By Nicole Galante

Author: J. Maarten Troost

Title: The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific

Publisher: Broadway Books

Publication Date: June 8, 2004

Length: 272 Pages

Price: $10.20 on Amazon

 

Synopsis:

 

A lighthearted tale of extreme wanderlust, The Sex Lives of Cannibals chronicles the adventures of Maarten Troost and his fiancé as they abandon their cushy lives in DC for the remote atoll of Tarawa in the equatorial pacific. To accurately envision the scale of Tarawa, think of the smallest and most remote land you can imagine—and then cut the remoteness and the land area in half, and then in half again. This is Tarawa: just over 100 square miles, the largest atoll in the Kiribati (pronounced “Kiri-bas”) Islands, smack dab in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, along the equator.

 

Straight out of grad school and in search of adventure, Maarten and his fiancé Sylvia quit their jobs in Washington, DC upon Sylvia’s hiring by an international nonprofit. They were shortly thereafter sent to Tarawa, the adventure they’d been hoping for. Maarten, well, he planned to come along for the ride, relax, and maybe write a novel; and come along for the ride he did, but relaxation and writing? Not so much. Tarawa was anything but what he expected. It turns out that the equator is, well, hot. So hot, in fact, hat Maarten has a difficult time remember what it feels like to not be drenched in sweat.. The cultural differences between him and Sylvia and the I-Kiribati were steep. Maarten explains that he could get on board with drinking at all hours of the day, but defecating in the water for everyone to see was a hard no. Other things were less easy to pick and choose: Maarten and Sylvia ate fish for nearly every meal, because apparently, as he found out, shipping resources to a small atoll in the middle of the South Pacific is harder than it seems; they listened La Macarena on a two-year endless loop, because just like the food, there was little musical variety; and they learned to live in close proximity with bugs, and stopped blinking over picking ants out of their food. They wanted adventure, and adventure they surely encountered.

 

Despite these challenges, Maarten and Sylvia stuck it out in Tarawa for nearly two years. Through his insightful and comical narrative, Maarten paints a picture of his life in a new home—albeit, a strange home—that taught him about friendship, culture, and community.

 

Review and Reflection:

 

Travel writing can sometimes be dry, too factual and tedious to get through. As a reader, these are the very characteristics that turn me off of most travel writing; so, needless to say, I expected a lot from The Sex Lives of Cannibals when I began reading… and I was certainly not disappointed. Troost’s narrative is witty, charismatic, and funny. Side splittingly funny, to be precise. The very setting of Tarawa can seem depressing to most at first glance. Not only is it small, but it is also heavily polluted and depleted of important resources. It is so small and overlooked that most historians and readers only associate Tarawa with a bloody battle from World War II (“Battle of Tarawa – World War II”). Despite these characteristics that would make most, myself admittedly included, run as far from Tarawa as possible, Troost embraces that which is unfamiliar to him with humor. It makes for a lighthearted book that is easy for all to enjoy. Even if you can’t relate directly with life on Tarawa, you can relate with Troost’s clever humor.

 

Readers should not mistake the overwhelming humor of Troost’s narrative for a lack of depth. I learned as much as I laughed while reading The Sex Lives of Cannibals. Each chapter in this book addresses a different aspect of life in Tarawa. This includes the nation’s history, the ways of its people, and important political and human rights issues that currently plague the people of Tarawa and beyond. Consequently, insight into Sylvia’s work with the I-Kiribati government reveals the complexities of foreign policy and problem solving. I’d venture to say that the majority of Americans don’t know the first thing about life in the South Pacific. I couldn’t imagine a more animated way to learn than through narratives like Troost’s.

 

Many customer reviews of The Sex Lives of Cannibals accuse Troost of being too funny, too all over the place (Amazon.com). They assert that his humor is overbearing. Some even go as far as to criticize Troost of appropriating a culture by using the I-Kiribati as the punchline of his jokes. Furthermore, each chapter is interconnected in a loose way. While the book never felt disjointed to me, some reviewers felt like the overall narrative lacked a common thread, and an overall point.

 

After an in depth read of The Sex Lives of Cannibals, I choose to take these criticisms with a grain of salt. In fact, I argue that they are too narrow, and analyzing Troost’s thoughtful narrative through such a scope limits the important themes to be gained.

