Paradise

Amazon.com

The bard of the Texas plains ventures into unfamiliar territory in this slender, entertaining travelogue of the tropical islands of the South Pacific.

McMurtry, a veteran of long car trips along the back roads of the American desert, boards a cruise ship this time around, and not without some foreboding; wandering among the Marquesas with a motley complement of international "island junkies" with whom he finds little in common, this most bookish of writers finds himself running short of reading matter, forced to slow down to the tedious pace of long-distance sea travel, and not entirely content at the turn of events. McMurtry doesn't complain: instead, he passes the time remarking on the national and personal idiosyncrasies of his fellow passengers, mostly in good humor, and reflecting on closeted family skeletons, feelings of marginality and loneliness, mortality, and other matters while observing the passing scene.

A departure in many ways, Paradise finds McMurtry in a contemplative mood. "Nowhere else," he writes, "have I felt so far," and not only geographically. There's enough local color, enough dank glens, misty mountains, and sun-dazzled beaches to satisfy armchair travel buffs, but this is a quiet, thoughtful voyage that reveals that true paradise lies close to the heart. --Gregory McNamee

Book Description

At once an inviting travel book and an insightful reflection on his parents' marriage, Paradise is Larry McMurtry's most original and personal work to date.

In 1999, Larry McMurtry, whose wanderlust had been previously restricted to the roads of America, set off for a trip to the paradise of Tahiti and the South Sea Islands in an old-fashioned tub of a cruise boat, at a time when his mother was slipping toward a paradise of her own. Opening up to her son in her final days, his mother makes a stunning revelation of a previous marriage and sends McMurtry on a journey of an entirely different kind.

Vividly, movingly, and with infinite care, McMurtry paints a portrait of his parents' marriage against the harsh, violent landscape of west Texas. It is their roots -- laced with overtones of hard work, bitter disappointment, and the Puritan ethic -- that McMurtry challenges by traveling to Tahiti, a land of lush sensuality and easy living. With fascinating detail, shrewd observations, humorous pathos, and unforgettable characters, he begins to answer some of the questions of what paradise is, whether it exists, and how different it is from life in his hometown of Archer City, Texas.

Filled with moments as strong and moving as any found in his novels, Paradise is a penetrating look at life and love from one of America's most beloved writers.

Customer Reviews:

Not for the hard-core McMurtry fan.......2005-09-26

I confess: I have tried to read "Lonesome Dove" and have failed. My old school chums (McMurty was at Rice, years ago) stay loyal to their freshman English prof, and urge me to try again. Nope. But I like "Paradise." McMurtry claims at first to be getting away so he can write about his parents. But he as much as says that he's got to churn out prose to meet a deadline, and some of the book feels like words for hire. Well, that's a well-worn path for many authors: Think of Dickens. The product here is a low-key travelogue. The voice is that of the a sympathetic observer, well-read and well-spoken. (The tone reminds me of M.F.K. Fisher, who also wrote about the crew and fellow travelers on a cargo ship. ) I found it a delightful respite from plot-driven fiction.

For the Hardcore McMurtry fan.......2003-12-13

For those of you who enjoyed "Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen" and "Roads", this is a briefer introspective work by the same author. This time he's vacationing in the South Seas while taking a break from the mental anguish of watching his mother slowly pass on. We start with a lot of family history and assume that this will be the theme. Then we go off in a different tangent as the book becomes something of a cynical tourist guide to the Marquesa Islands. Ultimately we find ourselves at a very appropriate ending.

This book, even more so than the other two aforementioned books, is something of a free verse of observations by the author. One comes away wondering why this book was written and I guess my impression that it was more for the author than for us. We are able to follow, somewhat, McMurtry's attempts to resolve some of his inner feelings as he knows his mother is slowly drifting away (albeit several thousand miles away). Yet at the same time, his observations about his trip and fellow travelers confuse us as to the depth of any of his feelings. Perhaps that is the point; a man who is at one of those points in life where life itself is a numbing sensation.

Should you read this book? Probably not unless you, like many of McMurtry's literary aficionados, enjoy getting to know the author a bit better. Otherwise it is just a journal of a trip. And it's a trip that the reader has to feel would have been more enjoyable if we rather than McMurtry were the ones taking it. Nonetheless, I'm glad I read it.

