The Lotus Eaters

By: Tatjana Soli

Narrated by: Kirsten Potter

Length: 14 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

It's 1975 and the North Vietnamese army is poised to roll into Saigon. As the city falls into chaos, two lovers make their way across the city to escape to a new life. Helen Adams, an American photojournalist, must take leave of a devastated country she has come to love. Nguyen Pran Linh, the man who loves her, must deal with his own conflicted loyalties. As they race through the streets, they play out a drama of love and betrayal that began 12 years before. Their mentor, the larger-than-life war correspondent Sam Darrow, was once Helen’s infuriating lover and fiercest competitor, as well as Linh’s secret keeper, protector, and truest friend. As the sun sets on their life in Saigon, Helen and Linh struggle against both their inner demons and the ghosts of the past, illuminating the horrors of war, the dangers of obsession, and the redemptive power of love.

©2010 Tatjana Soli (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"The novel is steeped in history, yet gorgeous sensory details enliven the prose….35 years after the fall of Saigon, Soli’s entrancing debut brings you close enough to feel a part of it." ( People magazine)

Travels in the Vietnam war, by a photographer.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would recommend this book to anyone, it is read, not given characterization, but the readers voice is quite calm and soothing. Voices would have been way too hard, due to the ethnicity of many participants.i

Who was your favorite character and why?

I would have to say Helen, although the story tends to focus on her in the book. In actually, there were a few people with whom were standouts.

Did Kirsten Potter do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

I don't feel she did any characterization, just read, not giving emotion to anyone, but in your minds eye, you could see and feel the differences.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I wasn't pleased with the way the book ended. When the prisoners are being released, you had hope that the Vietnamese man, whom was already in the states, safe, he chose to go to Cambodia to get Helen out safely, if possible. I guess I wanted a good ending, not just ended.

Any additional comments?

I will re-use to this more than once. The title was a tad misleading, but the book was meaty and gave a full measure.

Lost Generation

This is a good book but the narrators voice was so soothing it allowed me to day dream too much about other things. I think it would have been a much better book with a better narrator.

A female journalists' view of the Vietnam War

Soli writes with passion, not merely of what we expect--red dirt and thick canopied jungle and the Casablanca-seediness of a French province in decay--but of the quiet moments that bonded a love triangle.

The war weary photographer, running his foot along the edge of the precipice is a familiar one, but he is joined by a colleague and lover. There is a third member of the triangle. It is not the estranged wife bottled up in a ranch-style house in the US--although she does appear--but the Vietnamese 'native guide' who respects him, loves her, and is torn by the Vietnamese civil war.

Soli, like her characters, is best when away from the war, protecting what is left. There is a scene in Cambodia's Angor Wat where the great trees are breaking the stone temples apart as if they were fresh bread, and again in the spidery capillaries of the Mekong, on a small sacred island, where the Buddhist dead replenish the soil and nurture orchids.

The performance is good, with a touch of Kathleen Turner's weary sultry voice, which, unfortunately, reflects the prose as both the writing and voice crackle with static in the more passionate moments.

disappointing

Some books are great IRL but don't transfer to audio very well; this is one of them. Something about the structure of the paragraphs makes it difficult to follow in this format. To make matters worse, the narrator is unnecessarily breathy and straining. I wish I could return it.

Well written and well performed.

There is an irony in the war photographers' quest for personal achievement and acclaim being so petty in comparison to the scope of combat atrocities photographed and personal risk endured to get the pictures.

Great listen

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was interesting. You came to know the characters and wanted to see how it ended.

A different perspective of Viet Nam

What did you love best about The Lotus Eaters?

The fact that the characters were real, knew their foibles and loved the country for all it offered and understood that there were changes that could not be understood. I think the 3 main characters learned from each other-not just photography, but what drew 2 of them to the country and war and how the "new country" felt more home with experience, for a while. The third person learned more about love, his inner self and his true strengths that seemed to save not only himself, but the 2 Americans he loved.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Lotus Eaters?

How typically brash and thoughtless the non natives were and once again with the superior attitude of know-it-all invaders.

On the flip side, I very much enjoyed listening to the descriptions of the beauty of the country and how people can/must carry on with their lives despite what has happened/is happening around them. Much sadness, but faith.

Any additional comments?

It was great to hear the non-soldier side of the war, the photojournalists work is as important. Well, reporting the truth in photos brings a lot of it all back and puts it in front and is difficult to disregard.

Slow start - beautiful book

Took me a little while to get into it, but glad I stayed with it. Excellent narration - doesn't overwhelmed the story and was exactly right.

Most authentic

She captured the experience as if she had actually lived it herself!
As a former Vietnam combat medic myself, I would say that for a non
VN combat person who read this book, I would be able to have a conversation
with that person about my own "in country" experiences, equal to that of my fellow VN combat Vets.

Best book I've read yet this year

I love novels about Asia, especially about the fall-out from European colonialism -- novels set in Asia or written by Asians. I was very disappointed by Chang-Rae Lee's "The Surrendered" but Soli's book just leaves me wanting more. I want to enter into the world of her characters, as enthralled with them and their Viet Nam as they are with the war that surrounds them. I listened to this book as an audio recording and left many things undone in the days that it took me to listen to all of it.

"The Lotus Eaters" is extraordinarily well-written, from the lyricism of the individual sentences to the taught construction of the story, beginning near the end, then going back ten years to tell the middle of the story, and finishing when Saigon falls in 1975. I knew, from the first chapters, that Helen would fall in love with Linh, that they would be wretched apart at the end of the war, that she would stay behind in Saigon without him. But the middle of the story was compelling nonetheless, to learn how Helen grew into her own as a war reporter and how she fell in love with two men, who both represented some aspect of the Viet Nam war. We have Sam Darrow, the American photojournalist who has become addicted to the thrill of the battle and is oblivious to almost everything outside his viewfinder; and then there's Linh -- for me, the more mysterious and compelling figure -- a Vietnamese poet and spy who loves Helen for long years before his love is returned. Love between a White woman and an Asian man is not frequently explored in literature or art, making this book unusual in that the love affair between the Americans Helen and Darrow is a precursor to the central romance of the book, that of Helen and Linh. The improbability of their love -- as improbable as anything good coming out of war -- makes for one of the most compelling romance stories I have ever read.