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A review by brice_mo
A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, a History, a Memorial by Viet Thanh Nguyen
4.5
As focused as it is frenetic, A Man of Two Faces is a fitting title for Viet Thanh Nguyen’s memoir.
I believe memoir’s first obligation is to the author, and that simply isn’t the impetus behind this book. Nguyen writes at a distance from himself, which is alternately enigmatic and enlightening and frustrating and almost every other adjective you can think of.
To simplify, it’s complicated.
Nguyen writes with feverish urgency throughout, with everything mediated through the lens of politics and metaphor. It makes sense with his background as a refugee because, as he notes through the oft-stated refrain, the personal is the political.
But for much of the book, the political usurps the personal.
For example, the pandemic and the corresponding uptick in violent racism is framed as discursive as much as material, which fits with how politically motivated Nguyen’s work is, but I spent much of the book feeling squeamish with how people within it are symbols first and selves second. This is true even for Nguyen as a narrator, as he writes the entirety of the book in second person. Frankly, it’s estranging, but intentionally so.
Late in the book, in “The Inventory of Yourself,” the author notes that Vietnamese has no direct correspondent to the English “you” or “I,” and instead everything is contextually and relationally dependent. Furthermore, Nguyen notes how uncomfortable he is with his relationship to subjectivity, citing a compulsion towards the stability of academic and theoretical language. Based on his tenuous relationship to the Vietnamese language, then, it begins to feel like Nguyen mustuse the distance of second person to actually approach himself. It offers him a kind of self-intimacy at the expense of the audience, and this adds further nuance to the book’s themes.
Nguyen writes only to himself: “You, the reader and never the text. What if you are both?”
It’s a sentiment that clarifies refugee identity—despite living in the US for almost the entirety of his life, Nguyen will always have parts of himself that are unsettled. It’s a harsh reality that flouts every feel-good trope about assimilation, and it makes much of the reading uncomfortable.
There were many times I wished Nguyen would mourn people as people and not as symbols, or that he would be less quick to call for political action before sitting in moments of grief. This is particularly true in how he describes his parents, as many of the personal details begin to feel mythical, not in veracity but in scale. His mother appears almost titan-like, with generations of Vietnamese women collapsed into her as an icon. It’s emotional, but it obscures her. Heartbreakingly, Nguyen recognizes the implications of his approach, writing in “Open Secrets” that “everyone deserves to be portrayed, and perhaps, betrayed.” He identifies something forcible in the act of depiction, and it’s a painful part of refugee narratives—even in memory, people are displaced.
Does this book honor the people who populate it? It’s difficult to say, and that space is exactly where Viet Thanh Nguyen wants to hold the reader.
Very rarely is a memoir so successful in its explicit lack of resolution, but A Man of Two Faces is a testament to Nguyen’s skill and thoughtful care—so much of this book is presented with years of reflection that still amount to uncertainty, and it feels as if it could spiral into chaos at any moment. But for refugees, who have had a major part of their lives defined by chaos, it feels like a stylistic necessity.
In Nguyen’s work, the best way to honor memory is by leaving it an open wound.
I believe memoir’s first obligation is to the author, and that simply isn’t the impetus behind this book. Nguyen writes at a distance from himself, which is alternately enigmatic and enlightening and frustrating and almost every other adjective you can think of.
To simplify, it’s complicated.
Nguyen writes with feverish urgency throughout, with everything mediated through the lens of politics and metaphor. It makes sense with his background as a refugee because, as he notes through the oft-stated refrain, the personal is the political.
But for much of the book, the political usurps the personal.
For example, the pandemic and the corresponding uptick in violent racism is framed as discursive as much as material, which fits with how politically motivated Nguyen’s work is, but I spent much of the book feeling squeamish with how people within it are symbols first and selves second. This is true even for Nguyen as a narrator, as he writes the entirety of the book in second person. Frankly, it’s estranging, but intentionally so.
Late in the book, in “The Inventory of Yourself,” the author notes that Vietnamese has no direct correspondent to the English “you” or “I,” and instead everything is contextually and relationally dependent. Furthermore, Nguyen notes how uncomfortable he is with his relationship to subjectivity, citing a compulsion towards the stability of academic and theoretical language. Based on his tenuous relationship to the Vietnamese language, then, it begins to feel like Nguyen mustuse the distance of second person to actually approach himself. It offers him a kind of self-intimacy at the expense of the audience, and this adds further nuance to the book’s themes.
Nguyen writes only to himself: “You, the reader and never the text. What if you are both?”
It’s a sentiment that clarifies refugee identity—despite living in the US for almost the entirety of his life, Nguyen will always have parts of himself that are unsettled. It’s a harsh reality that flouts every feel-good trope about assimilation, and it makes much of the reading uncomfortable.
There were many times I wished Nguyen would mourn people as people and not as symbols, or that he would be less quick to call for political action before sitting in moments of grief. This is particularly true in how he describes his parents, as many of the personal details begin to feel mythical, not in veracity but in scale. His mother appears almost titan-like, with generations of Vietnamese women collapsed into her as an icon. It’s emotional, but it obscures her. Heartbreakingly, Nguyen recognizes the implications of his approach, writing in “Open Secrets” that “everyone deserves to be portrayed, and perhaps, betrayed.” He identifies something forcible in the act of depiction, and it’s a painful part of refugee narratives—even in memory, people are displaced.
Does this book honor the people who populate it? It’s difficult to say, and that space is exactly where Viet Thanh Nguyen wants to hold the reader.
Very rarely is a memoir so successful in its explicit lack of resolution, but A Man of Two Faces is a testament to Nguyen’s skill and thoughtful care—so much of this book is presented with years of reflection that still amount to uncertainty, and it feels as if it could spiral into chaos at any moment. But for refugees, who have had a major part of their lives defined by chaos, it feels like a stylistic necessity.
In Nguyen’s work, the best way to honor memory is by leaving it an open wound.