PositivePopMattersThe Committed is thin on plot and more cerebral than it\'s predecessor, with the author apparently heedless of the pitfalls of having his erudite protagonist/narrator expatiate upon anti-colonial theory as propounded by Fanon and Césair. Yet, in a carefully wrought and incremental development, that protagonist\'s perception of himself as the consummate \"sympathizer\" emerges as more apt here than it did in his first book. Although he increasingly sees the faults underlying the ideological constructs towering over both sides of the Vietnam divide, he feels for those of his compatriots propping up either edifice ... Even though Nguyen endows his protagonist with a sharp wit and a nose for sniffing out the hypocrisy of former worldwide colonial power France, he has little with which to propel the story forward, especially in the early going ... But overall, Nguyen does not dissapoint.
