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Swimming to Cambodia
“It took courage to do what Spalding did—courage to make theatre so naked and unadorned, to expose himself in this way and fight the demons in public. In doing so, he entered our hearts—my heart—because he made his struggle my struggle. His life became my life.”—Eric Bogosian
“Virtuosic. A master writer, reporter, comic and playwright. Spalding Gray is a sit-down monologist with the soul of a stand-up comedian. A contemporary Gulliver, he travels the globe in search of experience and finds the ridiculous.”—The New York Times
In 2004, we mourned the loss of one of America’s true theatrical innovators. Spalding Gray took his own life by jumping from the Staten Island ferry into the waters of New York Harbor, finally succumbing to the impossible notion that he could in fact swim to Cambodia. At a memorial gathering for family, friends and fans at Lincoln Center in New York, his widow expressed the need to honor Gray’s legacy as an artist and writer for his children, as well as for future generations of fans and readers. Originally published in 1985, Swimming to Cambodia is reissued here 20 years later in a new edition as a tribute to Gray’s singular artistry.
Writer, actor and performer, Spalding Gray is the author of Sex and Death to the Age 14; Monster in a Box; It’s a Slippery Slope; Gray’s Anatomy and Morning, Noon and Night, among other works. His appearance in The Killing Fields was the inspiration for his Swimming to Cambodia, which was also filmed by Jonathan Demme.
“Virtuosic. A master writer, reporter, comic and playwright. Spalding Gray is a sit-down monologist with the soul of a stand-up comedian. A contemporary Gulliver, he travels the globe in search of experience and finds the ridiculous.”—The New York Times
In 2004, we mourned the loss of one of America’s true theatrical innovators. Spalding Gray took his own life by jumping from the Staten Island ferry into the waters of New York Harbor, finally succumbing to the impossible notion that he could in fact swim to Cambodia. At a memorial gathering for family, friends and fans at Lincoln Center in New York, his widow expressed the need to honor Gray’s legacy as an artist and writer for his children, as well as for future generations of fans and readers. Originally published in 1985, Swimming to Cambodia is reissued here 20 years later in a new edition as a tribute to Gray’s singular artistry.
Writer, actor and performer, Spalding Gray is the author of Sex and Death to the Age 14; Monster in a Box; It’s a Slippery Slope; Gray’s Anatomy and Morning, Noon and Night, among other works. His appearance in The Killing Fields was the inspiration for his Swimming to Cambodia, which was also filmed by Jonathan Demme.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
24 people are currently reading
1094 people want to read
About the author
Spalding Gray
30 books102 followersSpalding Gray was an American actor, screenwriter, performance artist, and playwright.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 94 reviews
June 26, 2024
I discovered Spalding Gray by accident. It was 1993, a lazy day, and I was laid back channel surfing after partaking the Devil’s lettuce when I landed on this crazy show. It was just a guy at a desk with a microphone, a notebook, and a glass of water. There was a projection screen behind him occasionally showing images. There was a complex soundtrack of music and sounds that I later learned was created by Laurie Anderson. And the guy was just talking — weaving words into stories, a flowing stream of consciousness that transfixed me. I was absolutely mesmerized. How was it possible that a guy just sitting at a desk talking could rivet my attention like that for over eighty minutes?
What I was watching was the film created from Spaulding Gray’s stage monologue Swimming to Cambodia. Gray used his experience in Asia working a bit role in the movie The Killing Fields as his starting point, then extrapolated out from there, weaving in themes of the Cold War, and much material from his personal life. It was absolutely fascinating, and hooked me as a devoted fan, searching out his other films and his written work (mostly transcripts of his various stage monologues). I even got to see him live once, performing his monologue Gray’s Anatomy at Pittsburgh’s City Theater.
What you have here is the script of Gray’s monologue. It’s a great read even without the benefit of his performance. Tragically, Gray took his life twenty years ago, so there will never be an audiobook of Swimming to Cambodia, but even without that his unique brilliance shines through his words.
