The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific

click here for more details, find new or used items	Paul Theroux Our price £7.69 (£10.99) New from £5.25 Used from £0.01 Pages: 752 (Paperback) ISBN: 0140159762 Pub: Penguin Books Ltd Pub date: 1993-06-03 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 92969

Reader Reviews:

A dismal whinge (4/8 people found this helpful)

This book is a prolonged snivel about the pain of voluntarily going to places the author then found tacky, hostile or boring. By his own account he had not a moment's pleasure from his travels until he reached Hawaii, where it was all American and OK and Not Foreign. The only puzzle is why he did not at a much earlier stage of the trip get on a plane and go there direct; presumably he'd taken an advance from his publisher and had to deliver a book of some sort. The whole thing carries a moral for modern travellers: if you can't engage constructively with the places you go to, then please, please, stay at home - that way you'll be happier, the foreign people will be happier, and you won't needlessley contribute to airline CO2 emissions.

Wonderful Corrective to Lonely Planet Overkill (15/19 people found this helpful)

I found this a well-written, very funny antidote to the endlessly sunny, ultimately irritating "travel copy" contained in my Lonely Planet guidebook. Theroux is the best antidote to being stuck on some never-ending bus-ferry-train journey in the depths of the Third World where there are no Pyramids, Taj Mahals or Great Walls, within a thousand miles, the people are not warm and gracious but poor and grasping and the governments in charge are not victims of the West but inept imbezzelers and tin pot tyrants.

Theroux rejuvenates the weary long distance traveller with his unfailing wit, good sense and stubborn determination to be beholden to no one.

I particulary liked in this book his account of Australia and New Zealand struggling with their identities in a post 1973 (Britain joining the EU) world. Good writing, and it corresponded with what I was seeing in these countries at the times. His account of the NZ Prime Minister making a pig of herself with her food after running down John F. Kennedy for his personal habits is a bit of satirical writing worthy of Gore Vidal.

His depiction of the the modern squalor and boredom of much of Pacific island life matched my experiences in places as diverse as Kuwait, Hong Kong and Singapore (of which Theroux writes about with such accuracy and wit - be sure to try his Kowloon Tong and Saint Jack if you like this one).

And despite the sad realities, Theroux almost always likes the places he visits!

Theroux spins out (7/10 people found this helpful)

This is Theroux at his best. Obviously bitter from his failed marriage, he sets out to paddle around the Pacific Islands. Altough at 750 pages this looks a long book, it is in fact a gripping and enlightining look at a region which receives little coverage in many parts of the globe.

Theroux is even more cynical than usual which actually raises the laugh quota. Although sometimes the views seem a little harsh,he is always perceptive and entertaining.

As enjoyable as his others (2/4 people found this helpful)

The happy isles of of Oceania is, like all of Mr Theroux other travel writings an honest account of a lone mans travels. A most enjoyable read!

Paradise lost? (3/5 people found this helpful)

An honest depiction of a Paradise that has been desecrated by western "civilisation". The people and their surroundings are often harshly portrayed, yet the over-riding feeling is of beauty and mystery that Thereoux has skillfully woven between the lines.

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