Why this book:  Selected by my literature book club, which had read and very much liked The Sympathizer several years ago. Also, I and one in the club attended a presentation by the author.

Summary in 5 Sentences:  Our protagonist, the same fellow who was featured in The Sympathizer, has now gone to Paris to get to know the culture of his biological father, to escape the drama of the Vietnamese subculture in Southern California, and to explore other opportunities. In Paris with his blood brother and closest friend, he connects to both the anti-communist capitalists – represented by the mafia-like drug traffickers , and the Marxist communist Vietnamese expat sympathizers, mostly the Vietnamese intellectuals and well-to-do immigrants.  Our protagonist gets involved in both worlds,  “uncommitted” to either, though he undertakes actions with both that put him in great danger.  The book is an exploration of cultural identity, the implications to individuals of colonialism, and insightful perspectives on French, US, and Vietnamese culture from someone disaffected from them all. And – there is a crime and spy novel built into all that.  

My Impressions:  Interesting complicated book, not easy to follow, given that the protagonist is indeed “UNcommitted” (the irony in the title) to any of the various paths he explores in the “adventure” of trying to find his way in post-Vietnam War Paris. He was half-French, half-Vietnamese, had served in the Vietnamese Secret Police, been educated in an American University, been tortured in a Vietnamese re-education camp, and sought fervently (in The Sympathizer) to integrate into American culture.  So the book begins with him heading to Paris to see if he could find a home there.  Much of the book is about the futility of this effort, due in no small part to his unwillingness to commit to the values of any of these cultures. 

He is ambivalent about Capitalism, Communism, Marxism, drugs, crime, loyalty, Vietnamese culture, French culture, US culture, crime and the law, his future.  He stumbles into a variety of often high risk adventures, freely uses the drugs he’s selling (hell, why not?) and views much of what he experiences through a partly drug-induced haze, partly through a lack of commitment to anything, and a basic indifference to consequences.  He rarely stands up for himself, and when faced with a new challenge, takes the path of least resistance, and the reader goes along for the ride. And though he gives us hints throughout the book, in the end we learn that indeed, the entire story is his recollection and reflections from “the other side” – because at the end of his story, he is killed as a result of finally telling the truth. 

Our protagonist describes himself as being of “two minds” – and has both the gift and the curse of being able to see any issue from multiple perspectives.  In the context of this book, he can understand and appreciate, American-style Capitalism, Vietnamese Communism, and the ideals of Marxism.  He expresses appreciation for the advantages of each, while his inborn cynicism toward ideologies and ideologues, readily ridicules and points out the hypocrisy and many negatives of each. 

He lands in Paris, connects with his expat Aunt, and looking for work,  slides easily into becoming a mule for a ring of Vietnamese mafia drug traffickers – hell – why not? The pay is good and it’s something to do.  He finds customers, delivers drugs to Vietnamese-French intellectuals and politicians, mostly hashish, but also something called “the remedy” which I had believed was cocaine, but learned from AI that it is a potent substance made from Vietnamese coffee beans. He is very good as a pusher-man and mule, and his enigmatic but ruthless “boss” gives him increasing responsibility and rewards, to which he seems fairly indifferent.   But he continues to accept without question increasingly lucrative, and dangerous assignments. Predictably he gets burned when he crosses paths with a competing Algerian drug ring that is threatened by the success of the Vietnamese trafficking cartel. This leads to brutal gangland violent warfare between the Vietnamese and Algerian drug lords, and our protagonist is caught in the middle. 

There are a number of interesting themes that run through the book – the main one being the effect of European Colonialism in creating a whole cast of people with no sense of being at home in any culture.  He was not accepted as fully Vietnamese by the Vietnamese,  not accepted as American in the US, and though he is half French, not accepted as either in France.  He is a man of not just two, but multiple faces, representing in part each of those cultures, as well as anyone who grew up in the wake of “first world”  efforts to integrate colonial cultures into those of the colonial powers.  

Our protagonist announces his name at the beginning as Vo Danh, but we never hear it again. Vo Danh is a joke on the immigration officials in Paris, in that it is Vietnamese for No Name – a reflection of his sense of No Identity.  There is much to admire in our protagonist, as well as much to criticize and judge negatively.  To admire:  He is clearly very intelligent, very well-read, insightful and perceptive, empathetic and he abhors cruelty.  To judge negatively:  He seems to have no strong moral compass, when confronted with a decision or a challenge, he  defaults to the “easy wrong” instead of the “hard right.”   When he does finally take a stand, refusing when ordered to torture and murder his Algerian antagonist who had tortured him – he refuses, but only with silence, and with his refusal, puts himself at great risk.  His loyalty to his best friend Bon is polluted by the secret knowledge that he had worked as a communist spy which was against everything in which Bon believed passionately.  He does finally reveal this ugly truth to his blood-brother Bon, but does so clumsily, and with no consideration for set and setting. In doing so in this manner, his revelation results in a bad outcome – for them both. 

But while his close friend Bon was a passionately committed anti-communist, our protagonist wasn’t passionate about anything, which is the irony in the title The Committed.     We read this story entirely from his perspective and as we go along for the ride with him, perhaps we see something of ourselves, when don’t stand up for principle, when we may have moral misgivings, when faced with what seems like a good idea at the time. 

This book has a complicated theme, and is one I’d particularly recommend to someone who has a complicated cultural heritage and identity.  I did get some help from Google AI in helping me to understand certain aspects of this thoughtful, but demanding novel.