Beneath Buddha's Eyes

Rating:
Summary: Romance and scandal in wartime
Review: A love story set in the Vietnam War? Indeed. This novel has that, plus an insider's view of a scandal that traded innocent lives for personal profit.

This book grabs you and holds you on by switching back and forth from present to flashback and between the love story and the accounts of the horror of war. Another interesting element is that the central character's attitudes about the war change from support of the cause (having enlisted rather and not drafted) to disillusionment. For all that's been written and screened about Vietnam, this story is fresh and holds it's own.

Rating:
Summary: POETIC VIETNAM NOVEL
Review: Even though this book is not perfect, I rate it five stars for several reasons. The first is that I could not put it down once I started it--few books grab me that way.

The second is that the story's main characters, Peter and Kate, caught me in a way that made me care what happened next and, even more telling, makes me want to know more about what happened to them, especially after the Vietnam War ended, and what will happen to them. Peter and Kate seem like real people rather than vehicles for moving the plot along.

The third reason is that it's a good book. When Peter was on an insane mission to the Ho Chi Minh Trail, for example, I saw what he saw, sensed the strangeness of the landscape, the wrongness of the mission itself. He uses words to paint an Hieronymous Bosch vista of Vietnam during the war. Although I will never truly understand what it was like there during the war since I was not there, the author is able to describe his experiences well enough for me to identify with him, to feel the outrage that he felt and the greed and corruption and insanity, to feel his sense of helplessness and hallucination at times, to feel the relief that he felt when he escaped from it for a while, and to understand the love he felt for Kate.

I also like the way the story is told, in impressions, memories juxtaposed with today, limning the truth of how people really do try to work through traumatic events and try to make sense of what happened. There are many truths in this book, for Vietnam Vets especially I suspect, but also for anyone in recovery. I'm impressed with the way Tony Anthony did not preach or proclaim but said, in essence, "This is my story and these are my truths. Nothing more, nothing less."

There are some scenes in the book, such as a session Peter has with his therapist near the end which, when I read them, seemed jarring and out of place. But the reasons they were included fell into place for me without my really thinking about it much--they do fit and they do say something and part of what makes this a good novel is that it's left for the reader to discover more than is apparent on first read.

The book would benefit from the touch of a good editor to smooth out some of the scenes that did not work as well as they could have, and would benefit from some plain old copy editing to catch continuity and punctuation errors. But once into the book, the flaws are unimportant. It's a novel that will linger in your thoughts.

Rating:
Summary: Beneath buddha's eyes
Review: I really enjoyed this book. It gave a personal insight into a very dark time in the US. It shows how we survive and how we are scarred, and the lingering questions that attach themselves to ourselves, no matter our circumstances.
Keep writing Tony!

Rating:
Summary: Where is hollywood when we need it?
Review: I was fortunate enough to hear Tony speak at this book signing about the book and how his experiences in the Vietnam War as a miliitary photographer, his subsequent return home, living the Vietnam Vet life and his subsequent involvment with Transcendental Meditation and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. SO with a great sense of place he was able to creat a novel about war, love, spirituality,the 60's and the lessons of Vietnam that is just dying to be made into a great movie to help understand the present-day quandaries. He is a marvelous writer and continues his wonderful sense of introspection, following a quadruple by-pass contemperanous with the book being published that can be found in his 'blogging' at the beneathbuddhaseyes.com website.

Rating:
Summary: An irresistable combination
Review: Love, war, sex, intrigue, betrayal, all in a scary foreign setting make Tony Anthony's book one I could not put down. The war scenes were particularly gripping and the tension at times was almost unbearable. i would recommend this book to anyone who likes a well-paced, well-written tale.

Rating:
Summary: An irresistable combination
Review: Love, war, sex, intrigue, betrayal, all in a scary foreign setting make Tony Anthony's book one I could not put down. The war scenes were particularly gripping and the tension at times was almost unbearable. i would recommend this book to anyone who likes a well-paced, well-written tale.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Read On Many Levels!
Review: Using words as his palette, Tony Anthony paints scenes of Vietnam so breathtakingly beautiful that the brutality and ugliness of the Vietnam War are a sacrilege by contrast -- a flagrant violation of the divine order of things. The story is filled with adventure, intrigue, corruption, greed, life and death. But most of all it is the story of a passionate love affair of the sort that can only be born of living in the midst of chaos and cataclysmic events. We are swept up in this affair. We feel its passion. We want these lovers to win their war, even though they take on formidable foes. That love can conquer under these conditions is a testament to its power. It is the one true thing in a surreal world of lies and deception.

There is no doubt that the author has lived what he writes about, and one wonders what is fact and what is fiction. It is this grounding in reality that makes this story ring true. Those of us old enough to remember the Vietnam War and lucky enough to escape it, get a taste of its ugly reality. And for those under-appreciated Veterans of the war, it offers comfort and a compassionate understanding of the war's lasting impact on their lives. Beneath Buddha's Eyes is a great read on many levels!