“How can the word ‘I’ be plural…”
Merleau-Ponty asks this question in a classic of phenomenology, and he seems to ask it Viet Thanh Nguyen in the course of the chapters of I am the man with two faces (Neri Pozza, translated by Massimo Bocchiola).
In this new book, Nguyen chooses the road of history, memory and remembrance to try to tell his life story between Vietnam e United Statesbetween the image of the refugee and the will of feel american.
The themes of this memoir – war, escape, racism, identity, to name a few – reflect at least in part those present in the narrative works of Viet Thanh Nguyen: The sympathizer (Neri Pozza, translated by Luca Briasco) of 2015, with which he obtained the Pulitzer Prize; The refugees (Neri Pozza, translated by Luca Briasco) of 2017 and He is an activist (Neri Pozza, translated by Luca Briasco) of 2021.
Yet, in I am the man with two faces everything seems more powerful, more direct and, if possible, more raw.
The plurality of the self
Without following a chronological order, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s book tells a good part of the author’s life, between childhood and adolescenceschool and university, but also the relationship with parents and becoming a writer.
Il red thread of the memoriesand some reflections, but it’s just one: the feeling of being more peopleOf have multiple identities. That of Vietnamese and American, obviously, but followed (and overlapping) by that of Asian – implying “yellow” among whites -, that of refugee and that of immigrant.
All these different forms of “I” are described, analyzed and placed in the Western and American historical-cultural context. Nguyen emphasizes how every minority suffers a different type of racismand that this is also manifested among the minorities themselves:
“Most Vietnamese don’t distinguish one Latino population from another, but then again, many Latinos use ‘chino’ to mean any Asian who looks like he might be Chinese.”
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A formula often comes back to describe the awareness of having “two faces” but also the confusion about one’s own identity, that of colonized who is also colonizer. Viet Thanh Nguyen tells the story of Vietnam, how in 1954 many Vietnamese Catholics “migrated from the North to the South, encouraged by the CIA, transported by American and French ships” to occupy the Central Highlands. Among them, his parents…
But the young Viet, from colonized becomes colonizer even when si identifica in John Wayne who kills natives in western movies, or when he is fascinated by Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) in Apocalypse Now (inspired by Heart of Darkness di Joseph Conrad).
“Are you the Americans who kill? Or the Vietnamese who are killed?”, asks the author, who subsequently tries to analyse Francis Ford Coppola’s film by stating that “a work of art that condemns racism can at the same time be racist (…)”. And in fact, in the credits appears the name of the American actor who plays an anonymous machine gunner, while the Vietnamese extras (killed in the film, but refugees in the Philippines in real life) do not appear with their names.
The reflection on the cinema and how this influenced the “new americans“, including the author, often returns. I war movie (with specific regard to Vietnam), but in general a certain cinematography whitewashedwere a hidden strength of the United States so much so as to lead Nguyen to define Hollywood “the unofficial ministry of AMERICAN propaganda“.
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The theme of identity at times becomes less personal, tending to a more global level. Who are the refugees and, consequently, who are the real americans?
Viet Thanh Nguyen said roots e traditionsbut also of integration and the attempt by many immigrants/refugees to become the “model minority”. First the Filipinos, then the natives, for a while the Vietnamese: placed on a metaphorical pedestal to show the “others” that it is possible to be successful and live the American Dream.
With a critical tone that characterizes the whole work, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer states that in the end “the role of the model minority is to be saved and educated by the white man, to help him bring the white man’s burden e (…) die for the white man”, recalling the poetry The White Man’s Burden di Rudyard Kipling.
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America of Viet Thanh Nguyen
Like Viet Thanh Nguyen and like the protagonist of his The sympathizer, America has two faces too. That of the American Dream; and that of the abusesdiscrimination and war. As one can easily imagine, this second face – not so often hidden – is the most present in I am the man with two faces.
Viet Thanh Nguyen cita Ta-Nehisi Coates e Frantz Fanontells his feelings about the caso George Floyd and does not fail to challenge the Trumpian politics (although the former President’s name is never actually mentioned). In these lines, the biographical nature leaves space for the critical onee the memoir becomes a careful and angry essay. Against nationalism, against racism, against white nationalism.
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Il relationship between Nguyen and the United Statesbetween a refugee and the land of arrival, is complex. America is described to us as a country of contradictionswhere Viet’s parents, “Ba” and “Má”, live their American Dream with a small shop, and then get attacked on Christmas Eve. A country where the author is not recognized as American – by whites – nor as Vietnamese by those who have actually lived in Southeast Asia.
“You’ll stop calling Fitzgerald the Great White Male American Novelist when people stop calling you a Vietnamese-American writer.”
What perhaps emerges most is the lackon the part of America, of a certain historical memorythe failure to come to terms with one’s own past and the desire to hide under the metaphorical carpet the events that led to the presence of Nguyen and many others in the country.
Speaking of the West, the author writes: “… invented the fork – much easier to use than chopsticks, much cleaner than the hand – in addition to the napalm dropped on Phan Thi Kim Phucthe camera and the film that portrayed her burned (…)” (the author refers to the photograph Napalm Girl di Nick Out, nda).
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Other books by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Between 2015 and today, Viet Thanh Nguyen has published several texts (proposed in Italy by Neri Pozza) in which he takes up, addresses and narrates the history of the war in vietnam. Historical reconstructions are combined with more fictional elements, but the author’s objective remains clear: tell the story of the war through the eyes of those who experienced it but you never got the chance to speak.
In The sympathizer (2015), we follow the Captain during the escape from Saigon to the United States, and his new life in the West. The Captain is the ultimate expression of a life as a double agentis in fact a pro-communist spy, member of the South Vietnamese Military Police and collaborator of the CIA. Life in California increases the protagonist’s moral dilemmas and places him in front of the existential crisis of having two identities. In 2024, the novel It was adapted by HBO in the homonymous miniseriesdirected by Park Chan-wook and brought to Italy by Sky, with Hoa Xuande, Sandra Oh and Robert Downey Jr.
In the following, He is an activist (2021), the Captain moves to Pariswhere he tries to build a new life for himself. History and fiction mix as the protagonist makes his way through the French left of 80’s.
The refugees (2017) is a collection of short storiesa choral narration that bears witness to the difficulties of immigration, dealing with the themes of escape, memory and identity. Through different lives and stories, Nguyen tells the story of the common sense of isolation and hope that unites those who flee their homes.
Nothing Ever Dies – Vietnam and the Memory of War (2018, translated by Chiara Brovelli) is the book by Viet Thanh Nguyen closest to a historical and anthropological essay. In these pages, the author investigates the double conception of war through memory, between Hollywood myths e testimonies of the conflict.