Travel to Australia And South Pacific

Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific

Format: Paperback
Author: Paul Theroux
ReleaseDate: 19 October, 1993
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Rating:

I feel so lucky to have found Paul Theroux
Then I read Dark Star Safari and now I want to read all of PT's books. Before starting to read PT's travel books, I had to search for a book to read and I started many which I ended up throwing away after reading a hundred or so pages and I decided to give up on writing negative reviews as a result.

Theroux mentions so many different things during his travels that it is difficult to tell you just what the books are like, except to say that while reading, it feels like you are there witnessing these people and places with him. I will give just one example from Oceania which I found great fun to read, namely his description of Dame Cath Tizard's way of eating. He wrote, "She scraped food onto her fork, but before she heaved it she nudged more onto the fork with her thumb. And after she ate the forkful she licked her thumb. Once I caught her grinning at me, but she was not grinning. She was trying to dislodge a bit of food that had found its way between her teeth, and still talking and grinning, she began picking her teeth. Having freed the food from her teeth, she glanced at it and pushed it into her mouth. (while talking of her being chosen governor-general). . . Her finger was in her mouth, fishing for bits of trapped lamb sinews. . . And she slurped the food off her finger, and then began scraping the plate. . . . " I'm not saying I have the greatest table manners myself, but I simply revelled in reading this description.

I can understand that there are many people who wouldn't like reading him and who would disagree with Paul Theroux's views. I am saying I find his writing thoroughly entertaining and relaxing because I like to see the world the way it really is, the beautiful as well as the ugly, and this book satisfies my curiosity about much of the South Pacific.

Terrific reading
Reeling from a split with his wife, PT begins his journey on a book tour in NZ and Australia, and then travels around much of Oceania. I find Paul Theroux's travel books to be a delight to read, and Happy Isles of Oceania is one of my favorites. He kayaks and camps on most of the islands, and makes many discoveries about the various people and cultures. Most notable is the natives' consistent use of the ocean as a toilet and a garbage dump. He hikes in NZ's southern alps; explores the Aussie bush; attends the unusual Yam-festival in the Trobriands; meets the King of Tonga; insults a politician from NZ; plays Robinson Crusoe for a week; contracts a disease; gets stung by jellyfish; makes friends; drinks kava; wonders what drew Robert Louis Stevenson to Samoa and Paul Gaugain to Tahiti; and visits a Hawaiian island that few are allowed on. If you like PT's other travel books, you'll love this one. If you haven't read any, this is a great one to start with.

A 20/20 view of Oceana
Theroux gives it to us straight. This is a good read. I found it refreshing to read the good and the bad of all the islands and I strongly disagree with two of the previous reviews. This is not about Theroux's children and wife and if he does whine his melancholy only enriches his experience.

I did not have high expectations for this book as I picked it up at a library sale for a quarter and a friend of mine that had lived in Tonga said he disagreed with Theroux's perception of that Island. After reading the section on Tonga I felt it interesting, humorous and I felt as if I had been there myself and would have experienced it as Theroux did, the outsider "Palangi", not as my friend did with a two year Peace Corps stint.

Theroux likes some places he visits and dislikes others. I would not have believed anything else and would not have wanted to read a superficial treatment of the area. Not every island is a paradise, certainly not American Somoa but he does reveal the paradise of the Cook Islands, The Marquesas, and the fascination of Easter Island.

Theroux may not be the perfect person but he is very nearly the perfect travel writer and I very much enjoyed seeing Oceana through his eyes.

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