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To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer (now an HBO series) comes a moving and unflinchingly personal meditation on the literary forms of otherness and a bold call for expansive political solidarity.
Born in war-ravaged Vietnam, Viet Nguyen arrived in the United States as a child refugee in 1975. The Nguyen family would soon move to San Jose, California, where the author grew up, attending UC-Berkeley in the aftermath of the shocking murder of Vincent Chin, which shaped the political sensibilities of a new generation of Asian Americans.
The essays here, delivered originally as the prestigious Norton Lectures, proffer a new answer to a classic literary What does the outsider mean to literary writing? Over the course of six captivating and moving chapters, Nguyen explores the idea of being an outsider through lenses that are, by turns, literary, historical, political, and familial.
Each piece moves between writers who influenced Nguyen’s craft and weaves in the haunting story of his late mother’s mental illness. Nguyen unfolds the novels and nonfiction of Herman Melville, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ralph Ellison, William Carlos Williams, and Maxine Hong Kingston, until aesthetic theories give way to pressing concerns raised by war and politics. What is a writer’s responsibility in a time of violence? Should we celebrate fiction that gives voice to the voiceless—or do we confront the forces that render millions voiceless in the first place? What are the burdens and pleasures of the “minor� writer in any society? Unsatisfied with the modest inclusion accorded to “model minorities� such as Asian Americans, Nguyen sets the agenda for a more radical and disquieting solidarity with those whose lives have been devastated by imperialism and forever wars.
Born in war-ravaged Vietnam, Viet Nguyen arrived in the United States as a child refugee in 1975. The Nguyen family would soon move to San Jose, California, where the author grew up, attending UC-Berkeley in the aftermath of the shocking murder of Vincent Chin, which shaped the political sensibilities of a new generation of Asian Americans.
The essays here, delivered originally as the prestigious Norton Lectures, proffer a new answer to a classic literary What does the outsider mean to literary writing? Over the course of six captivating and moving chapters, Nguyen explores the idea of being an outsider through lenses that are, by turns, literary, historical, political, and familial.
Each piece moves between writers who influenced Nguyen’s craft and weaves in the haunting story of his late mother’s mental illness. Nguyen unfolds the novels and nonfiction of Herman Melville, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ralph Ellison, William Carlos Williams, and Maxine Hong Kingston, until aesthetic theories give way to pressing concerns raised by war and politics. What is a writer’s responsibility in a time of violence? Should we celebrate fiction that gives voice to the voiceless—or do we confront the forces that render millions voiceless in the first place? What are the burdens and pleasures of the “minor� writer in any society? Unsatisfied with the modest inclusion accorded to “model minorities� such as Asian Americans, Nguyen sets the agenda for a more radical and disquieting solidarity with those whose lives have been devastated by imperialism and forever wars.
144 pages, Hardcover
Published April 8, 2025
63 people are currently reading
6,388 people want to read
About the author
Viet Thanh Nguyen
41books5,486followersViet Thanh Nguyen was born in Vietnam and raised in America. He is the author of “The Sympathizer,� awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. His most recent book, “To Save and to Destroy,� explores the idea of being an outsider. He is also the author of the short story collection “The Refugees;� the nonfiction book “Nothing Ever Dies,� a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award; the children's book “Simone� along with illustrator Minnie Phan; the sequel to “The Sympathizer,� “The Committed;� the nonfiction book “A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial,� longlisted for the National Book Award; and is the editor of an anthology of refugee writing, “The Displaced,� as well as a co-editor of “The Cleaving: Vietnamese Writers in the Diaspora.� He is a University Professor and the Aerol Arnold Professor of English and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California and a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur foundations. He lives in Los Angeles.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
April 29, 2025
� LA Times Festival of Books 2025 �
/ Friend of My Mind: Essays on Finding a Home in Literature
/ Sunday, April 27, 2025
/ 10:30 AM
/ Seeley G. Mudd 123
Vietnam Book and Reading Culture Day 2025 #4
While I didn't love THE SYMPATHIZER either time I read it, and have middling thoughts about the show, I find I have much better luck with Viet's non-fic work. It's real. It's raw. I respect him greatly for his political stance. He has proudly preached for the Palestinian people long before we were even discussing the genocide as a whole.
Some of these essays don't contain new information, especially if you read A MAN OF TWO FACES, which is my favorite work of his. In my opinion, it's still an important read. I listened to the audio, which is short. I read a lot of Vietnamese diaspora writers nowadays, but as the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon approaches, I'm trying to read more.
The discussion of Asian Americans as not being a monolith hit hard. We're not the same. Some of us are similar, sure. But lumping us as one gives less credence to our different struggles. Very excited to hear him speak at the panel Friend of My Mind: Essays on Finding a Home in Literature.
