KẺ NẰM VÙNG - THE SYMPATHIZER

from Chapter 12 to Chapter 23 (the End) THE SYMPATHIZER Nguyên tác Anh ngữ by Viet Thanh Nguyen Grove Press New York 2015 an imprint of Grove Atlantic 154 West 14th Street New York, NY 10011 Distributed by Publishers Group West $pageIn CHAPTER 12 By the time I emerged from the hospital, my services were no longer needed, and I was not invited back to the set for the mopping-up operation that took place after the shooting was completed. Instead, I found that an airplane ticket had been reserved for my instant departure from the Philippines, and I spent the entire trip brooding over the problem of representation. Not to own the means of production can lead to premature death, but not to own the means of representation is also a kind of death. For if we are represented by others, might they not, one day, hose our deaths off memory’s laminated floor? Still smarting from my wounds even now, I cannot help but wonder, writing this confession, whether I own my own representation

from Chapter 01 to Chapter 11 THE SYMPATHIZER Nguyên tác Anh ngữ by Viet Thanh Nguyen Grove Press New York 2015 an imprint of Grove Atlantic 154 West 14th Street New York, NY 10011 Distributed by Publishers Group West $pageIn For Lan and Ellison Let us not become gloomy as soon as we hear the word “torture”: in this particular case there is plenty to offset and mitigate that word—even something to laugh at. —Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals CHAPTER 1 I AM A SPY, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds. I am not some misunderstood mutant from a comic book or a horror movie, although some have treated me as such. I am simply able to see any issue from both sides. Sometimes I flatter myself that this is a talent, and although it is admittedly one of a minor nature, it is perhaps also the sole talent I possess. At other times, when I reflect on how I cannot help but observe the world in such a fashion