 

Beyond the humor lies a deep appreciation for the I-Kiribati culture. Troost’s adventure into the South Pacific began quickly, and he dove in headfirst. It is for this reason, I believe, that the overall contents of the book can be interpreted as disjointed; however, the nature of good travel writing is usually spontaneous. The spontaneity of Troost’s journey to Tarawa allows for a narrative free of most ethnocentrism. While he does come to the atoll expecting one thing and receives another, the narrative never takes a negative turn for the worst—not even when Maarten gets fed up with his neighbors defecating in the ocean. It is this “pure” line of inquiry that shows how appreciative Troost is of the people and culture that adopt him. Humor aside, the narrative its and intentions are genuine.

 

Not only does The Sex Lives of Cannibals introduce readers to the spontaneous nature of traveling and an appreciation for those who are different, but it also echoes with important messages of community and friendship. Maarten explains how interdependent the I-Kiribati society is, so much so that is throws Americans like me for a loop. A prime example of this is the bubiti system, the practice of declaring that you would like to have something that belongs to someone else, and that someone else is obligated to give you what they desire. Similarly in Tarawa, boundaries are often ignored, resources are shared, and the overall atmosphere is low stress with little competition. None of this is familiar to Maarten at first, but over the course of his two years he learns to appreciate this new way of doing things. Along the way, he even makes friends in the most unlikely of places. Cultural differences mean little to Maarten or the people of I-Kiribati, who are always welcoming, despite the little they have to share.

 

The story of Maarten and Sylvia Troost is by no means common. Furthermore, the culture of the I-Kiribati is guaranteed to be unfamiliar to most who choose to read this book. Despite these two facts, there is so much to learn, so much to gain, and so much to relate to in The Sex Lives of Cannibals. It’s more than a funny book, or a series of anecdotes: it is a valuable narrative about an interesting group of people, and all the oddities that happen when wanderlust casts you adrift in the equatorial pacific.

 

References:

 

History.com Staff. “Battle of Tarawa.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2009,

www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-tarawa.

“The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific Paperback – June 8,

2004.” Amazon.com, www.amazon.com/Sex-Lives-Cannibals-Equatorial-Pacific/dp/0767915305/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1509465122&sr=8-1&keywords=the%2Bsex%2Blives%2Bof%2Bcannibals.

 

By Laura Dunbar

Tracks: A Woman’s Solo Trek Across 1,700 Miles of Australian Outback, written by Robyn Davidson and originally published in 1980 by Vintage, is 288 pages and can be purchased for $15.95 at Barnes and Noble.

Summary

Tracks tells the journey of Robyn Davidson, a 27-year-old woman who travels across the Australian desert to the sea with just four camels and her dog. Davidson starts her trip with little money and little plans, simply taking a train and arriving in Alice Springs. While there, she instantly takes notice of the treatment of Aboriginal people, saying, “The blacks were unequivocally the enemy,” an observation that she sees more and more after embarking on her trip, and a cultural aspect that she thoroughly explores throughout the entirety of the book.

 

In order to cross the desert with camels, Davidson first needs to learn about and acquire camels of her own, which leads her to Kurt, owner of a camel farm. Though Kurt treats Davidson horribly and eventually drives her away, he teaches her a lot about camels and instills in her an undying love for the animals, whose company Davidson soon learns she prefers to that of people. Davidson eventually acquires her own camel and trains them to accompany her on the trip. She gains funding from National Geographic, with which comes the presence of a photographer, Rick, who meets up with Davidson multiple times throughout her trip, despite her dismay.

 

Davidson goes on a portion of her trip walking alongside Eddie, an old Aboriginal man, whom she grows a strong friendship with. Along her travels with Eddie, she finds herself shedding her old European ways, and becoming a different kind of person. She becomes so intimately connected with the land, with the Australian country, that she is able to feel things on a gut level, is able to decipher relationships between everyone and everything. The person she was before the trip soon becomes the enemy.

 

Finally, with the help of Rick and others, Davidson reaches the end of her trip at Carnarvon—the sea. She and her camels are mesmerized, and spend the final week of the trip on that beach, celebrating in its waters. She was devastated to see her trip end, and experienced immense culture shock at her arrival home, and then to the United States. She fears that the mentality she gained on her trip will never return, and feels almost separate now from the woman she was then. She ends her book, however, by saying, “Camel trips. . . do not begin or end, they merely change form” (261).