What I was watching was the film created from Spaulding Gray’s stage monologue Swimming to Cambodia. Gray used his experience in Asia working a bit role in the movie The Killing Fields as his starting point, then extrapolated out from there, weaving in themes of the Cold War, and much material from his personal life. It was absolutely fascinating, and hooked me as a devoted fan, searching out his other films and his written work (mostly transcripts of his various stage monologues). I even got to see him live once, performing his monologue Gray’s Anatomy at Pittsburgh’s City Theater.
What you have here is the script of Gray’s monologue. It’s a great read even without the benefit of his performance. Tragically, Gray took his life twenty years ago, so there will never be an audiobook of Swimming to Cambodia, but even without that his unique brilliance shines through his words.
December 16, 2021
I watched Spalding Gray perform this hilarious piece on the Mitzi E. Newhouse stage at Lincoln Center, late 1980s. If you’ve seen The Killing Fields you may want to read this. Second reading.
June 20, 2016
I didn't really know who Spalding Gray was before reading this, don't even know how this appeared on my bookshelf, but I'm so glad I read it. It's basically an epic stream of consciousness (but in the oral storyteller kind of way, not Ulysses) and touches on everything from Gray's OCD (which he writes about hilariously and painfully) to the unreality of filming The Killing Fields, to searching for a Perfect Moment before allowing himself to leave a country.
It made me want to (try to) write something like it.
It made me want to (try to) write something like it.
November 9, 2017
Lots of interesting ideas that just don't coalesce very well. I can imagine this being quite a good one-man play, but I don't recommend reading it written down like this.
April 16, 2010
First read, this book made a big impression on me. I especially carried around the idea of the Jewish concentration camp survivors meeting up each year, sure that this reunion will always mean the same thing...only to find, as time went on, that it didn't. It lost its urgent impact.
Second read, sure reunion would mean the same thing as first time, but what can I say? What Spalding says. It didn't. It had lost its something.
As is so often the case for me, reunion with a book is a disappointment. It makes me scared ever to do it.
Second read, sure reunion would mean the same thing as first time, but what can I say? What Spalding says. It didn't. It had lost its something.
As is so often the case for me, reunion with a book is a disappointment. It makes me scared ever to do it.
February 19, 2011
I had never heard of Spalding Gray but his book looked interesting. It is a written-down version of his live monologues about his life.
It wasn't that it was particularly poorly written, it's just that Spalding himself did so many things I don't admire, to say the least. He indulges himself frequently in various drugs and new age nonsense, is a mass of neurotic notions, immerses himself in gallons of liquor and hires whores...whenever. His life stories of drugs, sex and idiotic eccentricity were a tale of a lost, floundering and philandering man, sad and uninspiring.
It wasn't that it was particularly poorly written, it's just that Spalding himself did so many things I don't admire, to say the least. He indulges himself frequently in various drugs and new age nonsense, is a mass of neurotic notions, immerses himself in gallons of liquor and hires whores...whenever. His life stories of drugs, sex and idiotic eccentricity were a tale of a lost, floundering and philandering man, sad and uninspiring.
January 19, 2023
I haven't seen the one-man show, but don't let that stop you from buying this. You can read this like a novella/long short story (the monologue is around 127 pages). It's brilliant. It reminded me of the short story author Thom Jones mixed with Woody Allen. I'm buying another one of Gray's monologues TODAY.
My only criticism is that I preferred the personal insights and honesty of his problems - mental health, relationships, work, etc. I wanted more of it.
That's it.
Great storyteller and writer.
My only criticism is that I preferred the personal insights and honesty of his problems - mental health, relationships, work, etc. I wanted more of it.
That's it.
Great storyteller and writer.
Read
June 15, 2021A reread after a couple of decades, to see how it holds up. There are some potholes. But maybe darkest is the way in which passages glance at self-drowning as a portal, such as the Perfect Moment that Gray pursues and achieves by swimming out too far at Phuket, into untested and dangerous water, and from which he only escapes through luck. Self-destruction is a continuing theme, beneath the self-effacing (!) humor. RIP Spalding.