🎧 Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media
/ Friend of My Mind: Essays on Finding a Home in Literature
/ Sunday, April 27, 2025
/ 10:30 AM
/ Seeley G. Mudd 123
Vietnam Book and Reading Culture Day 2025 #4
While I didn't love THE SYMPATHIZER either time I read it, and have middling thoughts about the show, I find I have much better luck with Viet's non-fic work. It's real. It's raw. I respect him greatly for his political stance. He has proudly preached for the Palestinian people long before we were even discussing the genocide as a whole.
Some of these essays don't contain new information, especially if you read A MAN OF TWO FACES, which is my favorite work of his. In my opinion, it's still an important read. I listened to the audio, which is short. I read a lot of Vietnamese diaspora writers nowadays, but as the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon approaches, I'm trying to read more.
The discussion of Asian Americans as not being a monolith hit hard. We're not the same. Some of us are similar, sure. But lumping us as one gives less credence to our different struggles. Very excited to hear him speak at the panel Friend of My Mind: Essays on Finding a Home in Literature.
🎧 Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media
April 18, 2025
Listening to this audiobook transported me back to grad school--othering, double consciousness, Edward Said--all so paradoxical, philosophical, yet somehow still making sense in some capacity. Now with a new perspective as a high school English teacher, I found myself reflecting on the texts I've taught in my classroom and the texts I could teach; on the conversations that could be happening with my students in the classroom about what we expect of authors in certain genres; about my own desires as a reader of literature. I can imagine pulling at the very least some quotations from this text as warmup journal entries or even pairing them with other texts or writers who explore similar ideas.
I would have preferred to read this in print versus audio or maybe found a way to replicate that lecture-hall venue that lends itself to this reading. It wasn't a great on-the-way-to-work book, nor was it one that I wanted to listen to while decompressing for my day. It's a text that desires to be annotated, to be reread. While the audiobook format was well produced and easy to follow in most places, there were sections I had to rewind to understand or ponder more. However, this may say more about my own style of learning than it may about Nguyen's narration.
I'll likely return to the Norton lectures with the accompanying transcripts at some point, especially the first two which I found particularly fruitful for my own thinking. And I'll most definitely be exploring more of Nguyen's writing after getting a taste of his artistic purpose and process.
I would have preferred to read this in print versus audio or maybe found a way to replicate that lecture-hall venue that lends itself to this reading. It wasn't a great on-the-way-to-work book, nor was it one that I wanted to listen to while decompressing for my day. It's a text that desires to be annotated, to be reread. While the audiobook format was well produced and easy to follow in most places, there were sections I had to rewind to understand or ponder more. However, this may say more about my own style of learning than it may about Nguyen's narration.
I'll likely return to the Norton lectures with the accompanying transcripts at some point, especially the first two which I found particularly fruitful for my own thinking. And I'll most definitely be exploring more of Nguyen's writing after getting a taste of his artistic purpose and process.
March 21, 2025
you know when you read a book and all you have to say for every word, every sentence is - 'yes, exactly!' because either a) you've already had the thought, b) you've had the thought but not in that exact way, or c) wow, you've never thought about it in this way? that's how i felt reading this book.
i really liked each essay/speech in this book. it's important and also, importantly, accessible. on the one hand, i really liked (or really disliked) how much i related to so many parts of the book, and on the other, i am disappointed that it needs to be said and then said again.
thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.
i really liked each essay/speech in this book. it's important and also, importantly, accessible. on the one hand, i really liked (or really disliked) how much i related to so many parts of the book, and on the other, i am disappointed that it needs to be said and then said again.
thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.
April 15, 2025
Such a unique read. I wasn’t sure what to expect and although I didn’t agree with all of his ideas, I found so thought provoking. We have very different stories relative to immigration so our perspective varied but I was deeply intrigued by the thoughts and experiences shared and how they shaped the author’s beliefs and lifestyle. I’d say now is the perfect time to hear every possible immigration story you can, especially ones that don’t particularly shape your point of view because the reality is all immigrant stories don’t fall left or right. They’re deeply personal and I know from helping my mom with immigration proceedings for her family, it’s a difficult process, it’s expensive and time consuming but seeing families reunited and under one roof is worth all of it. In this case, I believe this author developed an even deeper connection and pride with his roots from his positive and negative experiences.
