Review: The Sympathizer

Viet Thanh Nguyen's 2015 novel The Sympathizer won The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2016. It is a remarkable mix of historical fiction and thriller, with elements of "fish out of water" comedy and romantic comedy thrown in. It's the story of a Vietnamese double-agent, his voyage out of Saigon to America, and his dangerous spy work embedded in a sleeper cell. The novel explores the consequences of his choices as he tries to maintain his identify, in more ways than one.

The book examines many aspects of the immigrant experience as the protagonist settles into his enforced American life. He's been to America before. "If an American closed his eyes to hear me speak, he would think I was one of his kind," he says. But as the novel progresses, he's tormented by his outsider identity, both as a spy and as a refugee living in a culture that he admires and despises.

There are parts of the novel that smartly satirizes America's own tendency for scrubbing away the cultural influences for entertainment purposes. "You didn't even get the screams right," our hero complains to an American movie director. There are also moments of sheer terror, especially in the later chapters, when you fear not only for our hero's life, but your own sanity as Mr. Nguyen vividly renders pain and suffering with frightening precision ("Interrogation is about the mind first, the body second," a character explains).

I came to his novel by way of his New York Times op-ed piece titled "Why We Struggle to Say I Love You". In that op-ed piece, he analyzes the difficulty most Asian-American children have in saying "I Love You" to their parents. His piece greatly touched me, and I sought out more of his writing. I was not disappointed.

Rethinking How I Watch Movies

Of late, I've been watching movies over multiple evenings. I watch a movie for an hour or so, then after a scene change, I'll stop it. I usually resume watching it the next day. I've been doing this for the past few years, but I really embraced it last year, to the tune of almost 80 movies.

It's a form of time management, but one that required a change in thinking on my part. When I was growing up, I feasted on movies. I would sometimes spend entire days at the theater, watching the same movie twice, or sneaking into the next theater to catch part of another movie. All through college and my early 20s I was a fan of the movie-going experience, and sitting through its entirety was something I took for granted.

Fast-forward to my middle age, and the infinite free time I had when I was a callow youth is gone. It's hard enough making time for a proper two hour movie let alone spending a whole day watching multiple movies.

A former co-worker was the first to suggest watching movies over multiple sittings. I remembering complaining about the length of the Lord of the Rings movies and he said "Just watch it an hour at a time." This makes perfect sense! After all, we don't read books in one sitting.

I still get to the theater, but it has to be for something that is a consensus theatrical epic. For the most part, though, I've let go my fixation for the single-sitting rule. Now I'm happily surprised when a movie is so compelling that I will sit through it all at once!

The Cars of My Life

I first learned to drive with my Dad's Chevrolet Chevelle in the mid 1980s. It was long, it was blue, and towards the end of its existence it belched out blue exhaust smoke at random. I remember many afternoons with my Dad practicing parallel parking over and over between two traffic cones.

Our family traded up from the Chevelle into a generic Chevrolet conversion van, complete with a manual sliding door and a ladder to get to the roof. We drove this car across the country, wearing out its single cassette player. I was excited when I drove for a few hours on those long rides.

When I left for college and beyond, I inherited the family sedan, a blue Nissan Sentra. (My parents bought a red Sentra to replace it.) I shared the car with my wife in the 1990s after we moved to the suburbs. I drove the Sentra until small holes started to emerge in the trunk and back-seat wheel wells due to rust.

In 2000, using a little dot-com money, I bought a used Audi A4. It remains my favorite car. It was sleek yet muscular. I loved that you could lower the windows by rotating the key counter-clockwise in the door lock. I also loved its red interior lights. I gave up the car after one too many engine start problems and a persistent water leak.

In 2006, I bought a Subaru Legacy. This car is completely nondescript but is thoroughly reliable. The all-wheel drive has paid for itself over many winters up and down our hilly neighborhood. I taught my daughter how to drive with this car. It might not be flashy, but as long as it's drivable, I'll be keeping it.

My 2018 Books and Movies

In 2018, I finished 31 books and watched 79 movies.

My favorite fiction book from last year was Fatherland, by Robert Harris. It's crime-fiction set in a Germany that won World War II. I enjoyed the pace and the voice of the detective protagonist, Xavier March. Other favorites deserving mention: Bruno, Chief of Police, by Martin Walker and Signs Preceding the End of the World, by Yuri Herrera.

For non-fiction, I very much liked Skyfaring, by Mark Vanhoenacker, and Dreamland, by Sam Quinones. Skyfaring is a soaring, evocative meditation about air travel by a commercial pilot. Dreamland is a deep look at the heroin crisis in the United States.