Interesting Record of His Personal Observations.......2003-05-21

Granted, this is not McMurtry's best work, but if I were sitting beside him, and we were chatting "in a stream of consciousness" way, I would find his thoughts interesting enough, sharing as one tourist to another, in an unhurried, leisurely exchange of views. This is a period in his life when McMurtry was having to face "loss" and the reader needs to include this understanding in his analysis of the book. I feel I learned more about McMurtry as a person, from having read Paradise.

Evelyn Horan - author
Jeannie, A Texas Frontier Girl, Book One
Jeannie, A Texas Frontier Girl, Book Two

Paradise? Not even close........2002-02-06

At first glance, this is a beautiful book. The printing is very high quality, the pages are thick, and there is even a lovely Gauguin on the cover. This book, however, is a horrible example of a travel guide, a social commentary, and/or a personal journal type "memoir". McMurtry switches verb tense mid-sentence, he uses unparallel structure, and in general is not a very impressive writer. I have not read any of his other books, and I don't really want to after having read this one for English class. I feel he tries to brag about how insane his family is, he blatantly criticizes everyone he mentions (especially Thor Heyerdahl, for no apparent reason) and mocks both the European and modern Polynesian cultures. He is often "disgusted" by some of the other passengers on his cruise, simply because he cannot communicate with them (they are foreign!) and so he attacks their lifestyles and mannerisms. Also, at several times during his drably described journey through paradise he describes in excruciating detail the plots and characters of books he himself is reading on the cruise, as well as books other passengers are reading - as if we care! I would certainly not recommend this book to anyone; Unfortunately, it was money wasted.

Diary-like Entries in the South Seas while Grieving.......2001-11-30

Fans of Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen and Mr. McMurtry's many fine western novels will be very disappointed in this book.

He visits Tahiti and the Marquesa Islands in the few days before his mother dies (which seems like strange timing, since her passing was expected), and sees the area as paradise in a sad way. Obviously affected by his mother's failing health, he pretty much sticks to himself and reads books. Occasionally, he makes an observation about how beautiful tropical islands mainly vary by the extent to which "civilized" amenities have been plunked down in them. He ruminates about why people who lived there fought with one another, or became cannibals. But he doesn't really take the thinking anywhere. He is struck by the fact that the ocean surrounding a South Sea island isolates its inhabitants much like the desert does around Southwestern Indian pueblos. That's about the level of insight here. A high point is when a Polynesian woman gives him some passion fruit as an unexpected gift.

Like in Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen, he reflects on his parents' marriage. But he doesn't reflect on it very much. Most of that ground is covered in the earlier book.

I only kept reading the book because Mr. McMurtry is normally a fine writer, and often has interesting observations. My reward for doing so was to find out about the logistics of visiting the Marquesas, which I have been thinking about visiting. I graded the book at two for its value as a travelogue. Otherwise, I would have graded it as a one.

Some people might characterize this book as an essay on the subject of paradise. It certainly has ruminations along those lines, especially about Gauguin. But the content isn't organized as an essay. It looks like notes in a daily journal, that were never turned into an essay or a book.

Paradise comes across as the work of a very depressed person who is grieving, who won't share his emotions with the reader.

Book Description

Richly illustrated with maps, historical and contemporary photographs, and period artwork, this guidebook takes tourists and armchair travelers on a stimulating journey through the small towns, rolling hills, and windswept coast of Flaubert’s Normandy. The novelist’s homes and the locations that are prominently featured in his controversial works are the focus of this pictorial travel guide, and include the ancient town of Rouen, where Flaubert was born in 1821; the resort town of Trouville and its frequently painted beach; Croisset, where Flaubert’s riverside house gave him the refuge to write; and the quiet country town of Ry, which claims to be where the real Madame Bovary lived and died.

Customer Reviews:

Rare combination.......2007-05-06

Ms. Patton's book is a rare combination of travel guide, literary criticism and biography penned in an engaging and witty style. It even has a section on Normandy cheeses. Yum. Read it before you read Flaubert, or while you read Madame Bovary, as I did. Read it before visiting Normandy. Or just read it because it's so enjoyable. The type of book that brings a place to life more than your average travel guide.

an excellent quick read on flaubert and normandy.......2007-03-16

My brother gifted me this book after he found it an excellent armchair companion. (He's been there before, reads Flaubert, the whole deal.) I found the book a great combination of biography (of more than one notable personage), travelogue, history, culture (present and past). Very good layout and photos, handy maps to check where you'd be when she writes of a town. Her writing style is light and flowing, so I finished it in a few hours, and am comfortable with the idea of returning to it as needed... maybe even one day, managing to get to France, to Normandy, to Ry and the rivers and cheeses of the region.