April 5, 2025
finished copy gifted by the publisher
beautiful and illuminating lectures on writing as an other, the responsibility of writing / exploiting one's otherness, and the commitment of expanding that otherness to encompass all who are oppressed globally. Throughout the lectures, Nguyen weaves his personal life - his parents' otherness as refugees, his own otherness as a 'minority', etc. - and writers who have impacted his understanding of himself as an "other". While academic at times, TO SAVE AND TO DESTROY is a demonstration of how a modern great writer, thinker, and educator, constantly reflects on one's selfhood and complicity via a clear-eyed view that's not afraid to say, "we still have much work to do, but we can do it together."
phenomenal
beautiful and illuminating lectures on writing as an other, the responsibility of writing / exploiting one's otherness, and the commitment of expanding that otherness to encompass all who are oppressed globally. Throughout the lectures, Nguyen weaves his personal life - his parents' otherness as refugees, his own otherness as a 'minority', etc. - and writers who have impacted his understanding of himself as an "other". While academic at times, TO SAVE AND TO DESTROY is a demonstration of how a modern great writer, thinker, and educator, constantly reflects on one's selfhood and complicity via a clear-eyed view that's not afraid to say, "we still have much work to do, but we can do it together."
phenomenal
April 29, 2025
Audio.
A collection of lectures about otherness and writing. I found this collection to be thought provoking on topics like translating in writing as a form of domestication, ex. “Pho, a type of Vietnamese noodle soup, � �
It touched on what it means to be a refugee and how to use that story and voice in a language that isn’t your first, duality as a displaced person, and otherness as a stubborn strength.
I think the audience is Asian American writers but it is an informative perspective for other writers from marginalized groups.
The cadence of the audiobook though� it’s read with many pauses in a sort of poetic performance. I found it distracting.
A collection of lectures about otherness and writing. I found this collection to be thought provoking on topics like translating in writing as a form of domestication, ex. “Pho, a type of Vietnamese noodle soup, � �
It touched on what it means to be a refugee and how to use that story and voice in a language that isn’t your first, duality as a displaced person, and otherness as a stubborn strength.
I think the audience is Asian American writers but it is an informative perspective for other writers from marginalized groups.
The cadence of the audiobook though� it’s read with many pauses in a sort of poetic performance. I found it distracting.
April 26, 2025
This was such a personal, thoughtful and honest read. With the audiobook being narrated by the author himself, I enjoyed listening to Nguyen’s soft-spokenness, yet firm wisdom that I often find myself failing to put into words. Exile, immigrant or refugee � as part of the Vietnamese diaspora, I’m proud of how his work is abundant in musings to exactly these questions that you are faced with everyday if you have a clear immigrant background.
While the book didn’t necessarily offer me super new perspectives, I was nonetheless captured by his power of words, making it an important book read this year for me so far.
While the book didn’t necessarily offer me super new perspectives, I was nonetheless captured by his power of words, making it an important book read this year for me so far.
April 17, 2025
TO SAVE AND TO DESTROY by Viet Thanh Nguyen compiles together his series of Norton Lectures where he delved into what it is to be considered an other.
Throughout, he offers insights into other authors as well as the development of his own work. I appreciated his wordplay, as it would heighten connections he was making, such as when he describes the following: �...giving me the confidence needed to portray her, and, in the end, betray her,� as well as the clever contrast of mother tongue/other tongue.
Nguyen narrates the audiobook, so it allows listeners a similar experience to those who were able to listen to his lectures in person.
(Thank you to Dreamscape Media for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.)
Throughout, he offers insights into other authors as well as the development of his own work. I appreciated his wordplay, as it would heighten connections he was making, such as when he describes the following: �...giving me the confidence needed to portray her, and, in the end, betray her,� as well as the clever contrast of mother tongue/other tongue.
Nguyen narrates the audiobook, so it allows listeners a similar experience to those who were able to listen to his lectures in person.
(Thank you to Dreamscape Media for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.)
March 18, 2025
5 stars
Prospective readers should be mindful that unlike Nguyen's most popular work, this is a series of nonfiction essays (vs. a fabulous fictional novel). While I'd often encourage only an academic audience to read this, I think there is so much relatable content here that it could appeal to many audiences. That noted, I am part of that academic audience, so my opinion may be ever so slightly tainted.
Nguyen narrates the audio version of his book, and that is particularly fitting with the personal nature of the content as well as the original modality through which these essays were delivered: Norton lectures. Fans of Nguyen's and those interested in modern writing, identity, and postcolonialism will find so SO much to be enthusiastic about here.
I really enjoyed this efficient listen, and I can't wait to recommend it to my students.
*Special thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for this alc, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
Prospective readers should be mindful that unlike Nguyen's most popular work, this is a series of nonfiction essays (vs. a fabulous fictional novel). While I'd often encourage only an academic audience to read this, I think there is so much relatable content here that it could appeal to many audiences. That noted, I am part of that academic audience, so my opinion may be ever so slightly tainted.
Nguyen narrates the audio version of his book, and that is particularly fitting with the personal nature of the content as well as the original modality through which these essays were delivered: Norton lectures. Fans of Nguyen's and those interested in modern writing, identity, and postcolonialism will find so SO much to be enthusiastic about here.
I really enjoyed this efficient listen, and I can't wait to recommend it to my students.
