Fiction Addiction: Introducing 'The Beauty of Humanity Movement'

You can win a copy of 'The Beauty of Humanity Movement' by Camilla Gibb. Photo / Supplied

Last month, it took me about five minutes to choose my feature book. Two recommendations from trusted sources, a glance at the international reviews and a quick read of the opening pages. Done.

Fortunately The Tiger's Wife turned out to be a pretty good choice. This month has not been so easy.

I read the first half of two promising books, before tossing them aside. They were decent enough and if I was reading for pleasure alone I would have continued. But over the last month of writing Fiction Addiction, I've come to realise that a good book-club read means more than just a good story.

I'm not expecting a masterpiece every time, but there has to be something challenging about it. Something that engages our emotions, takes us to a new place or encourages us to think about things in a different way. In other words, we need something to discuss.

I'm hoping it's third time lucky with The Beauty of Humanity Movement, by Camilla Gibb. At first I wasn't taken by the title. It seemed to be part of a trend for long titles with meanings that remain obscure until you've read a decent chunk of the book, like A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian or The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

But I was drawn in by the gorgeous sepia-coloured cover image of two hands proffering a ramshackle stack of pretty pastel bowls, wreathed in soft white blossom. By the end of the first seven pages, I was hooked on the interwoven tales of Old Man Hu'ng, Tu a young tour guide and Maggie, who was born in Vietnam but raised in the US and has returned to Hanoi in search of her father, a dissident artist.

For decades Hu'ng has made Hanoi's best pho, the aromatic noodle broth that is a breakfast staple in Vietnam. Through times of deprivation and near-starvation, he has found ways to feed the hungry from almost nothing at all. He used to have a café, but now he has only a makeshift kitchen, setting up each morning on a street corner or construction site until he is inevitably moved on by police.

Hu'ng's culinary career spans decades of turbulence, from the 1930s through French colonialism, Japanese occupation, communism, the American War (as it is known in Vietnam), and Doi Moi or economic liberalisation. In the 1950s his regular customers included a group of artists and intellectuals whose work was considered critical of the government.

Hu'ng delves deep into his memories to help Maggie, taking the reader on a tour of Vietnam's recent history. The Beauty of Humanity Movement traverses themes of identity, belonging, the ongoing impact of conflict and the power of art, contrasting the "real Vietnam" of Hu'ng and Tu with the stereotypes seen by many tourists.

Canadian Gibb is a social anthropologist and reviewers have praised her thorough research. The artists' movement is based on a real life group led by revolutionary poet Phan Khoi. The character of Hu'ng was inspired by a pho seller in Hanoi, spoken of by a young tour guide Gibb befriended when she visited Vietnam in 2007.

In the UK, the Independent newspaper called the book "A fascinating portrait of modern Vietnam," while the Toronto Globe and Mail wrote "Gibb ties the strands of narrative together in the same way that Hung makes his pho - with care, with gentleness and with reality. She employs all the senses to create a vivid aesthetic tapestry of the concrete."

I'm feeling hungry already.