The Committed

♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣

The Major is back as a second-time refugee, but in his fatherland this time around. After his 2-year reeducation with Bon in the hands of Vietnamese communists in their homeland, the duo make it out of the country alive and arrive by sea in their new host country, France, where the oft-mentioned Aunt in The Sympathizer is finally introduced and serves as their temporary host in their new home. There they adjust to a new life and mingle with thugs in Paris’ underbelly for survival. While Bon remains a hired gun, the Major segues to drug dealing where he has no choice but to get entangled in a complicated web of turf wars and the like. That is, however, only one of his many problems as figures from his past in the form of Man and Lana come over for a visit, with news that might just turn his life upside down.

America got the brunt of the author’s criticism in The Sympathizer. Now it’s time for the actual colonizer to get its fair share of criticism as Viet Thanh Nguyen doesn’t hold back in his scathing critique of the second half of his protagonist’s ethnicity. No stone is left unturned as he savagely rips the French to shreds with his cultural essay, comparing both the USA and France most of the time. But underneath all the anti-colonialist vitriol is an honest look at the Vietnamese diaspora in their new home, with this sequel serving as a good survey of the similarities and differences of life as a refugee on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Major has always been an unreliable narrator since book one, here he dives deeper into that psychological rabbit hole as his mental faculties take a big hit from all his traumatic life experiences. He begins the novel claiming that he is dead, which lingers for a while in the reader’s head wondering if we can actually trust his words. The fact that the ghosts of Sonny and the Crapulent Major were and still are omnipresent in this sequel, with some new friends to join the gang, is already a big indication that our anchor in this story is a little bit cuckoo. That air of existential ambiguity usurps the overall vibe of this sequel.

The pleasant surprise here, perhaps, is the revelation that this sequel you are reading is YET ANOTHER confession, this time written by an unhinged Major during his stay in an asylum, which is probably the only logical path left for him after all the shit he has been through in his lifetime. It is tragic in a way, but there seems to be no better option for him. What happened to Bon appears to be the last straw, and it is evident in his musings how the guilt is devouring him from the inside. I can imagine a happy alternative ending for him but it simply doesn’t fit and would seem like a copout. Poetic justice must be served after all, the author keeping it realistic.

While many have lauded The Committed and would go as far as deeming it superior to The Sympathizer, I feel like it is the other way around. Maybe the reason for this assessment is because this sequel is just the same in terms of structure as the former, somehow a copy, not to mention how that one won a Pulitzer. Somehow, this might come across as reductive to some of those who loved the first book, even though one must admit that what carries this sequel through is the attention to detail, making sure to differentiate the refugee experience which would otherwise have been dismissed altogether as one and the same.

Even so, reading this novel guarantees another fun ride full of secrets, murder, and a plethora of coordinated musings about what it means to be an individual caught between two worlds and never fully belonging in either one. If the author parodied Hollywood and the way it tells the Amerasian story in The Sympathizer, this time around he pivots towards the academe and points out, in many ways, how it is dominated by western ideals and lacking when it comes to genuine voices from the cultures they claim to be experts on. All in all, a worthy sequel that is just as fun, albeit a bit recycled.