*Special thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for this alc, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
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April 25, 2025Unfortunately, I REALLY did not like this.
Who is the intended audience?? The arguments retrod lots of familiar ground—representation politics, "voice for the voiceless," Asian monoliths and model minorities, imperial American soft power, the self and the other, etc etc.—all pretty basic for anyone familiar with postcolonial theory or 1990s strains of Asian American activism. Which would be fine if this was a book of public-facing scholarship making those ideas accessible! But these essays are so loaded with academic language and references (some I knew, many I didn't) that I struggle to imagine what kind of reader they're for. Of the referenced scholars and critical texts I'm familiar with, I often found Nguyen's summary and analysis deceptively simplistic and/or argumentatively convenient, which left me wary of his analytical treatment of works that were new to me.
And don't get me started on the Palestine chapter—while I admire his longtime commitment to Palestinian advocacy, in what world does "expansive solidarity" mean.... expanding our understanding of Asia to include Palestine, and therefore encompass Palestinians under the "Asian American" solidarity umbrella?? Why are we circumscribing solidarity with geopolitical borders when it's meant to work past them? Don't we have better things to do with our political efforts?
I also have more gripes with many of the essays' argumentative flow but that feels petty so I'm going to stop here.
Who is the intended audience?? The arguments retrod lots of familiar ground—representation politics, "voice for the voiceless," Asian monoliths and model minorities, imperial American soft power, the self and the other, etc etc.—all pretty basic for anyone familiar with postcolonial theory or 1990s strains of Asian American activism. Which would be fine if this was a book of public-facing scholarship making those ideas accessible! But these essays are so loaded with academic language and references (some I knew, many I didn't) that I struggle to imagine what kind of reader they're for. Of the referenced scholars and critical texts I'm familiar with, I often found Nguyen's summary and analysis deceptively simplistic and/or argumentatively convenient, which left me wary of his analytical treatment of works that were new to me.
And don't get me started on the Palestine chapter—while I admire his longtime commitment to Palestinian advocacy, in what world does "expansive solidarity" mean.... expanding our understanding of Asia to include Palestine, and therefore encompass Palestinians under the "Asian American" solidarity umbrella?? Why are we circumscribing solidarity with geopolitical borders when it's meant to work past them? Don't we have better things to do with our political efforts?
I also have more gripes with many of the essays' argumentative flow but that feels petty so I'm going to stop here.
May 4, 2025
So much packed into this relatively short book, I would recommend it to anyone curious about the question addressed: What does the outsider mean to literary writing? Originally delivered as the author's Norton Lectures (I believe it is required by law that the word "prestigious" should precede the phrase 'Norton Lectures,' so I'm hoping that by mentioning that here, I can make up for the word not appearing in its proper place), these essays are a fascinating mix of the very personal, the political, and the scholarly, so there's something for everyone, as they say.
A lot of is moving, a lot of it is brilliant, but it is also occasionally funny. For example, I love that the author talked his way into an exclusive seminar with Maxine Hong Kingston when he was a 19-year-old undergrad, and then fell asleep in every session! Part of me is horrified (you fell asleep in the same small seminar more than once?), part of me admires him for admitting it to the world at large, but I couldn't help laughing, too.
A lot of is moving, a lot of it is brilliant, but it is also occasionally funny. For example, I love that the author talked his way into an exclusive seminar with Maxine Hong Kingston when he was a 19-year-old undergrad, and then fell asleep in every session! Part of me is horrified (you fell asleep in the same small seminar more than once?), part of me admires him for admitting it to the world at large, but I couldn't help laughing, too.
April 25, 2025
Viet Thanh Nguyen's most recent offering, To Save and To Destroy: Writing as an Other is as soporific and academic as his last book, A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memory , was riveting and accessible. The new book is a collection of essays originally presented as Norton Lectures (The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures 2023-2024), so it veers towards academic meandering while attempting to clarify who or what the outsider is in literature; this flaw is inherent in most lectures. Nguyen, like many career academics, becomes mired in inscrutable concepts that obfuscate rather than clarify when in an academic milieu. A shame really because Nguyen has such a perspicacious mind; one that usually soars above the ratiocinations of academia with wit, grace and humor. He is best when he simplifies. Also, many of the concepts addressed obliquely in these lectures are better explained and clarified in A Man of Two Faces, a book I virtually inhaled in two sittings.
To be clear, I greatly admire Viet Thanh Nguyen and will buy any book of his that I stumble across. And I will certainly pay full price for his work on the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, since Harvard University is taking such a courageous and necessary stand against a fascist bully and the incompetent scumbag thugs who control the US government at present.
