Honestly wonder how good this will be or if it will have lots of weird "both sides" vibes.
The Book it's based on based on the summary can confirm the presence of brainworms. I'm sure it makes for quite the thriller.
I mean, good lord, this is how it supposedly ends
The commissar, the man with no face, turns out to be his direct superior Man. Yet, this does not stop Man from subjecting him to torture as part of his reeducation. First, he must admit his crime of being complicit in the torturing and raping of a female communist agent. Then he must realize that he took part, albeit unconsciously, in the murder of his father. Lastly, he must learn Man's final lesson that a revolution fought for independence and freedom could make those things worth less than nothing, that nothingness itself was more precious than independence and freedom. The novel ends with the narrator among a crowd of boat people at sea.
Truly, Communism is being handled fairly and realistically.
:jesus-christ: Jesus fucking christ...
There's propaganda and then there's American media propaganda.
re: the author -- probably something of a radlib, based on the NPR interview with him years ago around when the book first came out, though I've still never gotten around to reading the book myself so shrug. It seemed to me he was trying to juggle the standard line of thinking among older Vietnamese US immigrants (very anti-communist for obvious reasons) vs. the more left-leaning younger gens. iirc he framed his intention with the book as a conversation with the diaspora at large rather than meant for an audience of white readers/consumers (as a lot of minority-penned lit has been historically), which I sympathize with, but my personal politics have also evolved since then so I'd probably have less sympathy now. Esp because an HBO show is almost certainly gonna be pandering to white consumers of a certain class lol
iirc he framed his intention with the book as a conversation with the diaspora at large
That was my takeaway. To a large extent, the book seemed not to be about capitalism vs communism. Those were thematic devices in an immigrant's struggle, capitalism being America and communism being Vietnam. The protagonist is half Vietnamese, half white (French?). He's always reflecting on how he's able to see opposing points of view with complete clarity. Honestly once I looked up the author and saw that he's a Vietnamese immigrant it made perfect sense.
The audio book is great, by the way. I'd give it 4/5 stars (less a star for octopus fucking)
From the synopsis I’ve read, it’s both sidesy. But from the other commenters on here who have read it, it seems more complex but ultimately liberal
Yeah saw that and honestly disappointed. The Vietnam conflict really was and still should be a cultural point in which American's mostly agreed that "we should never have been there" (even though its form the perspective of dead GIs and not the swaths of dead Vietnamese civilians brutally murdered and tortured).
Lol I don’t think Americans even believe that anymore. Look at Ukraine. I would say it’s nearly the complete analogue of the vietnam war but it’s just western vs anti-west capitalism rather than western capitalism vs Soviet-inspired communism. They want Russians to overthrow the government but refused to do the same to their own government for every war since Vietnam.
I think most people, normal not online people, I've chatted with in the stores have been of the simple opinion of "wtf are we doing over there and why are we spending so much money on it?" Though this isn't the best take it's a lot better than enlightened liberals with Slava Ukraine flags or weird ass Nazbols reping Russia as some great liberator against Western capital (instead of just being another force of just domestic/internal capital).
