The Girls

Guys and gals, you need to read The Girls* by Emma Cline. I haven't slurped up a book so quickly in a while, and this one had me staying up late into the night (and then sleeping in an inordinate amount).

The Girls is about the Manson Family without being about the Manson Family. Charles Manson has made a comeback in mainstream media recently. We've learned he's short (thank you, Mindhunter) and we've learned that Brad Pitt can still get it (thank you, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood). The Girls never uses the M-word; instead, it focuses on a fictional cult inspired by the Manson Family, seen through the lens of a fringe member, Evie, whose insecurities and curiosities render her vulnerable to the cult's allure.

Emma Cline gets some backlash for taking the Manson events and changing very little aside from the names. Sure, fair. But for me, The Girls reads like a coming-of-age story and Cline's writing of Evie hits the nail on such a weird, specific head. She articulates a character that I have never seen. Even a few pages in, Evie comes to life in my mind so vividly-- a move that few authors are able to orchestrate as effectively. I feel so many things towards Evie: fascination, revulsion, empathy, disappointment. Nothing is simple about Cline's depiction of the cult or Evie's involvement with it. She doesn't say *the cult is bad and Evie regrets her decisions*, nor does she say *the cult is good and Evie is thankful for them*. Cline wades the nuance through Evie. She moves back and forth between present-day Evie and cult Evie, and in doing so, she carefully walks the line between plot and reflection. So, I don't care that I'm reading about a guy named Russell who did the same shit that Manson did. I care about Evie's perspective of it all.

Also, the cover is rad. ALSO, this is Cline's first novel! The Girls receives 5 out of 5 camel humps.

*Cline, Emma. The Girls. New York: Random House, 2016. Print.

The Sympathizer

The Sympathizer* by Viet Thanh Nguyen won the 2016 Pulitzer for Fiction. I respect the book and appreciate that Nguyen gave a voice to a Vietnamese American point of view while shitting on America's shittiness in Vietnam. The narrator is half-French, half-Vietnamese. He grows up in Vietnam but spends a large portion of his adult life studying in America. He is secretly a communist agent in disguise as a Vietnamese army captain working with America to democratize Vietnam. 

This info is on the back of the book; if it wasn’t, I’d be lost from the get-go. The narrators’ contradictory identities are disorienting for the reader-- and I’m sure that’s the point since the narrator is disoriented himself. Regardless of intention, the result-- for me, at least-- was that I read almost 400 pages of someone’s voice and still had no idea where his allegiances truly lay. He seemed to have convictions, but I couldn’t identify them. I wasn’t invested in the narrator enough, because I didn’t really know him at all. So, when things happened to him, I found it hard to care. I didn’t have an emotional connection to him. I usually dig an unreliable narrator (hello, Slaughterhouse-Five, I love you), but this dude bored me, which surprised me since it’s touted as a spy novel of sorts.

There were several moments when I simultaneously didn’t enjoy an aspect of the book and thought to myself, well, that’s probably the point. I think the last 80 pages are total gibberish. I didn’t enjoy reading that portion at all, but I think that’s the objective because the narrator is also not enjoying himself. Maybe I’m overemphasizing “enjoyment” and underemphasizing Nguyen’s achievements covering controversial topics (Vietnam war, responsibilities towards refugees, communism vs. democracy, etc). My takeaway: The Sympathizer is more suitable for a classroom setting. Intellectually, it has much to offer, but no, I did not enjoy reading the book. The Sympathizer receives 2 out of 5 camel humps.

*Nguyen, Viet Thanh. The Sympathizer. New York: Grove Press, 2015. Print.