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The Happy Isles of Oceania - Paul Theroux

Description: ISBN 0140159762 / Author: Paul Theroux / Genre: Travel / An amazing look into the sometimes indifferent, sometimes hostile, and sometimes ... more

The Happy Isles of Oceania - Paul Theroux ... welcoming people and places in this beautiful part of the world.

Newest Review: ... and Easter Island, before heading north to end up in Hawaii. Right from his first foray into the New Zealand interior, we ... more

... get the book's main uniting theme: the ugly, corrupting nature of civilisation and redeeming power of wilderness. It might seem a bit rich for an American (Theroux was born in Medford, Massachusetts in 1941) to rant on about crummy suburbs and the colonial cr imes of the French and Japanese. But whereas most Americans never set foot outside the US, you sense that Theroux is simply telling the truth, based on his vast experience of...more

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The Happy Isles of Oceania - Paul Theroux: Grumpy traveller's Pacific paddlings (1080 words)
by - written on 24/10/02 (Very useful, 261 readings)
Rating:

If reading Bill Bryson is like taking a long, warm bath, Paul Theroux is a cold shower. Until Bryson came along, Theroux was probably the best known contemporary travel writer. He's a prolific author, mainly of novels and short stories, but he's been writing travel books like this one since the early 1970s. In contrast to Bryson's amiable bumbling and his sometimes whimsical approach, Paul Theroux is an opinionated, even spiky character. Compared to Bryson's flowing, seamless prose, Theroux's writing can seem episodic and disjointed, making this book a bracing read. His prose might jump from place to place but it's only mirroring ... Read the complete review