Average customer rating:

Well written but . . .
A finely wrought novel
Familiar, no?
You can go home again, and you must.
Very good book

The Journey Home: A Novel
Olaf Olafsson
Manufacturer: Anchor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0385720416
Release Date: 2001-10-30

Amazon.com

Holed away in lush British farm country, Disa runs a small inn with her friend Anthony. They're both past middle age, eccentrics who understand each other too well. Their life consists of early mornings, chores, twilight walks down to the reflecting pool. Guests descend on the place in spring, full of noise and expectation. Disa runs the kitchen, serving up gourmet dinners that have become famous among savvy food critics and tourists.

Olaf Olafsson's The Journey Home is constructed in tight succinct fragments, like journal entries. Shuttling between past and present, it's about reckoning with grief and bad memories in the face of death. Diagnosed with a terminal illness, Disa knows she needs to make a journey back to Iceland, a place that reflects the past back to her: a mother who abandoned her, a fiancé eventually killed by the Nazis.

Although not much directly happens in this novel, great tension develops between the pull of memory and the push of the moment. In Disa, Olafsson (Absolution) has created a vibrant character who wants to overcome sadness by plunging into the sensual. She's always cooking up fantastic meals, and the descriptions of food are truly mouthwatering: trout "fried with a sprinkling of ground almonds," apples "which I love to bake after they have soaked in port for a long, quiet afternoon." The powerful smells and sights of life rescue Disa from fear--if she doesn't quite believe in God, she believes in the immediacy of the world. This is the novel's subtly redemptive tendency, laid out piece by piece in Disa's soothing melancholy voice: "Sometimes you have to get a grip on yourself to keep your thoughts under control, but it's worth it. The reward is just around the next corner, whether it is a clutch of perfect eggs in a basket or the sound of birdsong on a still day. The soul can take delight in small things if one's dreams only leave it in peace long enough." --Emily White

Book Description

A lyrical and arresting novel by acclaimed Icelandic writer Olaf Olafsson about one woman's redemptive journey home.

Disa Jonsdottir has managed an inn for years with her companion, Anthony, in the English countryside. Compelled by the demands of time to revisit the village of her childhood, she departs England for her native Iceland. Along the way memories surface-of the rift between her and her mother, of the fate of her German-Jewish lover, of the trauma she experienced while working as a cook in a wealthy household. Skillfully weaving past and present, Olafsson builds toward an emotional climax that renders The Journey Home moving, suspenseful, and unforgettable.

Customer Reviews:

Well written but . . ........2006-10-29

Disa didn't come alive for me and parts of the book felt contrived, especially Disa's estrangement from her mother. So her mother disapproved of her career choice -- that's hardly enough of a reason for Disa to cut her mother out of her life. Disa's moment of sadness at not being able to say goodbye when her mother died was false -- something she was supposed to say because that's how a daughter should feel. Same with her feelings for the child she gave up -- forced emotion.

Much is made of her "journey home" to Iceland, but it didn't seem that Iceland meant that much to her, and we didn't see anything about Iceland that formed her character or shaped her life. It could have just as easily been Pennsylvania.

She's a woman with secrets and a lost, tragic love. She has persevered. This made it even more infuriating on the journey home, when she dismissed her fellow passengers as unworthy of her attention. Wouldn't she have a clue that people aren't always what they appear to be?

Disa's self-delusion, self-aggrandizement, and self-pity kept me from having any sympathy for her. Maybe that's what Olafsson intended. Disa is emotionally removed from everything except food. The times when she talked about cooking were the only times she felt like a real person to me.

