular, the reader’s empathy is engaged as one is forced to endure the horror and trauma and violence of the oppression that occurred forty years before and which has been repeated, numerous times in Jidada’s history since then.
The New Dispensation, of course, turns out to be a fraud and the free, fair and credible elections, against all belief, tholokuthi, return the Saviour of the Nation and the Jidada Party to power.
The restraint shown by the government while it was selling its new image and, at the same time, stealing the election, is not necessary anymore and a new round of oppressive violence is unleashed.
This is the age of the internet, however, and dissent continues to circulate, online. This is described in the text as Jidada being two countries: that which existed on the internet and the Country Country in which one acted much more circumspectly. Despite the dangers posed by the Defenders, the online discussions begin to leak into the other Jidada.
While these events are unfolding, Destiny is finding out who she is and the history of her family of whom she, previously, had no knowledge. She and her mother, also, bridge the gaps in knowledge and experience which had prevented them from communicating in any meaningful way. And she is prepared and empowered to take part in the events which are unfolding.
Glory is about Zimbabwe. The author acknowledges as much. The proposition is supported by Destiny’s visit to the abandoned village in which, forty years earlier, most of her family had been murdered which is named Bulawayo although this village is said to be distinct from the city of the same name of which it forms part.
But Glory is about much more than one country. It is about the emergence of authoritarianism and oppression in all countries. It is about why revolutions lose their ideals and fail and have to continue as a parody of what they promised to deliver. It is also about what can make revolutions succeed when all power and the ability to use force seems to be centred in one group of animals. It highlights the ultimate fact that even the most powerful and ruthless animals depend on the cooperation of other animals and that ruling others by force, at the end of the day, requires a modicum of consent by those who are ruled.
For these reasons, the novel is worthy of Animal Farm. Just as with Animal Farm, Glory is not about a single set of events. Just as with Animal Farm, the lessons of Glory are universal, not particular.
Norah Jones – born 30 March 1979 – is an American singer-songwriter. Instrumentally, she is a pianist and plays acoustic and lead guitar. Billboard Magazine named her the top jazz artist of the first decade of this millennium. She launched her solo career in 2002 with the release of the album ‘Come Away With Me’. Such release earned Jones five Grammy Awards, including ‘Album of the Year’ and ‘Best New Artist’.
Jones released a raft of fine albums after 2002. Her most recent is ‘Visions’, released in 2024.
Born Geethli Norah Jones Shankar, Jones is the daughter of the noted Indian sitarist and composer Ravi Shankar. She has long enjoyed a particular affinity with the music of jazz and swing singer Billie Holiday. Her music and performance are redolent of same, but fashioned by contemporary influence and instrumentation.
‘Staring at the Wall’ – part of the ‘Visions’ album – is a collaboration by Jones with music producer and instrumentalist Leon Michels. It was co-written by Jones and Michels and features Jones on vocals, guitar and piano and Michels on bass, drums and tambourine.
I am a fan of Norah Jones, but for most people ‘Staring at the Wall’ will prove easy listening music. If you play it once, you will play it again! The piano and percussion, in particular, are euphonious. The lyrics also are an attractive reflection of life experience.
The YouTube link is here:
From the album of the same name – this sublime song was written by David Gilmour and Roger Waters in 1974 when in Pink Floyd.
Wikipedia says:
Both Gilmour and Waters have praised the song as one of Pink Floyd’s finest. Waters has noted that the collaboration between himself and Gilmour on the song was “really good. All bits of it are really, really good. I’m very happy about it.” Gilmour has playfully called “Wish You Were Here” “a very simple country song” and stated that “because of its resonance and the emotional weight it carries, it is one of our best songs.”
“Wish You Were Here” was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, as part of the sessions for the entire album.
The following is a performance by David Gilmour on vocals and guitar at the Royal Festival Hall, London in January 2002 as part of the Meltdown Concert.
Also performing were Neill MacColl: Guitars, backing vocals Michael Kamen: Piano, English horn Chucho Merchán: Double bass Caroline Dale: Cello Dick Parry: Sax Nic France: Drums & percussion Gospel Choir: Sam Brown (choir leader), Chris Ballin, Pete Brown, Margo Buchanan, Claudia Fontaine, Michelle John Douglas, Sonia Jones, Carol Kenyon, David Laudat, Durga McBroom, Aitch McRobbie, Beverli Skeete.
Jimmy Buffett – born James William Buffett on Christmas Day 1946 – died about a year ago on 1 September 2023, at age 76. He was an American singer-songwriter and was known for his “tropical rock sound”, which – according to Wikipedia – “portrayed a lifestyle described as ‘island escapism’ and promoted enjoying life and following passions”.
While a prolific songwriter – the writer’s favourite is “Margaritaville”, released in 1977 – he continued during his long life to release many songs. He was a fine musician, lyricist and singer.
In August 2013 Buffett released “Songs from Saint Somewhere”. The featured song “Oldest Surfer on the Beach” – in fact – was written by Mark Knopfler (of Dire Straits fame, and only 4 years younger than Buffett), and he plays guitar in the released version.
The song title will appeal to the large number of surfers at the Queensland Bar.
The YouTube version of the song – with a very attractive album cover – is to be found below.