As far as the lectures, the third one, “On Palestine and Asia� is the strongest of the six. However, I did disagree with some of his conclusions and the framing of the current conflict in Palestine in the usual colonial/oppressor paradigm that is so rife in academic circles today. The Jew remains, at least in my humble opinion, the eternal other, a point which Nguyen does not fully elaborate upon when he briefly brings up the writing of Franz Kafka.* Although Nguyen straddles a fine line and doesn’t explicitly choose sides, I do think that he has largely overlooked the Jew as the eternal outsider in favor of more contemporary outsiders, many of them that do—like the Vietnamese—still have a homeland that is not under attack. I also quibble at the assertion that the Cambodian Genocide (technically more of a “cultural suicide�) is inherently the product of the West because so many members of the Pol Pot regime were educated in France.
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*See Kafka’s minor stories “Schakale und Araber� (“The Jackal and the Arabs�) and Josefine, die Sängerin oder Das Volk der Mäuse� (“Josephine, the singer or the Mouse People�) as well as the major work “In der Strafkolonie� (“In the Penal Colony�) for works that have overt Jewish outsider themes.
To be clear, I greatly admire Viet Thanh Nguyen and will buy any book of his that I stumble across. And I will certainly pay full price for his work on the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, since Harvard University is taking such a courageous and necessary stand against a fascist bully and the incompetent scumbag thugs who control the US government at present.
As far as the lectures, the third one, “On Palestine and Asia� is the strongest of the six. However, I did disagree with some of his conclusions and the framing of the current conflict in Palestine in the usual colonial/oppressor paradigm that is so rife in academic circles today. The Jew remains, at least in my humble opinion, the eternal other, a point which Nguyen does not fully elaborate upon when he briefly brings up the writing of Franz Kafka.* Although Nguyen straddles a fine line and doesn’t explicitly choose sides, I do think that he has largely overlooked the Jew as the eternal outsider in favor of more contemporary outsiders, many of them that do—like the Vietnamese—still have a homeland that is not under attack. I also quibble at the assertion that the Cambodian Genocide (technically more of a “cultural suicide�) is inherently the product of the West because so many members of the Pol Pot regime were educated in France.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*See Kafka’s minor stories “Schakale und Araber� (“The Jackal and the Arabs�) and Josefine, die Sängerin oder Das Volk der Mäuse� (“Josephine, the singer or the Mouse People�) as well as the major work “In der Strafkolonie� (“In the Penal Colony�) for works that have overt Jewish outsider themes.
April 14, 2025
You know a non-fiction book is good, when it evokes so much emotion and grinds those gears.
This is my first book by this author, but one I thought would fit as a great starting point as it is a collection of essays.
What was so great about this was I found myself agreeing with the author on many things, specifically with the complicity of the empire in making human beings feel othered.
Now, let me role my sleeves up, what made this even a better read for me was that I disagreed on many mentions or citations of individuals specifically mentions of politically contentious individuals such as Salman Rushdie or the leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan.
I suppose in Viet Thanh Nguyen’s eyes these individuals are at the forefront of being othered within their own communities, or at least that’s what I was grasping from my read.
I do call out these two individuals because they are contentious within my own communities, I speaking from a middle eastern perspective who identifies with a cultural similarity to Öcalan, but also whole heartedly disagree with both individuals here who have not only othered me within my identity, but also I feel othered by their works, in Rushdie’s case and othered by Öcalan’s actions.
I feel more compelled to call out within my own community, to specifically point figures because their works/actions have created a separation when a collective whole is more beneficial.
I could talk to the ends of the earth about this, so I will keep this as short as possible.
Other topics I found I disagreed with was the othering by exclusion. I don’t use this lightly because if anyone knows exclusion well enough, it’s an individual who is from a minority. One topic mentioned was pho. Yes, pho. The author specifically recalls using pho in a sentence but having to “translate� or give contextual markers for unfamiliar cultural foods/phrases in books. The author disagrees with doing this and believes to leave such context untranslated. But fails to mention that you are not only translating for the white individual but other “others� as well.
For me, these little translations are an invitation. The reader might not know what pho is, but by sharing with the reader that pho, a Vietnamese soup dish, is just that, you are welcome individuals to look further into this, by opening a door.
I can go on and on, clearly I have much to say. But let’s just leave it as a book that will invoke emotion and create discourse. Just don’t talk about it at the family dinner table 😉
Special Thanks to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for an ALC of To Save and to Destroy: Writing As An Other. All thoughts are my own.
This is my first book by this author, but one I thought would fit as a great starting point as it is a collection of essays.
What was so great about this was I found myself agreeing with the author on many things, specifically with the complicity of the empire in making human beings feel othered.
Now, let me role my sleeves up, what made this even a better read for me was that I disagreed on many mentions or citations of individuals specifically mentions of politically contentious individuals such as Salman Rushdie or the leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan.