A finely wrought novel.......2006-04-23

Asdis - "Disa" - Jonsdottir and her partner Anthony run a twenty-four room hotel, Ditton Hall, in the Lake District. When Dr Ellis tells Disa that she is terminally ill and has a life expectancy of twelve to eighteen months, she decides to undertake the long journey from England to Iceland where she was born. It is not until the end of the novel that the reader gets to know what brings Disa to undertake her journey home.
As she travels memories unfold in her mind about her sister Joroun and her suicide, her brother Kari, her former servant Marilyn, her childhood in Kopasker, her years at the commercial college in Reykjavik where she studied bookkeeping, her first post in London at the Restaurant Boulestin and her first love for Jakob Himmelfarb, "a quest for disappointment" in her eyes.
The novel reads like a beautiful diary and the reader has the sense that he is admitted into Disa's intimate world. She is exquisitely and delicately portrayed by the author. We share her happiness, regrets, achievements and failures and the story gracefully weaves between past and present.

Familiar, no?.......2002-02-06

If you enjoy the prose of this book, you will no doubt enjoy the literary craftings of MFK Fisher as well. It is no cooincidence; passages from this text are lifted directly from the late Ms. Fisher's works, with no more than a name here or there altered to make it seem "original." Read the true original instead.

You can go home again, and you must........2001-08-11

In the tiniest of vignettes, most only a page or two long, Olafsson creates a pointillist portrait of Disa, a middle-aged Icelandic woman, and the people and events from her past over which she still feels guilt and distress. She is on her way back to Iceland from England, where she and her friend Anthony have run a country hotel for many years, and where she has acquired a reputation as a fine chef. Her trip "home" is an attempt to find peace and to achieve the satisfaction of knowing her life has had meaning. This is an urgent quest--Disa has only twelve to eighteen months to live, and her life is full of unresolved traumas.

Olafsson uses the diary Disa keeps on her journey to intersperse sensitive, often powerful, memories from the past with her recollections from her more recent life in England. She is an intense and independent woman who sometimes reacts more sensitively toward the natural world around her than to the people with whom she has had relationships. We relive her estrangement from her mother and sister, her heartache in love, her love for her father and her secret life in Iceland, her protectiveness for her partner Anthony, her relationships with her employers and later with her employees, and her desperate romantic fling during a particularly vulnerable time. As in our own daydreams, we relive Disa's memories and the feelings they evoke in random order, not always knowing why they are important until later memories provide the keys to understanding. As her memories and nightmares intensify, the suspense grows. As Disa says, "The soul can take delight in small things if one's dreams only leave it in peace long enough."

Although Disa probably has enough traumas in her life for three novels, Olafsson avoids some of the usual pitfalls of romances by spacing out the details and requiring the reader to draw the conclusions. He tempers sensational revelations by including repeated images or symbols within them--apples, thrushes, storms, views from windows, music, the color red, the cold--to make us think. By the time the real reason for the trip to Iceland is revealed, most readers will have guessed it, but we sympathize with the unfortunate Disa and her journey, nevertheless. This is an emotion-packed rollercoaster of a novel, with a multitude of period details, sure to keep readers on edge. Mary Whipple

Very good book.......2001-07-23

I enjoyed reading this book. Very nicely written.

Bizarro Among the Savages: A Relatively Famous Guy's Experiences on the Road and in the Homes of Strangers

Average customer rating:

I have no idea why this book is currently out of print
Fun and Thoughtful Journey
scattered
Incredible, he's a great cartoonist, but even better author
"Bizarro Among The Savages" is funny and touching.

Bizarro Among the Savages: A Relatively Famous Guy's Experiences on the Road and in the Homes of Strangers
Dan Piraro
Manufacturer: Andrews Mcmeel Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0836221737

Amazon.com

Dan Piraro, creator of the Klibanesque comic "Bizarro", takes an uncomfortable journey into the homes of his deranged and well-mannered fans. Because Piraro's publishing company refused to pay for a book tour for his most recent collection of cartoons, he came up with the potentially dangerous idea of contacting his fan base and asking them to send him plane tickets, drive him around, and let him stay in their homes. Before chronicling his adventures on the road, Piraro presents a painfully funny narration of his Catholic upbringing, describing nuns as women who "talk several times each day to invisible beings," and whose job it is to "teach heathen children the value of mindless complicity to authority." The second section of the book, where Piraro relates his travels among the comics fans, is less cruelly funny but nonetheless good reading. The stories of those who were kind enough to cart around a strange cartoonist are surprisingly touching. As an added bonus, the spirit of Wheel of Fortune's Pat Sajak serves as Piraro's guardian angel throughout his travels.

