PositivePloughsharesUsing suspense as a vehicle for postcolonial philosophy has a certain logic: what could be more suspenseful, at least for ex-colonies and their diasporas, than the rush towards their own futures? Theory dominates so heavily that reading at times feels more like sitting in a graduate seminar than being swept away in a story. But narrative cannot exist without theory ... In such highly-charged scenes, point of view shifts, a revival of a technique from The Sympathizer, in which narration degenerates from first-person singular to dissociated third-person under the pressure of torture and traumatic memory. The Committed further destabilizes perspective, launching with a lyrical first-person plural prologue ... The book is also peppered with nods to Vietnamese identity, simultaneously educating the non-Vietnamese reader while winking at the Vietnamese one, too ... Even for readers without memories of Danish butter cookie tins, The Committed embeds humor accessible to everyone, whether scatological (a continually clogging toilet that requires fixing by the teary-eyed narrator) or sexual (descriptions of men’s private parts) ... Toward the end of the novel, a real photo of a protest appears: theory made real.
