[.ca] Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific (ISBN 0449908585)

one man's reality:
I've enjoyed reading these reviews almost as much as i've enjoyed the three times i've read the book. It's the very personal travel journal of a cranky guy in a kayak and it's hugely entertaining BECAUSE it is so personal. All these comments about how 'it doesn't match reality,' or how it's racist, or how he's never happy just crack me up! It's not an travel guide or an encyclopedia entry or even National Geographic, it's a personal story... it doesn't need to be unbiased. Besides, If he was happy all the time it would be boring...

The happy wanderer:
This is one of the books I have taken, along with Lonely Planet's guide to Fiji, on a voyage, which may be one-way, from Chicago to Suva (Fiji's capital) and Fiji. I recommend this book, wholeheartedly. Paul Theroux is clearly on the right side of that well-worn distinction in travel writing, between the tourist and the traveler. Although many excellent guides (notably those from Lonely Planet) try to cater to both sides, in general, travel books are either written by tourists who've been hornswoggled by the locals, or by real travelers. One genre of tourist book is the right-wing tirade against the society visited by the writer. It is an offensive American habit to announce one's bien-pensance by traveling the world and finding fault with the sanitation and architecture of other countries. P. J. O'Rourke is an amusing fellow but ultimately rather dreary in that he blames the victim in his book Holidays in Hell. As it happens, writers on the right, who blame Third World capitals for crumbling architecture, or nonworking toilets, would do well to reflect on the simple physical properties of materials in heat and humidity, or the exorbitant trade school fees that parents in underdeveloped lands must pay, for their children to be educated in plumbing trades. Which isn't to say that Theroux fails to identify negative features of the Pacific islands, which, for him, include its anti-intellectualism and the colonialist dependence most apparent in American Samoa, where a government, in order to secure the territory, does indeed kill traditional custom and future initiative (as a conservative would predict) by a system of thoughtless handouts...made after all in self-interest. People in developed countries first romanticise the indigneous and are apt, when encountering its anti-intellectualism and suspicion of the outsider, to switch, like Mistah Kurtz in The Heart of Darkness, and Brando in Apocalypse Now, to the horrorshow view. Theroux is far more nuanced and this allowed him to deal with the sort of frightening scene he encountered both in the wilds and in American Samoa, of bullying of an adult loner by a group of local kids. Being torn apart by children is a nameless fear of intellectual loners; Robert Crumb has a panel in which a kid announces to his father, "hey, Pop, we burnt a bum at recess." Theroux is exceptional, in facing this fear as did brother Adorno, in Adorno's essay "Fascism is the nightmare of childhood". However, Theroux does not regard indigneous people as Fascists and instead accounts for their dislike of the outsider as a rational need for family and clan cohesion, the most important fact of their lives. To maintain a generally positive outlook on people with a healthy critical spirit is a rare accomplishment. It is easier to adopt the pose of Shakespeare's Jaques and to conclude the worst from one's travels. Americans, at least before Sep 11, were friendly travelers who liked everybody. Far rarer is the traveler who judges but based on observation. One type of South Pacific denizen Theroux does not like was manufactured by the triumphalism of Reagan and the elder Bush, and Bob Hawke of Australia, he of the cockatoo's pompadour. This is the Aussie, Kiwi, Brit or American prone to make generalizations about other groups and nature itself, the bore of the saloon bar. The most attractive features of the matey Australasian personality of the 1960s, who voted instinictively for liberals as long as they promised swagmen a fair shake was erased by CIA disruption in the 1970s (this is fact, not paranoia) and replaced by a property-owning swagman democracy. Property-owning swagmen democracies are better than most political arrangements. We Yanks invented the idea of expropriating the toffee-noses and becoming utter swine in our turn: but expropriation results in insecurity which often emerges in boozy conversations in countless pubs and distraction from distraction by distraction, as the antics of powerless Royals, and Governor-Generals in pantaloons, conceals the sort of raw work one has seen in the US CIA's Australian monkeyshines, the silencing of British Labor on the war, the French nuclear nonsense, and the elimination of New Zealand's David Lange, who Theroux met in the Marquesas. Of course, the above paragraph might be read as complementary to and effectively the same as the worst kind of saloon bar rhodomontade and ordinary people may well ask, where does Theroux get off, or a fortiori, where do I (the answer at this writing is Suva Bay.) People who don't as a rule read books, including many sun gods and goddesses of the South Pacific, are apt to call such writing "generalization" and to remark, with passion, that it might hurt someone's feelings, one of the writer's occupational hazards, along with late checks and the bottle, being the bearer of bad news that hurts strangers and their Mum. But if the charge sticks, then any kind of writing outside of sailing manuals would have to disappear. There are curious parallels between Theroux's situation, and my current situation. He wrote at the time of the first Gulf War, I write this review after the end of the second. He was recently divorced (a strike against him in the traditional cultures of the South Pacific, where I've already been asked my marital status) and I started reading Theroux at the time of my own divorce. Today, far more so than in 1981, the culture makes no provision for the divorced man who is expected to do Protestant penance, or else wander the isles gibbering and capering in the tropic moonlight. No provision, today, is made for the partially shriven, and partially lost, soul. Instead, the Americans would convert him to Yankee salvation and go-ahead schemes. The sturdy sons of England, Canada, and Australia would buy the old lad of the castle strong drink. Distant drummers are after all unheard by one's mates, who can't figure out what makes yer go. In consequence, your old lad of the castle becomes set apart in thought.