Customer Reviews:

I have no idea why this book is currently out of print.......2001-06-04

I have no idea why this book is currently out of print; its just so darn good. Piraro draws the daily cartoon Bizarro, and this book tells the tale of his early life, adventures on a shoestring book tour, and wraps up with some stuff about his messy divorce. I didn't really expect the writing to be this good, but Piraro is sarcastic like a Dave Barry with stamina, and writes as densely as a humorous William Gibson, and ties the multiple themes together with the elegance of John Irving. This was also a very funny book and I find it a little odd that Piraro is an expert humorist in both visual and verbal mediums. He must have one weird brain. I highly recommend this book; its funny, unique, and well written.

Fun and Thoughtful Journey.......2000-10-16

I have just read Dan Piraro's book after meaning to do so for months. It didn't disappoint. I love this guy's cartoons and have followed them for years; I am happy to report that he is just as good a writer as he is a cartoonist.

One caveat - I actually expected more cartoons in the book, and there are very few. But he has so much to write about that this isn't a significant flaw by any means. He goes all over the map from "On the Road" type stuff to bio, and it's all good. I wasn't sure what to expect about the Pat Sajak/guardian angel stuff, but I did not find it intrusive or exceptionally weird.

Overall, I highly recommend this book as a companion to Piraro's comics.

scattered.......1999-10-14

The "author" tries too hard to be funny, all the while with a very egocentric attempt in disecting his wreck of a marriage; trying vehemently to secure his readers pity. Advice: Stick with cartooning. And personally: It Takes two to tango.

Incredible, he's a great cartoonist, but even better author.......1999-07-02

Dan has a wounderfully warped sense of humor which really shines through in his work. His amazing writing keeps you laughing for most of the book. The momories he has of this trip and his past seem so outragous that they almost seem false, but he tells them so vividly that they couldn't be. I loved this book and have read it repeatedly, a great choice for anyone who likes his cartoon, and even those who don't.

"Bizarro Among The Savages" is funny and touching........1998-08-24

I don't know if I've ever read a more enjoyable book than "Bizarro Among The Savages." I couldn't go two pages without laughing out loud. I commend Mr. Piraro for not taking the easy way out and making fun of the people he stayed with on his book tour. Rather, he seems to have a gift for connecting with people and realizing the good points of anybody. He also doesn't pull any punches when talking about his own spiritual/emotional journey, and I applaud him him for his openness and frankness.

Book Description

Fashioned from the same experiences that would inspire the masterpiece Huckleberry Finn, Life on the Mississippi is Mark Twain’s most brilliant and most personal nonfiction work. It is at once an affectionate evocation of the vital river life in the steamboat era and a melancholy reminiscence of its passing after the Civil War, a priceless collection of humorous anecdotes and folktales, and a unique glimpse into Twain’s life before he began to write.

Written in a prose style that has been hailed as among the greatest in English literature, Life on the Mississippi established Twain as not only the most popular humorist of his time but also America’s most profound chronicler of the human comedy.

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Journey Home

Journey Home: A Novel
Jennie L. Hansen
Manufacturer: Covenant Communications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1577341317

Customer Reviews:

Journey Home.......2000-05-17

Allen promises a dying man that he help his "little girl" get to Salt Lake City from Alaska. Holland has dressed and acted like a boy for the last 7 years to avoid unwanted attention. When Allen finds out that Holland is a grown woman sparks fly. This book tells the touching story of a budding woman and the man who loves her, but won't admit it.

Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Home

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Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Home
Patricia Morley
Manufacturer: McGill-Queen's University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Allan Ramsay and the Search for Horace's Villa (Reinterpreting Classicism)

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Allan Ramsay and the Search for Horace's Villa (Reinterpreting Classicism)
Bernard Frischer , and Iain Gordon Brown
Manufacturer: Ashgate Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0754600041

At Home Abroad: Mark Twain in Australasia

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At Home Abroad: Mark Twain in Australasia
Miriam Jones Shillingsburg
Manufacturer: Univ Pr of Mississippi (Txt)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0878053492

Casanova's Journey Home and Other Late Stories (Studies in Austrian Literature, Culture, and Thought Translation Series)

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Casanova's Journey Home and Other Late Stories (Studies in Austrian Literature, Culture, and Thought Translation Series)
Arthur Schnitzler , and Norman M. Watt
Manufacturer: Ariadne Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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