March 15, 2020
Didn't like it. Didn't like it all. Just not my style.
September 29, 2019
Swimming to Cambodia is probably the most famous of all the monologues that Spalding Gray wrote and performed through his relatively brief career in the 80s and 90s. In print, it’s a short book of just over a hundred pages in which he mostly describes the small role he had in The Killing Fields, a film from 1984 about the genocide under the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. By this time Gray had been acting and performing for some years, but he wasn’t a movie actor, and in his story here he does very little acting; the movie was shot in Thailand, where he seems to have spent much of his time bumming around, drinking and getting high, and watching in awe and confusion.
Part of the monologue is a potted history of Cambodia itself, complete with a summary of America’s disastrous role in prompting the crisis; it is fairly scathing stuff, considering that this was published less than ten years after the Khmer Rouge occupied that country. Another part covers the production of The Killing Fields, which is replete with Ballardian overtones — the whole thing seems a strange exercise in hyperreality, involving as it does local refugees and Cambodian nationals who had themselves involvement in the original disaster. But mostly the monologue involves the author musing on the state of his career, the world, filmmaking, and life in general.
It is, of course, a written document of a thing that was intended to be performed rather than read. Gray’s on-stage monologues were typically performed with him spoken behind a desk, with only a couple of props — paper and a glass of water — perhaps a map, or a record player or boombox, if the show demanded it. Inevitably elements would be added and removed as the performances went on. At the time that Gray was operating, he seemed to be doing something new and refreshing with performance. His arch, WASP-ish mannerisms gave it a familiar frame of after-dinner anecdotage, but it was something altogether richer and more nuanced. It was a combination of monologue as memoir, all mixed up with improv, stand-up and confessional.
If we consider something like Krapp’s Last Tape as the apotheosis of modernism, then Spalding Gray might look something like a poster boy for postmodernism. Instead of sitting at a desk and tape recorder with nothing to say beyond near-wordless reminiscence, here is a man who does the same but with everything to say — all of it filtered through the lens of himself and refracted back at the audience, with every anxiety, every delight, every humiliation blown up to cartoonish size. Imagine a high-minded Seinfeld where everything mattered too much, rather than not at all. Imagine Kerouac with a conscience. In many ways Gray looks today like an early emblem of an art method where every aspect of one’s private self becomes fair game as a subject for public scrutiny, and for all kinds of artistic reproduction.
How well this approach has aged is an interesting question, though it is ultimately somewhat irrelevant. Something chafes around the idea that some privileged white guy should travel to Thailand to take place in a reconstruction of a genocidal event and think: ‘yes, the most interesting thing going on here is me’. This is a cynical way of looking at it. But if Swimming to Cambodia was performed tomorrow, one wonders if readers would be so tolerant of the author’s dabbling in the Thai sex industry. Gray called his own work ‘poetic journalism’, and it’s difficult to imagine such a description being applauded by readers today, ever since the media starting getting seriously creative with the truth. Neither wry detachment nor unconstrained self-interest will suffice as artistic motivators. Better for our poets to be poets, and for journalists to be journalists; we’ve been stung by those who tried to do both.
I used the word ‘irrelevant’ because Gray’s method is everywhere. It might even be the dominant artistic ethos of our times, particularly for the aspiring comedian or performer. There’s something of his work in the knowing style of Fleabag, which also began as an on-stage monologue. And consider podcasts, though it’s notable that those are mostly based around group conversations and special interests – YouTube and Twitch are better suited to the single-voice format. And there are still a few ‘storytellers’ at large; the most famous inheritor of Gray’s style is probably David Sedaris, though it would take too long to explain here why I find his work almost entirely unbearable.