 

 Larger Cultural Implications

Something interesting about Davidson as a narrator is that she is not inherently likeable. She does not have a specific reason to be going on the trip, and it left me wondering who, in their right mind, would choose to trek across so many miles completely alone. Her aloneness throughout the book almost made her unrelatable, as she repeatedly talks about the fact that she prefers being alone than being with others and that she prefers the company of animals to humans. Through the process of reading her journey, however, I realized that her difference to myself is part of what made the book so fascinating, as I was able to learn about a concept so foreign to myself. She also gains likeability in her conversations about deeper, cultural implications, and was able to make me really examine the culture that she explored.

 

Throughout her book, Davidson does a great deal of cultural examination. Davidson thoroughly explains the way that the Aborigines are treated in Australian society. They are constantly put down and society makes it impossible for them to rise back up, as their lands are taken away and their education is not prioritized. When Davidson originally went on the trip, a goal of hers was to somehow change this view of Aborigines, to prove that their culture is important and interesting and should be well appreciated, but found herself unable to immerse into that culture. On page 167, Davidson says, “No white person can fully enter Aboriginal reality and the more you learn, the more you’re aware of that vast gap of knowledge and understanding.” Despite her inability to completely penetrate the Aboriginal culture, Davidson was still enlightened multiple times throughout the trip by what these people were like. The people that she met, like her companion Eddie, did not fit the standards that had them so low on the Australian totem pole. She says of him, “And I wondered as we walked along, how the word ‘primitive’ with all its subtle and nasty connotations ever got to be associated with people like this” (164). Davidson hoped that by sharing stories like this, by explaining the ways of the Aborigines, she could somehow change the negative perception of them.

 

Davidson thinks that her efforts to change Aboriginal treatment were unsuccessful, but I disagree. I was a reader that went into this book with little to no knowledge of the treatment of Aboriginals in Australia, yet found myself shocked with some of the stories she told of their past and present. If I ever were to travel to Australia, I would abandon the notions of belittlement of these people because of the image that Davidson created of them in her book. If she was able to form my mind in this way, I’m sure that other readers were affected as well.

 

Just as her depiction of Aboriginal culture informed my life, Davidson allowed it to inform hers as well. She says towards the end of her trip, “And once again I compared European society with Aboriginal. The one so archetypally paranoid, grasping, destructive, the other so sane. I didn’t want ever to leave this desert. I knew that I would forget” (202). Davidson obtains a fear so relatable to all who have traveled before and after her, one that I relate to myself. After spending a semester abroad in Italy, I became starkly aware of the differences in my own culture and the one that I was now living in. I adopted a new way of being, as one does when traveling. I remember that fear on the plane back to America that I would lose this new self, that I, like Davidson, would forget. It is a fear, however, that is unavoidable, for both myself and for Davidson.

 

Davidson’s book explores another large implication in the perception of women, which becomes clear to her in Alice Springs. She says, on page 18, “One does not have to delve too deeply to discover why some of the world’s angriest feminists breathed crisp blue Australian air during their formative years, before packing their kangaroo-skin bags and scurrying over to London or New York or any place where the antipodean machismo would fade gently from their battle-scarred consciousnesses like some grisly nightmare at dawn.” In Alice Springs, Davidson learns of an unparalleled misogyny, and attempts to fight the image of women with her trip.

 

Davidson feels, however, that her trip did the opposite. She wanted to prove to women that they really could do anything, but found herself branded as someone who could do things that others could not. Davidson explores the treatment of girls and how they are made to believe that they cannot do everything, that fear must ground their every action. Though she worries that she failed to combat this idea, I disagree. After reading her book, I think she made it clear that fear should not control choices. As a woman myself, I am aware of the inherent fear that is bred into girls at a young age that inhibits them from achieving certain goals. I believe Davidson’s trip was inspiring, and Tracks definitely has further implications for women at large.

 

 

Inquiry and Research Methods

Davidson employed methods of active research. In the entire first section of the book, she is learning how to work with and train camels. She learns a lot in this process, and even comes face to face with real, life threatening fears during it, like when her own camel, Dookie, became wild and almost killed her. Davidson’s methods challenged my typical mindset of research and inquiry, which typically were limited to sitting behind a computer screen and looking up information. Davidson was able to learn so much simply by going out, by putting herself into a new culture, by traveling.