I suppose in Viet Thanh Nguyen’s eyes these individuals are at the forefront of being othered within their own communities, or at least that’s what I was grasping from my read.
I do call out these two individuals because they are contentious within my own communities, I speaking from a middle eastern perspective who identifies with a cultural similarity to Öcalan, but also whole heartedly disagree with both individuals here who have not only othered me within my identity, but also I feel othered by their works, in Rushdie’s case and othered by Öcalan’s actions.
I feel more compelled to call out within my own community, to specifically point figures because their works/actions have created a separation when a collective whole is more beneficial.
I could talk to the ends of the earth about this, so I will keep this as short as possible.
Other topics I found I disagreed with was the othering by exclusion. I don’t use this lightly because if anyone knows exclusion well enough, it’s an individual who is from a minority. One topic mentioned was pho. Yes, pho. The author specifically recalls using pho in a sentence but having to “translate� or give contextual markers for unfamiliar cultural foods/phrases in books. The author disagrees with doing this and believes to leave such context untranslated. But fails to mention that you are not only translating for the white individual but other “others� as well.
For me, these little translations are an invitation. The reader might not know what pho is, but by sharing with the reader that pho, a Vietnamese soup dish, is just that, you are welcome individuals to look further into this, by opening a door.
I can go on and on, clearly I have much to say. But let’s just leave it as a book that will invoke emotion and create discourse. Just don’t talk about it at the family dinner table 😉
Special Thanks to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for an ALC of To Save and to Destroy: Writing As An Other. All thoughts are my own.
April 14, 2025
Thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape/Belknap for the ARC!
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other reads like an academic addendum to the author's earlier work, replacing personal urgency with social clarity.
After A Man of Two Faces, a memoir I admired for its confident refusal to simplify identity, I wondered where Nguyen could go next. The answer, it seems, is deeper. To Save and to Destroy is more a re-mediation than a step forward, allowing the author to soften his tone while sharpening his arguments across a series of lectures.
In my review for the aforementioned memoir, I noted that Nguyen’s work seemed to suggest that the best way to honor memory is by leaving it as an open wound. That isn’t the case here, as the author seems prepared to heal—ready to find the language to stitch himself up.
Nguyen is much better equipped to discuss otherness this time around, but he has replaced the spiraling, exploratory approach of his memoir with the circular, emphatic format of an academic lecture. It’s still interesting, particularly if readers are into both historical and modern literature, but it isn’t particularly novel. It can even feel a little redundant. I love hearing Nguyen’s take on people like Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, but only in the same way that one might be curious about what a professor thinks about a given subject.
It’s anecdotal, not essential.
As a whole, in comparison to its predecessor, the book seems more personally cathartic but, surprisingly, less publicly catalytic, even though it is more direct in its calls to action. To Save and to Destroy has an audience in mind, but its timely didacticism seems to underserve them. When, for example, Nguyen writes about genocide in Gaza, it feels anonymously academic—a tragedy to serve as an example to prevent future tragedies.
It’s abstracted, which feels a bit antithetical to the author’s earlier work.
Having noted all of this, one of the book’s themes is how otherness wrongfully creates thematic obligations–perhaps I am burdening To Save and to Destroy with stakes it doesn’t need to have. I'm not sure I can fault a book for being unlike another book. I really enjoyed this dive into Viet Thanh Nguyen's brain, and the excellent opening essay is a must-read. It isn’t as if the author is irresponsible—he’s just a little more settled now, even in moments when it seems readers should be unsettled.
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other reads like an academic addendum to the author's earlier work, replacing personal urgency with social clarity.
After A Man of Two Faces, a memoir I admired for its confident refusal to simplify identity, I wondered where Nguyen could go next. The answer, it seems, is deeper. To Save and to Destroy is more a re-mediation than a step forward, allowing the author to soften his tone while sharpening his arguments across a series of lectures.
In my review for the aforementioned memoir, I noted that Nguyen’s work seemed to suggest that the best way to honor memory is by leaving it as an open wound. That isn’t the case here, as the author seems prepared to heal—ready to find the language to stitch himself up.
Nguyen is much better equipped to discuss otherness this time around, but he has replaced the spiraling, exploratory approach of his memoir with the circular, emphatic format of an academic lecture. It’s still interesting, particularly if readers are into both historical and modern literature, but it isn’t particularly novel. It can even feel a little redundant. I love hearing Nguyen’s take on people like Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, but only in the same way that one might be curious about what a professor thinks about a given subject.
It’s anecdotal, not essential.
As a whole, in comparison to its predecessor, the book seems more personally cathartic but, surprisingly, less publicly catalytic, even though it is more direct in its calls to action. To Save and to Destroy has an audience in mind, but its timely didacticism seems to underserve them. When, for example, Nguyen writes about genocide in Gaza, it feels anonymously academic—a tragedy to serve as an example to prevent future tragedies.
