Julian Evans (1)

Julian Evans writes in a style reminiscent (to me at least) of Paul Theroux - jogging along merrily, even when little is happening, engaging with people he meets and making his own judgements. Travel among the Pacific islands is still considered exotic by many, but only very occasionally does JE encounter any semblance of an imagined tropical paradise. Too many of the islands and remote atolls are overcrowded, prey to the ills of a modern diet, and, ultimately bereft of traditional culture and social norms. Still, the on the spot reportage, with appropriate historical detail, is engaging, witty and very enjoyable.… (mehr)

"The Pacific is not just a third of our planet...it is the tide-beating heart of Earth, the canary in our coal-mine", 26 September 2015

This review is from: Transit of Venus: Travels in the Pacific (Hardcover)
Travelogue in which the author takes in most of the Pacific nations: sailing out from Sydney, he visits New Caledonia, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands. For me, the disadvantage of covering so many places in a relatively short (270 p) work was that this reader ended up with a somewhat jumbled picture as to exactly what happened where.
If you're expecting a romantic work of palm trees and beauty, this book doesn't contain too much of that: the author explains "the Pacific that most interested me was a post-nuclear ocean of bad politics, bad aid, bad faith: the more dystopian it was, the more I liked it...I consciously avoided most of the reputedly peaceful, friendly, unpolluted, apolitical or beautiful places."
Certainly I feel I've learnt a lot about the Pacific, notably the Marshall islands, home of the Bikini atoll and ongoing US military testing. While the Americans are billeted on the US-only base of Kwajalein (with all mod cons), the native labour force are housed on a cramped and dirty neighbouring islet, malnourished on the refined foods shipped in by America. He describes the people, removed from their natural lives before the white men came: "Among the young men there was the same kind of jiggling of the legs that I had noticed with uraki, a repetitive muscular tic that went on constantly and reminded me of male polar bears in a zoo, pacing up and down...caused by removal from their snow caves and plains of ice."
A vivid picture of the negative side to the islands of Oceania.… (mehr)

This, I found, a most difficult book to get into, struggling through the preface as the author turgidity tried to assuage some guilt he seems to have felt, in undertaking his role as biographer for one of his friends.

Perseverance was rewarding eventually, although it is true to say that the 'best bits' - exciting and enthralling - were the passages from the subject's own pen. Long a fan of the gripping prose of Norman Lewis, I took a measure of satisfaction in rereading some of his (nearly forgotten) vivid descriptions and came to recognise that the biographer also truly respected this great writer.

Why "semi-invisible" ? Because Lewis was the absolute reverse of today's 'celebrities', withholding in a stiff reserve his personal life and details.

A life, if not quite the "living for ever" he claimed to expect, but respectfully lengthy and, until Alzheimer's, productive and fulfilling.

An interesting and respectful biography for this 'man of respect' of English letters, a 'travel writer' that Greene described as "one of our best, not just perhaps of this decade but since Marco Polo". But, in fact, so much more than a travel writer, producing such profound works as "Naples 44" and "Missionaries" that revealed the nefarious, murderous practices of the New Tribes Mission - unfortunately based just a few miles from where this reader lives - if you have never read Lewis, this book is a great introduction to his powerful writing.

And exciting life.… (mehr)

A fascinating collection of extracts from works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry translated into English from many different languages. I've already got some of the books featured in it on order from my local library!

If you're interested and can't find a copy of this at your own local library, an ebook version (pdf) is available to download from the English PEN website at: http://www.englishpen.org/writersintranslation/makingtheworldlegible/… (mehr)