 

Davidson asked many research questions regarding the treatment of blacks in Australia. She included a lot of background information in her book about Aboriginal people’s past and how their treatment today affects the lives that they live. She wondered why this was, and though she knew that she did not agree with their poor treatment, she did ask the question of what these people were really like. Davidson’s method of answering this question was by going out and traveling through Aboriginal towns, meeting Aboriginal people, and learning all about their culture. As I discussed previously, she answered these questions successfully by making making Aboriginal friends and understanding their culture in a deep, although still separate, way. She did not take a broad route in answering her research questions. By relating her findings to specific people that she met, Davidson was able to relate the Aboriginal people to her readers. I felt as if I really knew these people that she came across, and felt as if they were ma

king an impact on my own life as well as Davidson’s. She successfully got across to readers why the treatment of those people was so misplaced, so wrong.

 

Davidson also teaches readers a lot about camels. Though she anthropomorphizes them, she is able to get the audience to truly appreciate the animals, to fall in love with these animals in the same way that she has. Before reading Tracks, I understood camels as giant, smelly, spitting creatures. After the book, however, I see how they can be loved as pets, as companions, as massive, majestic creatures who command respect. The camels truly felt like developed characters as in a novel in Davidson’s book, and she was able to create a bond between them and her readers.

 

 

Personal Research

Prior to reading Tracks, I had a very limited understanding of Australia and its culture. Although that was part of the reason I chose the book—to learn about a culture completely foreign to me—it did make some of my reading challenging. When I think of Australia, I think of developed places that are similar to the United States, like Brisbane or Sydney. This culture was not, however, what Davidson was exploring. I had to do a lot of research pertaining to the Aboriginal people of Australia and the towns in which they live. I looked up a lot about where Davidson traveled and how those places differ from the other parts of Australia, although Davidson provided a much fuller picture of these people through her first hand accounts.

 

Davidson was funded by National Geographic, so I also looked up the article that was written about her and the multiple pictures that were taken of her. I was fascinated looking at the pictures, seeing real life versions of what Davidson spoke of in her book. It is interesting to note, however, that Davidson claims these pictures do not communicate the true story, do not seem representative of her trip in the way that she sees and remembers it. I do believe that after reading her book, I was able to cultivate an informed idea of what went on behind the pictures, so that they meant more to me than they may have to someone who did not read her book. I think this underlines just how personal of an experience travel really is, and that it is extremely difficult to capture one’s feelings during their travel.

 

Tracks has also been made into a critically acclaimed film, and though I haven’t seen it yet, I am greatly looking forward to it!

By Andrew Scott

In the digital globalized age, the Scandinavian secret has gotten out. The once stereotyped quiet and content peoples of the North have come to fame as having crafted a Huxley-esque utopia of socialist framework, fishing trade, and Volvos. The region has emerged as a leader in global happiness, education, and equality for decades now and the rest of the world is starting to catch on to this success. Each country can easily pick a headline declaring their people “The Happiest on Earth,” or their cities “The Greatest City in Europe” with something to the effect of the Scandinavians are doing something right that the rest of us can’t comprehend.  However, the paradise imagined of the natural North has had a rocky history. The economic pressure, wartime strife, and recent surge of immigration have all created chinks in the Nordic armor.  Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, Finns, and Icelanders may all carry some distant Viking related genes, but they are hardly as unified as the picture painted by modern media displays. Travel writer, Michael Booth, seeks to find out what makes the Scandinavians reliably continue to tick like a grandfather clock in his 2014 book The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia.

 

About the Author

 

Michael Booth is a British journalist, traveler, and food writer who has been employed by such renowned outlets as Conde Nast Traveler and Independent on Sunday. His 2010 book, “Sushi and Beyond: What the Japanese Know About Cooking” was a critical success and began the partnership with Picador Publishing continued into this travelogue. Having over a decade’s experience in Scandinavia, Booth’s wife and children are all Danish, as well as endless travels across the region. Booth’s interpretation of the region comes from a place of respect for the culture, love of the people, and undeniably skeptical about the policies and “utopic” essence of the systems. In a series of research based chronicles of his travels across the region, the author dives deep into the crux of each nationality without forgetting how they all intertwine.

