Viet Thanh Nguyen, the author of the best-selling Pulitzer Prize winner The Sympathizer, is a very special snowflake and very full of himself (“Of course, I can’t write in a way that my mother would understand because she’s a peasant and I’m an English professor” – a literal quote.)
But I’m glad I kept listening because in spite of the insufferable pompousness he’s a pretty profound fellow. He poked vicious fun at the Liberal American mantra of, “We Americans are so evil, we have victimized everybody in the world, we are totally the worst.” Nguyen pointed out that it’s exceptionalism, pure and simple, and it’s annoying as all hell.
I wasn’t going to read his book but now I will.
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