It’s abstracted, which feels a bit antithetical to the author’s earlier work.
Having noted all of this, one of the book’s themes is how otherness wrongfully creates thematic obligations–perhaps I am burdening To Save and to Destroy with stakes it doesn’t need to have. I'm not sure I can fault a book for being unlike another book. I really enjoyed this dive into Viet Thanh Nguyen's brain, and the excellent opening essay is a must-read. It isn’t as if the author is irresponsible—he’s just a little more settled now, even in moments when it seems readers should be unsettled.
March 27, 2025
Nguyen has written a number of novels, including The Sympathizer and The Committed, which is how I first became aware of him. I'm sure the TV show about the former has brought others of you to him. Like me, you may have initially thought that this would be similar, but instead it is primarily an academic analysis of writing and its intersection with identity, politics, imperialism, and more.
This collection of essays (originally delivered as the Norton lectures at Harvard) is unlike anything I've ever read or heard, and therefore I had some difficulty in deciding on a rating. My hunch is that I am under-rating (i.e. it should be a 5), but I found myself wandering a bit as I listened, most likely my own fault, but nonetheless, the reason for it being slightly lower. Once again, I wish there was a 4.5 option!
As you might expect, Nguyễn narrates the audiobook, which parallels his initial delivery of the essays and also dovetails well with their extremely personal nature. Nguyen is a Vietnamese refugee (not that he would use that word, as you will see when you read), and does an extremely good job talking about "othering", and particularly how to grapple with writing about it and through it. There is a lot to digest here and I personally would likely benefit from a critical reading of the essays and then sitting with them a while. Worth the read for the more "intellectual" among us.
Please note: I received an advanced listening copy from NetGalley & Dreamscape Media in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are strictly my own. Publication date is April 8, 2025.
This collection of essays (originally delivered as the Norton lectures at Harvard) is unlike anything I've ever read or heard, and therefore I had some difficulty in deciding on a rating. My hunch is that I am under-rating (i.e. it should be a 5), but I found myself wandering a bit as I listened, most likely my own fault, but nonetheless, the reason for it being slightly lower. Once again, I wish there was a 4.5 option!
As you might expect, Nguyễn narrates the audiobook, which parallels his initial delivery of the essays and also dovetails well with their extremely personal nature. Nguyen is a Vietnamese refugee (not that he would use that word, as you will see when you read), and does an extremely good job talking about "othering", and particularly how to grapple with writing about it and through it. There is a lot to digest here and I personally would likely benefit from a critical reading of the essays and then sitting with them a while. Worth the read for the more "intellectual" among us.
Please note: I received an advanced listening copy from NetGalley & Dreamscape Media in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are strictly my own. Publication date is April 8, 2025.
April 19, 2025
The book is a short yet broad study on otherness that builds on top of many ideas of the subject coming from different traditions tied through an autobiographical narrative. While he does rely on his upbringing as a refugee and his identity as an Asian-American, this is mainly a tool to illustrate Edward Said's concept of orientalism, the paradox of respectability politics in the building of the "model minority" identity, the need for expansive solidarity, and Deleuze & Guattari's concept of minor literature.
On a personal note, I had the chance to see an in-person speech of him about a year ago to what seems was a precursor of the second lecture, I can say that the book reads just as moving as he talks, an unapologetic appropriation of the other's perception of the author's own otherness.
My only criticism comes from exclusions, in one section he brings the orientalization and exclusion of Palestine and further in the book he mentions Fanon's idea of the inadequacy of sole recognition of the humanity of the individual which gives way to the inevitability of collective and ###### action under occupation. The manufactured incomprehensibility seen in recent writings in this area amount to an epistemic injustice (an open secret to "the west") which would merit an unpalatable analysis to his readers if this were to be expanded.
At the end, he closes with a very good example of the tension between the nausea and joy in the multiplicity of the individual, which maybe he hinted towards a D&G's rhizomatic resolution of identity and individual consciousness? Maybe I read a bit too much between the lines, but I guess I just really liked this book.
On a personal note, I had the chance to see an in-person speech of him about a year ago to what seems was a precursor of the second lecture, I can say that the book reads just as moving as he talks, an unapologetic appropriation of the other's perception of the author's own otherness.
My only criticism comes from exclusions, in one section he brings the orientalization and exclusion of Palestine and further in the book he mentions Fanon's idea of the inadequacy of sole recognition of the humanity of the individual which gives way to the inevitability of collective and ###### action under occupation. The manufactured incomprehensibility seen in recent writings in this area amount to an epistemic injustice (an open secret to "the west") which would merit an unpalatable analysis to his readers if this were to be expanded.
At the end, he closes with a very good example of the tension between the nausea and joy in the multiplicity of the individual, which maybe he hinted towards a D&G's rhizomatic resolution of identity and individual consciousness? Maybe I read a bit too much between the lines, but I guess I just really liked this book.
