Point of View

The Committed is written in first-person from the perspective of its narrator and central character, The Sympathizer, although there are complicated acrobatics being performed by Nguyen in terms of the way this first-person perspective is formulated. As the novel moves through its four organizing sections (“Me,” “Myself,” “I,” and “Vous”), small shifts in the nature of the narration speak to the narrator’s fragmenting state of mind. Most notably, the fourth section sees a shift to language that deploys a second-person perspective. This decision enfolds itself with the novel’s thematic concerns while also accomplishing a trick of writing for Nguyen. The Sympathizer distances himself from his own actions in the final section by using second-person narration, and it is significant that the section is titled “Vous” as opposed to “Tu.” “Vous” is the more formal version of “you” in French, which implies an even...