The Lotus Eaters

Most people that have ever met me know that I love Southeast Asia.  It should be no epiphany to anyone that I loved The Lotus Eaters, set in Vietnam.  I first went to Hanoi with a head full of war history and "Fortunate Son" reverberating through my internal monologue, but I walked away from Vietnam shaken by the violent beauty of the landscape.  I will try to tone down my effusiveness about Vietnam and this novel so that you don't think I'm overreacting about what a treasure this book is.

Set during the Vietnam war, this is a tale about a young woman photographer, Helen, who drops out of college to chase the war.  On arrival in Saigon, she realizes that she's wildly out of her league in the old boy's club of wizened war photographers and journalists.  Intending to make a splash on her first night with the war correspondents by wearing a silk dress that gets ruined in the rain, she looks a fool, but she boldly makes friends with the arrogant, acclaimed photographer Darrow. Soon, she, Darrow, and Linh- Darrow's invaluable "assistant"- are an inseparable trio, intoxicated by the drama of war and the irony of it taking place in the verdant landscape.  Amidst glimmering rice paddies and the shell-cratered countryside, Soli creates a beautiful story of love, identity, life and loss.  I was initially engrossed with Helen's character; the fierceness with which she clamors after life, her feeling of instability during calm, and her relentless urge to pursue beguiling Vietnam.

As the story unfolded, Linh's character added a thoughtful richness to the narrative.  A countryside poet prior to the war, he was first a soldier for the Northern Vietnamese Army, and then defected to the the Southern Vietnamese Army and finally, disenchanted with the whole thing, went on something of a sanctioned AWOL to be a photographer with the Americans.  Linh's only true loyalties, like many Vietnamese of the time, were to his country as a whole, his community, and to his unlikely friends.

Ms. Soli has a delicate, elegant writing style with a razor edge that captures the intricacies of post-colonial, war-addled Vietnam and the incredible people who inhabit it.  Beautiful, complex, and a portrait of a country that I love, I can't recommend it enough.

Further Recommended Reading About Vietnam:
The Quiet American, by Graham Greene

Spies, journalism, brothels, intrigue and ill-fated love color this seminal novel written by Graham Greene in 1955.  Although Soli takes an oblique jab at this book in her novel (Helen makes fun of herself for being a Quiet-American-toting idealist), this is probably required reading for voyagers to Vietnam to help understand the role of the French and other colonialists in the region.  If you want to avoid scorn by Lonely-Planet-packing, dreadlock-bedecked backpackers in Vietnam, read it on the long plane ride over.  It's short.

The Lover, by Marguerite Duras

Like a boat trip down the Mekong- languidly enchanting and providing a feeling of space/time disconnect- 'The Lover' is a dreamy vignette of love in French Indochina.  An unlikely union blossoms between a young French schoolgirl and a handsome Chinese millionaire; racial drama follows.  Set in the eroding French Saigon 30 years before Helen's austere roamings through Vietnam, this sliver of a book is a gem.

Halong Bay, Northern Vietnam, 2007

Hue, Vietnam, 2007