The same ethos has crept into media culture at large. It seems like every week we celebrate a new personal essay which mingles the big issues of history and politics and gender with reminiscences of trauma or recollections of tragedy. The personal is political, so the political must start with the personal: sitting in front of a mic (real or otherwise), spilling one’s guts. Often selling one’s own work involves an effort of putting one’s personality out there first, and using that as a way to draw an audience to what you really want them to see. And this is perfectly fine, as long as one accepts the idea that you cannot expect to withdraw that personality at a later date and maintain the same level of profile.
There can no longer be any clear divide between an artist’s public persona and their private life. And it is becoming increasingly hard to imagine a way of being that involves opting out of that aspect entirely. We are all setting out our little tables and chairs on the biggest stage imaginable, talking to ourselves, waiting for an audience that might never arrive.
Part of the monologue is a potted history of Cambodia itself, complete with a summary of America’s disastrous role in prompting the crisis; it is fairly scathing stuff, considering that this was published less than ten years after the Khmer Rouge occupied that country. Another part covers the production of The Killing Fields, which is replete with Ballardian overtones — the whole thing seems a strange exercise in hyperreality, involving as it does local refugees and Cambodian nationals who had themselves involvement in the original disaster. But mostly the monologue involves the author musing on the state of his career, the world, filmmaking, and life in general.
It is, of course, a written document of a thing that was intended to be performed rather than read. Gray’s on-stage monologues were typically performed with him spoken behind a desk, with only a couple of props — paper and a glass of water — perhaps a map, or a record player or boombox, if the show demanded it. Inevitably elements would be added and removed as the performances went on. At the time that Gray was operating, he seemed to be doing something new and refreshing with performance. His arch, WASP-ish mannerisms gave it a familiar frame of after-dinner anecdotage, but it was something altogether richer and more nuanced. It was a combination of monologue as memoir, all mixed up with improv, stand-up and confessional.
If we consider something like Krapp’s Last Tape as the apotheosis of modernism, then Spalding Gray might look something like a poster boy for postmodernism. Instead of sitting at a desk and tape recorder with nothing to say beyond near-wordless reminiscence, here is a man who does the same but with everything to say — all of it filtered through the lens of himself and refracted back at the audience, with every anxiety, every delight, every humiliation blown up to cartoonish size. Imagine a high-minded Seinfeld where everything mattered too much, rather than not at all. Imagine Kerouac with a conscience. In many ways Gray looks today like an early emblem of an art method where every aspect of one’s private self becomes fair game as a subject for public scrutiny, and for all kinds of artistic reproduction.
How well this approach has aged is an interesting question, though it is ultimately somewhat irrelevant. Something chafes around the idea that some privileged white guy should travel to Thailand to take place in a reconstruction of a genocidal event and think: ‘yes, the most interesting thing going on here is me’. This is a cynical way of looking at it. But if Swimming to Cambodia was performed tomorrow, one wonders if readers would be so tolerant of the author’s dabbling in the Thai sex industry. Gray called his own work ‘poetic journalism’, and it’s difficult to imagine such a description being applauded by readers today, ever since the media starting getting seriously creative with the truth. Neither wry detachment nor unconstrained self-interest will suffice as artistic motivators. Better for our poets to be poets, and for journalists to be journalists; we’ve been stung by those who tried to do both.
I used the word ‘irrelevant’ because Gray’s method is everywhere. It might even be the dominant artistic ethos of our times, particularly for the aspiring comedian or performer. There’s something of his work in the knowing style of Fleabag, which also began as an on-stage monologue. And consider podcasts, though it’s notable that those are mostly based around group conversations and special interests – YouTube and Twitch are better suited to the single-voice format. And there are still a few ‘storytellers’ at large; the most famous inheritor of Gray’s style is probably David Sedaris, though it would take too long to explain here why I find his work almost entirely unbearable.
The same ethos has crept into media culture at large. It seems like every week we celebrate a new personal essay which mingles the big issues of history and politics and gender with reminiscences of trauma or recollections of tragedy. The personal is political, so the political must start with the personal: sitting in front of a mic (real or otherwise), spilling one’s guts. Often selling one’s own work involves an effort of putting one’s personality out there first, and using that as a way to draw an audience to what you really want them to see. And this is perfectly fine, as long as one accepts the idea that you cannot expect to withdraw that personality at a later date and maintain the same level of profile.
