The Lotus Eaters

"The cool thing [about war] is,when this one's done, there's always another one."

I'm almost done with a book that is quickly becoming one of the best reads yet! The Lotus Eaters follows a female photographer to Saigon and through the Vietnam war in the 60's and 70's. the author, Tatjana Soli, does a beautiful job describing the horrors of the war, contrasted against the breathtaking backdrop of the lush nation of Vietnam. In one passage she says that "the beauty of the country made the violence especially awful. like slashing a pretty woman's face." - I couldn't help but think to the wars we're currently fighting. Is it easier to take, an easier pill to swallow, because we think of the middle east as an ugly, dried up piece of desert? it is easier because our men aren't bringing home "exotic" wives from the country we're at war with?

Is there anything that makes war easier to understand?

I guess having an attack on US soil makes war easier. Having the media whirlwind that followed made it harder. The main characters in this book are photographers. "Pictures could not be accessories to the story- evidence - they had to contain the story within the frame; the best picture contained a whole war within one frame." They told the story from the unbiased perspective of a camera lens. And when she returns home, she finds that the people in the US, the people whose sons are being drafted, don't want to see the pictures. They would rather pretend it wasn't happening.

How long has it been since you've seen pictures or video from the wars in the middle east? Pictures of our men out in Afghanistan? Until we caught Osama, it had been too long since I'd seen a news reel from the war. Is it better not to see the pictures, the video, of the war efforts? Or should we immerse ourselves with the knowledge? I don't know the answer. I know that it is easier not to know. Not to see the truth. But when does shelter lead to ignorance?

Everyone has been through something that they've deemed to be tragic. Had a loved-one or a family pet die. At one point in the book the soldiers are discussing what they're going to do when they get out of the Army; take their first breath of free air. Helen, the main character, sat around and listened. "Helen didn't yet understand that conjuring up the future was the duty of the living, what they owed to the dead." - I thought this passage was so beautiful and eerily poetic. We owe the future to the dead.

I recently lost a friend to...well no one is really sure what we lost him to. himself I guess. We lost him to drugs, alcohol, addiction, mental anguish; a demon inside him. We lost him the day before my birthday. My good friend Rachel came over to take me out (among other friends) and told me, this is not a time to be sad. We're partying for Will because that is what he would want us to do (he was a big partier). So I took tequila shots and danced until the wee hours of the morning. I lived, for the dead. Maybe that is our duty; to turn the next page and enjoy the sunshine that is our lives.

The book is not the feel-good beach read of the summer. But it is also not depressing. Ms. Soli does a great job of making war like a drug: you just need one more hit. Helen and her fellow characters are addicted to war. And I'm addicted to this book.