Mouldy & Insightful:
I lived in Suva (the capital city of...) Fiji for a year during and just after that island nation's first 'bloodless coup d'etat" in 1987 (good ol' Sitivini "Steve", to his closest pals, Rabuka, and his racist henchmen- the leader of that response to a native India-Indian/Fijian man having won the last democratic election held in that archepelago) and on up into a remote village in Ra for the next year as a health education Peace Corps Volunteer. It took me all those 2 years living fully immersed within Fijian culture and among an interesting( and it must be said oddly racist, even amongst themselves) bunch of humans as one is ever likely to meet - to start to make sense out of their very complicated ways and mores. Paulie T. got to the crux pretty much immediately. Personally, I got to hate running into locals who had recently encountered tourists - as it always made interactions more complicated for me. Thus American, Aussie and Japanese toursists were a big headache for me. They would over pay for everything and scamper about scantily clad - tweaking at the Fijian moral compass, developed, ironically, directly from the teachings of those good ol' late 1800's Christian missionaries - who, at least had a hand ;-) in helping Fijians stop eating each other. He nailed the Fijian culture - and I am assuming he does the same to the others described. Who said traveling was pretty? Sure, it can be if one takes great care to insulate oneself from the local actualities - but where's the fun in that?! I travel to see how the rest of the world lives. Although, one time I went to the b.v.i. to lay about on the beach completely cut off from reality - and you know what? THAT ain't half bad either!

Interesting but Superficial and Inaccurate...:
Theroux's work is persistent in generalizations and superficial observations, based on fleeting encounters with the many peoples of the South Pacific. He has a habit of labeling a number of the ethnic groups that he encounters, as ignorant of other cultures, which really is descriptive of his own ignorance! Unfortunately such fleeting encounters as Theroux describes, are no substitute for being a part of the region from birth. Had Theroux taken time to study the South Pacific in a space-time field that has its origins in the region, he would get to a better understanding of the local peoples, and would have done justice to the local people and provided a better return on the reader's investment. The book reads like fiction due its abundance of inaccuracies: "...Indians who never drank kava... Fijian men did little else but squat around a bowl and guzzle it". These statements are blatantly wrong! Also, "\oFijians\c ... tended to prefer porky Chinese food over Indian curries."- Ch. 12. I would ask Theroux how many Fijian homes he had visited and dined within? Unfortunately, Theroux misses a fundamental truism of the South Pacific peoples - be they indigenous or a descendent of colonial implants - they are extremely reserved people. Their friendliness and amiability may be apparent at the first encounter, but to really get know their thoughts, one needs to spend extended periods of time within relatively small communities. There's almost a hint of jealousy that folks in the South Pacific can prosper and are socially, technically and academically progressive, despite the 'seemingly carefree' attitude that they exhibit. This results in expositions that are frequently punctuated by arrogance and racism on the part of the author. It does make for entertaining reading, hence the two stars. However, it is not objective, as travel journals need to be, and is far from the truth that one would encounter. Visit the South Pacific and find out for yourself !

Dyspeptic travelogue:
Theroux's bittersweet and even dyspeptic travelogue about the faded glories of Oceania and it's current sad state (if one credits everything he says) isn't going to entertain so much as depress you, but I found it fascinating nevertheless. His description of the formerly proud and warlike Marquesas Islanders, for example, who were never conquered, was especially poignant, describing them as getting fat from sitting around watching TV all day while eating bags of imported French cheese puffs. From what Theroux says, one gets the impression that much of French Polynesia subsists on care packages of junk food sent from France, since there's not a whole lot of work sailing outrigger canoes or conquering neighboring islands to be done anymore. Well, I would like to get another perspective on this but despite its overall downer theme I still found Theroux's comments interesting, and hopefully, things aren't as bad as he described.