There can no longer be any clear divide between an artist’s public persona and their private life. And it is becoming increasingly hard to imagine a way of being that involves opting out of that aspect entirely. We are all setting out our little tables and chairs on the biggest stage imaginable, talking to ourselves, waiting for an audience that might never arrive.
Read
January 3, 2012It was on the shelf, and I am trying to clean out the old stuff.. in particular scripts etc.. and it was quick read.
Certainly works better as a performed monologue ( I saw the film version), but Spalding Gray always surprised me and his personal monologues always wound up into perfect well-told stories--not just personal rants as so many others might do.
R.I.P. Spalding. No pun intended but you had vision.
Certainly works better as a performed monologue ( I saw the film version), but Spalding Gray always surprised me and his personal monologues always wound up into perfect well-told stories--not just personal rants as so many others might do.
R.I.P. Spalding. No pun intended but you had vision.
December 26, 2008
Although the book is marvelous, one had to see the man perform to truly appreciate him.
October 2, 2016
There's occasional brilliance in this largely stream-of-consciousness effort. This reminds me of the best of Hunter S. Thompson.
August 18, 2008
Haven't read it. If I love it as much as I love the movie...well I'll love it!
November 27, 2017
(Note: I will be reviewing the movie here instead of the book.)
Swimming to Cambodia is an 85 minute monologue by the late actor / writer Spalding Gray. This one-man show consists of Gray sitting on a dark stage at an illuminated desk with a glass of water and a microphone. He illustrates his time in Thailand while filming the movie The Killing Fields, including humorous anecdotes and a brief history of the film's content about the genocide in Cambodia from 1975 - 1979. Initially it appears as storytelling pared down to the bare essentials - until music, sound effects, and lighting gradually and sporadically accompany his stories, as well as clips from the film itself.
Gray was in Thailand filming for eight weeks and eight days, playing the small role of an American Ambassador's Aid in Roland Joffé's biographical film. Some of his anecdotes of his time in Southeast Asia include: Having a "bad high" on local marijuana and getting into an argument with his visiting girlfriend, the lines he had to memorize, Thai prostitutes who work at "massage parlors" and appear in shows in which they perform various tricks with their vaginas (think ping-pong balls, glass Coke bottles, and bananas), and his idea of a "perfect moment." He also gives a somewhat simplified version of the history after the war in Vietnam that lead to the genocide in Cambodia, complete with maps and hand pointers as if he were a teacher.
I like to think of this as a performance version of the nonfiction braided essay, where personal anecdotes are interspersed with non-personal, sometimes historical information to make the story more interesting. In this way, his story braided with Cambodian history is made fascinating. His voice is always animated and it's obvious that he has a background as an actor, as many of these moments are made dramatic. One should also consider the layers of storytelling happening here: His monologue is his story of filming a movie: a story about events that really occurred. (Side note; those layers subtly remind me of the documentary Jim and Andy, in which Jim Carrey discusses his role in the 1999 Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon; layers of immortalizing a comedian and the comedian who played him.)
Although it took a few minutes to really "get into," I found this film enjoyable and captivating, both by the stories themselves and the way they are told.
Swimming to Cambodia is an 85 minute monologue by the late actor / writer Spalding Gray. This one-man show consists of Gray sitting on a dark stage at an illuminated desk with a glass of water and a microphone. He illustrates his time in Thailand while filming the movie The Killing Fields, including humorous anecdotes and a brief history of the film's content about the genocide in Cambodia from 1975 - 1979. Initially it appears as storytelling pared down to the bare essentials - until music, sound effects, and lighting gradually and sporadically accompany his stories, as well as clips from the film itself.