79 movies is a lot for me. For whatever reason I dug deep into Netflix and Amazon Prime Movies from November onwards. From the movies I rated a 10 the standouts I recommend: Get Out (2017), Her (2013), and What Happened to Monday (2017).

Thoughts From My Lay Off

I was laid off in mid-January 2018, and it took me about a month and a half to find another job. It was a harrowing start to the year, but instructive nonetheless. I think about it now because I'm nearing both the one year anniversary of that event, and the one year anniversary of my current job.

I have been laid off two other times in my career. The two previous times that I've been let go was voluntary. I was offered transitional roles in both situations: the first one for 3-6 months and the second one for almost 9 months. In my first lay off in 2001, I completed the full transitional period and received the severance/bonus. In my second lay off in 2011, I found a job during the transitional period and it felt like a normal job change.

In these past situations, I was well aware of impending job loss, and ramped up my job search accordingly. This year, the lay off was unexpected, though of course, with hindsight, the signs were there. I was let go in the morning ("gather yourself"), and after a few hours of shock, I had to crank up my job searching machine, which in this analogy was gathering dust in my basement.

I think it's easy to be caught unawares, or to ignore possible signs for impending doom. We just want to get through our day, and collect our paycheck every two weeks. Keeping track of the bigger picture is reserved for water-cooler talk, or the occasional work lunch. There's nothing like an invigorating, unplanned job search to remind you not to take things for granted and to be prepared. At my age (nifty fifty), even more so.

Review: Bohemian Rhapsody

I'm still in the sway of the movie Bohemian Rhapsody, the generous and loving bio-pic of the band Queen and Freddie Mercury, its lead singer.

Rami Malek had the great responsibility of performing as the larger-than-life Freddie Mercury, and he succeeds in every way. Malek's mannerisms, his accent, and his singing (lip-syncing) seemed spot-on, but what elevated the movie was his emotion, which shimmered through the screen. When he telephones his wife Mary (Lucy Boynton), and asks her to have a drink over the phone, my heart ached seeing the hope in his eyes. When he finally figures out the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody ("I don't want to die; I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all"), the surprise and wonder on his face says everything about creativity.

The rest of the band is ably portrayed: lead guitarist Brian May (Gwilym Lee), drummer Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy), bassist John Deacon (Joe Mazzello). They each had moments of humor and drama. The movie reinforces what I've learned about big rock bands: it's a unique bond and brotherhood; it's a repetitive, burn-out inducing job, with confrontations and infighting heightened by the glare of adulation and the pressure of giving people what they want.

Much has been made about the rocky production (two directors, changes to the lead actor, multiple scripts). Much has also been made of the film's liberal use of dramatic license. I chose not to let these detract from my enjoyment. It probably helped that I wasn't well-versed on the band's real history. A movie like this is a myth-maker. It's a rock-and-roll myth with Queen and Freddie Mercury. For some this will be all they know about Queen, and their music. For others the movie will increase their curiosity to learn more about this great band.

The end result for me is a movie that left me spellbound, and deeply satisfied. Being reintroduced to all their great songs was invigorating. I loved it so much I saw it again the following weekend with my daughter. I'm grateful to her for making us see it!

A Few Favorite Tweets

I have liked over 330 tweets on Twitter. I think a majority of them are sports-related. Of late, more and more of my favorites are images or video clips. Still, there are a few text-based ones that I favorited, though some are over the original 140 character limit. I share them here.

Literary prizes can give the impression that art is a competition. Take it from a ferociously competitive person: Art is anti-competitive. Art is a long, unending conversation between generations. @legoff

Until you have left your apartment at 5:15 for a 6 o’clock flight you have not truly earned the title "expert traveler." @tedalexandro

sometimes. the human gets sad. and i don’t know why. but if i jump. in their lap. and stay there. i can usually fix it @dog_feelings

The glass is never half-empty for dogs. It's never even empty when nothing's in it, if it's once been full. @rodriguez_linda

Tweet! Ha ha. @BigBird

Trying things is important because it shapes the idea itself and gives it more clarity. Some things work well; others don't. They iterate. @sarahmei

I like to think of my time sheets as, "inspired by actual events." @RoloDMonkey

*Lady rolls down her car window at 181st street* "congrats on HAMLET!" Me: "I WISH I wrote Hamlet!" Lady: "Yay HAMLET!" *drives away* #myday @Lin_Manuel