April 8, 2025
A deeply intellectual and insightful collection of scholarly essays about being an “Other,� based on Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Norton lectures at Harvard. There’s also a lot of humor and cleverness in these series of essays/lectures that’s really thought-provoking at the same time. I’ve been fortunate to hear Nguyen speak in a couple of events, so listening to his narration of the audiobook was enlightening and reminiscent of being in a town hall lecture. Much of the book is autobiographical, as Nguyen relays his musings as a writer and in academia, perusing over the differences between being a refugee, an immigrant, or an exile. Having been in academia for a long time, this series of essays are also very well-researched and well-thought out, referencing classic writers, historical events, other Asian/Asian American/BIPOC writers, and even similar refugee experience to that of the Vietnamese people.
This book touches on important on individual and personal themes of identity, language, representation (and the expectations that come with being an immigrant), collective voices, and the power of narratives (and who’s telling the story) but also on far-reaching topics like politics, violence, capitalism, and post-colonialism. If you’re familiar with his previous work, he also references The Sympathizer and A Man of Two Faces, tying these themes into his previous works. Overall, an excellent addition to the collection of writings by Vietnamese authors (if you read the book, you’ll understand the importance of this).
Special thanks to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for providing an audiobook in exchange for an honest, independent review.
This book touches on important on individual and personal themes of identity, language, representation (and the expectations that come with being an immigrant), collective voices, and the power of narratives (and who’s telling the story) but also on far-reaching topics like politics, violence, capitalism, and post-colonialism. If you’re familiar with his previous work, he also references The Sympathizer and A Man of Two Faces, tying these themes into his previous works. Overall, an excellent addition to the collection of writings by Vietnamese authors (if you read the book, you’ll understand the importance of this).
Special thanks to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for providing an audiobook in exchange for an honest, independent review.
May 3, 2025
This was masterful. The circumstances under which I received the book magnified my enjoyment. I met Nguyen on Thursday at a book talk with Hua Hsu. I loved hearing about their experiences of the Bay Area and Nguyen’s moral insistence on denouncing genocide and recognizing the US as the empire it is. On reading it, I was intrigued by his pairing of Jewish and Asian Americans in their ascendancy in American society and the manifold effects this has on their stances towards Israel and Palestine. As a Chinese Jewish American, his words help me make sense of my ethnic communities and my own conflicted being. Nguyen also thoughtfully cites poetry and prose, each bit made me eager to make the reference my next read. I look forward to reading more from Nguyen.
May 3, 2025
A book named To Save and to Destroy can come with many things for people who readers who want to learn something about the war in the 1975 times (and more).
“T0 SAVE and TO DESTROY� gives a sense of what was like in 1975 in the US.
It’s difficult to get some of the things that happened in Vietnam in the 70’s. It’s essay’s, a way that is different in such a situation in those times.
And the stories about the things that was taken from writers who covered the time.
There are notes from many writers in this time of the people (men AND women) in the war. And there are times of what happened when the war was going.
Maybe it is time to have this from the 1970’s.
“T0 SAVE and TO DESTROY� gives a sense of what was like in 1975 in the US.
It’s difficult to get some of the things that happened in Vietnam in the 70’s. It’s essay’s, a way that is different in such a situation in those times.
And the stories about the things that was taken from writers who covered the time.
There are notes from many writers in this time of the people (men AND women) in the war. And there are times of what happened when the war was going.
Maybe it is time to have this from the 1970’s.
April 18, 2025
Thoughtful, emotional, personal, part biographical, and powerfully written essays by Viet Thanh Nguyen from his Norton lectures. These essays are extremely timely in discussing what it is to be an immigrant in the United States as an outsider, including sharing his own experiences and poignancy in his family's experiences. These essays help give a voice to the voiceless, and are extremely well written. This may give some a different view of immigrants in America, or elsewhere, and their shared struggles against colonialism. Highly recommended!
April 16, 2025
If you are passionate about literature, as well as want to delve into the concepts of being “other� and othered, you will greatly enjoy this thought-provoking literary book of essays. I listened to the audiobook which was good, but I now want to look through the physical book to review the references, knowing that they will lead me to additional readings that will be of interest.
Thank you Libro.fm for advance copy of the audio.
Thank you Libro.fm for advance copy of the audio.
April 17, 2025
Not every lecture is as riveting, but one of these, which both refreshingly confronts the overreaches of an other-based identity politics, and suddenly floors with the weight of memoir, is very much so.
April 13, 2025
all hail the king 🙇♀�
April 13, 2025
4.5 stars
Read
April 17, 2025I am not the audience for this book :(
April 30, 2025
Phenomenal writing!
May 3, 2025
4.5🌟
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