The Beauty of Humanity Movement: A Novel

I saw on line a “Briefly Noted” review of this delightful novel in The New Yorker charging that the characters fell flat. How absurd! I will not forget Old Man Hung or any of the people who become his family after his years of privation — the years of Vietnam’s brutal 20th century history, all of it painted here like a fine, delicate and beautiful watercolor. If you are interested in Vietnam — or like me feel even stronger about it — you must read this lovely book.

Camilla Gibb's beautifully written and poignant story of survival and striving by three (+) main characters living in contemporary Hanoi (Vietnam) is perfect in tone and wholly convincing. It is the intertwined sagas of people living through rebellion, war and near totally privation who maintain their human dignity and integrity through loyalties and friendship. Foremost among the book's characters is Hung the Pho (Vietnamese soup) maker whose dedication to his profession and utter decency has made him hundreds of admiring customers and friends over many years. Maggie Ly is a Vietnamese-American (Viet Khieu) who has returned to Vietnam in search of clues to what happened to her dissident father who did not escape with her and her mother as Saigon fell to the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese in 1975. And Tu is a bright young Vietnamese working as a tour guide in Hanoi who is closely linked to Hung through a common family history of war and survival and is enlisted by Maggie in the search for traces of her father.The novel is garnished with a great deal of information about Vietnamese politics, society and culture and most especially in the latter category, a ton about Vietnamese food--pho, first and foremost, but a great deal more."The Beauty..." has some well-done twists and turns and a highly satisfying ending that redeems the suffering that the book's characters have endured early in life. Wonderful read. Highly recommended.

This story, told with great compassion and sensitivity, now ranks as one of the finest 5 novels I have ever read. It tells a tale from inside Vietnam during the war and the years afterwards. I figured that I would read some invective against Americans in it, but instead it focused on the lives of regular people living during Ho Chi Minh's regime. Vietnamese by birth but raised in the United States, a young woman comes to her home country to try to find information related to her artist father, who disappeared without a trace after defying the government's ban on the type of art he was creating, which, in effect, was any art that would not qualify as government propaganda. If you like full characters instead of caricatures and fully realized, well-constructed plots, this book is for you. Camille Gibb is a great new find for me. I was drawn to this novel after reading SWEETNESS IN THE BELLY.

While I am not Vietnamese, this book seems to capture the heart of Hanoi. I started reading this book on the plane to Hanoi and am struck with what our tour guide is teaching us and Houng’s life illustrates. Some of the Pho here is amazing, even for breakfast. I wish I could have tasted Houng’s.

This book is an amazing story of a man who lived through decades of turmoil in Viet Nam. His caring for others is a model of how an individual can make an enormous positive difference in the lives of so many. I am very proud of my daughter for her skillful reading of this book.

A compelling and satisfying novel set in a country I know little about at a time when it was undergoing profound change. The characters are believable and, if not in every case fully admirable, certainly human and understandable. Gibb does a great job of gradually releasing information about the past which makes sense of puzzling aspects of the story's present without dampening suspense. Her descriptions of the locales are richly detailed. Although the ending was tied up a little too neatly for my tastes, I really enjoyed this book.

My first read about Vietnam. A fascinating country with a sad history and great beauty. I want to lean more about Vietnam.

As an occasional visitor to Vietnam, I was utterly amazed at this keenly accurate portrayal of an intricate, complex, multilayered culture. It is exactly the Vietnam I know, with many historical and cultural gaps expertly filled in. Today's Vietnam, "its doors thrown open to the West," is deftly portrayed against the backdrop of a suffering, complicated history and significant generational differences. A truly excellent novel of Vietnam. Highly recommended.

I loved this book, so full of feeling and emotion - but the Kindle version has formatting problems and all the Vietnamese words appear huge in comparison to the remaining script. As this includes all the names, the problem occurs several times on most pages. This has resulted in several Amazon.com reviewers rating the book as 1 or 2 stars where it should definitely be up in the top rankings.The main character, Old Man Hung, is a master at the art of making Pho, the local Vietnamese soup that is so popular for breakfast. Once he had a shop, but all this has been taken away by the authorites over the years and now he scrapes together a living as an itinerrant Pho seller, setting up shop in a different spot each day, still evading the authorites.His home now is in a poverty stricken wasteland by a muddy lake, where he holds together a community of down and outs living in rotting shacks. Once, however, he ran a Pho cafe, a central meeting point for many of the art community who discussed poetry and tried to express opinions against the regime. Needless to say they were all eventually arrested, tortured, murdered. Only Hung remains with his failing memories, trying to scratch a living.Hung's only 'family' are Binh and his son Tu. Hung knew Binh's father, Dao, a prominent figure amongst the artists, the only person who treated Hung as an intelligent person and drew him into the artists' fold. Hung preserves his memory and is, in turn, watched over by Binh and Tu.Into this fascinating mix comes Maggie, a Vietnamese who escaped as a child, with her mother, in the last of the evacuation planes to America. Her artist father never made it and she has returned to Hanoi to try and trace memories of him that might linger amongst artistic circles. As a Vietnamese American she is known as Viet Kieu, a foreigner with Vietnamese features, but still a foreigner.The interactions between these four people and the history wrapped up in their stories is beautifully evoked by Ms Gibb. The feel of modern day Hanoi, with its mix of expensive hotels and tourists, alongside extreme poverty, is tangible.I enjoyed Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb, but this was even better - I didn't want to put this book down. I had other books I should have been reading but this one kept pushing itself forward. One of the best books I've read for a long time.Read it!!

I bought this book after visiting Hanoi. It paints a brilliant picture of the contrast between the world we tourists see and the struggle many people have to survive. Using the staple Hanoi dish of pho as the core it weaves the story of modern characters with the recent history of Vietnam in a deeply personal and emotional journey for young and old protagonists and you find yourself really rooting for them to all find a happy ending.My only criticism, and this is of kindle rather than the book, is that all the Vietnamese words appear in a huge font, which is a bit distracting.Highly recommended whether you've been to Vietnam or not!

I agree with all the reviews recommending this book. The main characters, Hung and Tu are really well portrayed and illuminate different perspectives of Vietnam, contemporary and historical. A real page turner. The cover is deceptive, as both the main characters are male. Highly recommended.

A revealing and authentic portrait of modern Hanoi.

A refreshing perspective on the more commonly told war stories, giving readers and insight into Vietnam today and the modern generation s perspective