The Beauty of Humanity Movement (2010)

"Old Man Hung makes the best pho in the city and has done so for decades. Where he once had a shop, though, he no longer does, because the rents are exorbitant, both the hard rents and the soft - the bribes a proprietor must pay to the police in this new era of freedom."

Camilla Gibb's latest novel, The Beauty of Humanity Movement, explores the classic trope of Old World vs. New. In it, American raised Maggie Ly returns to Vietnam in search of information about her father, an artist who disappeared into Communist re-education camps after the fall of Saigon. Her search leads her to Old Man Hung, an itinerant pho seller who once owned a shop frequented by artists, but whose memory of Maggie's father and his fate is, at best, spotty. Maggie is brought into Hung's circle, which includes Tu, a young Vietnamese tour guide who is caught in the clash between the conservative values of his community and the ever growing American cultural influences, and who joins in Maggie's search for answers.

Stories such as this can sometimes be problematic, in that they leave themselves open to accusations of cultural appropriation, but Gibb tells the story with a great deal of sensitivity and respect and the complete absence of exoticization is one of the novel's many strengths. Gibb crafts a story and characters that compliment Vietnam's complex history, showing a nation that has been the victim of forces both outside and within, but also a nation with enough strength at its core to endure. The nation portrayed in the story is one in transition, the features of hardline Communism still apparent in some aspects, but one that is also begining to embrace Capitalism. It is also a nation struggling against popular perception of itself as provincial and unsophisticated, an image which artists such as Maggie's father and the others who frequented Hung's shop challenged with their work, but which was buried during the course of cultural cleansing re-education.

Gibb's prose is engaging and the story often powerful. The characters and the community in the novel are crafted with care, with Gibb slowly revealing the depths of both as the story progresses. Though The Beauty of Humanity Movement never quite attains the weight of her previous work, 2005's Sweetness In The Belly, it's still an excellent read and certainly one of the best books of 2010.

Three Day Road (2005)

"They gave me medicine for the pain, and I learned how to fly in a new way. The cost this time is that I can no longer live without the medicine, and in a few days there will be none left. Their morphine eats men."

Set during World War I, Joseph Boyden's Three Day Road centers on two friends: Xavier and Eli. They meet as children in residential school, later escaping to live with Xavier's aunt, Niska, in the bush. Though Xavier would be happy to remain in the bush, continuing to learn from Niska, the lure of the war in Europe is too great for Eli and he talks Xavier into joining him. They go overseas where their skill as marksmen allows them to become snipers, but they quickly start to split, heading in two different directions. Eli is admired for his skill and his bravery, but eventually goes mad with bloodlust and drug addiction; Xavier is overshadowed by his friend, growing resentful of living in Eli's shadow and also become scared of him, of what he has shown himself to be capable of.

The novel is split into two narratives. One takes place in the past, charting Xavier and Eli's experiences in the war. The other takes place in the novel's present, following Niska and Xavier as they journey back into the bush, Xavier suffering greatly from the physical injuries he's returned with and the psychological injuries of his memories and his impending withdrawal from morphine. The two narratives function not only to tell two different, but intimately connected, stories, but also as a contrast between the traditional way of life embraced by Niska and the "modern" way of life dictated by the white governing culture.

Boydon's prose is crisp and vivid, with the passages detailing battle scenes that paint an intense picture. The action sequences are excellently rendered, but Boyden is equally adept at the story's many quieter moments, moments that dig deep into the psyches of the characters, giving nuance and shading to their personalities and their relationships. Three Day Road is an incredibly engaging and moving novel and the writing is so assured and skilled that it's hard to believe this is a first novel. For this effort he won the Rogers' Writers Trust Fiction Prize, and his second novel, Through Black Spruce picked up the Giller Prize in 2008. After reading and thoroughly enjoying Three Day Road, Through Black Spruce is now at the top of my "must read" list.