 

Differences

 

One of the immediate takeaways from Booth’s discoveries is that the Scandinavian’s have resounding differences from country to country. Often this region is given blanket descriptions: blonde, tall, and pop music sensations. Or Vikings, love for German engineering, and bushy beards. While the Scandinavian countries don’t have the blatant descriptors of their people like their fellow Europeans the Italians, French, and English, they do have subtle intricacies that differentiate themselves in a variety of ways. Detecting the differences amongst the region can be a much more difficult process; however, the differences are there, underneath layer after layer of winter-weather clothing and reserved contented protection. To begin, each country has their own discrete characteristics: Norway is blessed with oil revenue that will last for lifetimes, Denmark has the happiest and patriotic people on Earth, Icelandic people are so few and far between that they are easily only separated by one or two degrees, the Finns have an identity crisis between Swedish and Russian roots as well as a crippling anti-depressant dependency, and the Swedes are some of the most focused people on equality that manners are almost completely thrown out. Each country has a unique relationship to one another across the history of Europe spanning centuries, a fact that doesn’t allow generations to pass without remembering the tumultuous relations of the past.

 

Problems

 

The differences between the peoples of Scandinavia are listed in detail within the context of “The Almost Nearly Perfect People;” however, I believe that one of the chief and unique components of this text is it’s skeptical and insightful look at the problems that have plagued the region. The first thing that most people think of when they read or hear about Scandinavia is the socialist political format that has been attributed to creating some of the most equal nations in the world. It is also attributed to the outrageous tax scheme that many see as a sacrifice for the greater good of society. If your health insurance, education, and (in an overwhelmingly high percentage of cases) your job is all paid for by your taxes, one has an incentive to pay. Particularly in the cases of Denmark and Sweden, the taxing and political system has seen both great success and failure. Both economies have flourished and tanked. The people are constantly being told that they system will fail; yet, they continue to produce such high ratings and success. Some skeptics will notice that pirating, credit, and other solutions to the tax problems have all been implemented by the people creating a potential issue for the future. All this being said, the one key feature of the Scandinavian identity is their contentedness and acceptance of what is fair which allows for a taxing system like this not to run into issue with class.

Another issue that has crept into the limelight in recent years is their immigration policy and racist political movements. Much like in America, an alt right political group has gained some traction running on a platform that discriminates heavily against the Muslim and Middle Eastern immigrants that are flooding into the countries. These groups believe that their culture is in danger and that they will lose their jobs, resulting in some hate speech that isn’t what the stereotyped normal is for the Scandinavian region. Some of the countries are dealing with this problem in better ways than others. Sweden’s government run media has blocked any representation from these parties in a truly Orwellian decision. The countries denial of the issue has resulted in a much more flawed and hampered socialization of the immigrants coming into the country. On the other end of the spectrum, Denmark has allowed for these alt right ideas to make it into the media (like the United States), but the immigration and integration process has been proven to be much smoother. These countries that for centuries were undesirable living locations, home to only the few homogenous groups, are now having to deal with the flood of other cultures. This will be the true test for the success of Scandinavian utopia.

 

Solution

 

            Booth calls out Scandinavia for all of its faults, all of the flaws in their system; yet, he still believes that they are the world’s greatest chance to save us all from collapse. Not just because of their environmental policies, but their heart, resilience, and cooperation. Booth in a comedic end to his research states that he hopes the Nordic United Nations or some sort of partnership doesn’t eventually happen because he fears that they would easily crush the rest of us. The Scandinavians are a rare breed of people: industrious, compassionate, content, and equals. They have built a stable societal foundation for the generations to come, nations that are focused on the humanity in these frozen tundra. Booth’s comedic expose on the ins-and-outs of the people provided for a natural immersion in the culture of a people that he struggled to understand; however, by the end of the project he had a great fondness for the people and a deeper respect. I have come to a greater appreciation of the people through this reading experience, and to supplement it I began to learn Danish. Booth is the perfect author for me personally. His sarcastic and skeptical tone throughout the travel research matched my opinion going into this subject matter. The viral Facebook memes of the Scandinavian countryside utopia had to be too good to be true, they must be strictly click-bait for the gullible progressive. While some of these elements are certainly dramatized; the superiority, equality, and prestige of the region is the chief epitome of Western culture, but certainly not without sacrificing some purity. These places hold the globe’s attention now for great reason, they have so many groundbreaking societal experiments going on. With all the success that has come their way, they still seem like they could use the help of others, some ideas from nations that are slightly different. Almost nearly perfect, but certainly as close as one might get.