Gray was in Thailand filming for eight weeks and eight days, playing the small role of an American Ambassador's Aid in Roland Joffé's biographical film. Some of his anecdotes of his time in Southeast Asia include: Having a "bad high" on local marijuana and getting into an argument with his visiting girlfriend, the lines he had to memorize, Thai prostitutes who work at "massage parlors" and appear in shows in which they perform various tricks with their vaginas (think ping-pong balls, glass Coke bottles, and bananas), and his idea of a "perfect moment." He also gives a somewhat simplified version of the history after the war in Vietnam that lead to the genocide in Cambodia, complete with maps and hand pointers as if he were a teacher.
I like to think of this as a performance version of the nonfiction braided essay, where personal anecdotes are interspersed with non-personal, sometimes historical information to make the story more interesting. In this way, his story braided with Cambodian history is made fascinating. His voice is always animated and it's obvious that he has a background as an actor, as many of these moments are made dramatic. One should also consider the layers of storytelling happening here: His monologue is his story of filming a movie: a story about events that really occurred. (Side note; those layers subtly remind me of the documentary Jim and Andy, in which Jim Carrey discusses his role in the 1999 Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon; layers of immortalizing a comedian and the comedian who played him.)
Although it took a few minutes to really "get into," I found this film enjoyable and captivating, both by the stories themselves and the way they are told.
Read
November 27, 2017“Swimming to Cambodia” by Spalding Gray is described as, simultaneously, a monologue about the Cambodian genocide and about the life of one man. After having observed the monologue in its entirety, I would suggest that, rather than being about both in equal measure, it could be more accurately called the story of how learning about the Cambodian Genocide influenced the life of one man. Spalding’s accounts specifically focus on a trip to Thailand he took to participate in the making of the film, “The killing fields,” and the so called “perfect moment” he experienced while there. Over the course of recounting his filming experience, Spalding seems to struggle to come to grips with new experiences and perceptions that are beyond his traditional understanding. He began the shoot with no understanding of the politics involved, and even had to create visual metaphors to remember his technical lines. I believe that the absurdities that Mr. Gray describes, not only the unconscionable deaths in Cambodia, but also the cloying micro-culture of the Thai hotel around him, represent his difficult struggle to come to grips with the breadth of the newfound experiences around him, and the struggles of his mind to expand itself. I believe that his “perfect moment” out at sea is merely the culmination of this expansion.
I enjoyed this piece immensely, having found the humor of it to be neither bitterly aggressive nor conscientiously restrained. In spite of the grizzly subject matter, I found it to be a relaxing film.
I enjoyed this piece immensely, having found the humor of it to be neither bitterly aggressive nor conscientiously restrained. In spite of the grizzly subject matter, I found it to be a relaxing film.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 6, 2025
It took courage to do what Spalding did—courage to make theatre so naked and unadorned, to expose himself in this way and fight the demons in public. In doing so, he entered our hearts—my heart—because he made his struggle my struggle. His life became my life.”—Eric Bogosian
“Virtuosic. A master writer, reporter, comic and playwright. Spalding Gray is a sit-down monologist with the soul of a stand-up comedian. A contemporary Gulliver, he travels the globe in search of experience and finds the ridiculous.”—The New York Times
In 2004, we mourned the loss of one of America’s true theatrical innovators. Spalding Gray took his own life by jumping from the Staten Island ferry into the waters of New York Harbor, finally succumbing to the impossible notion that he could in fact swim to Cambodia. At a memorial gathering for family, friends and fans at Lincoln Center in New York, his widow expressed the need to honor Gray’s legacy as an artist and writer for his children, as well as for future generations of fans and readers. Originally published in 1985, Swimming to Cambodia is reissued here 20 years later in a new edition as a tribute to Gray’s singular artistry.
Writer, actor and performer, Spalding Gray is the author of Sex and Death to the Age 14; Monster in a Box; It’s a Slippery Slope; Gray’s Anatomy and Morning, Noon and Night, among other works. His appearance in The Killing Fields was the inspiration for his Swimming to Cambodia, which was also filmed by Jonathan Demme.
Visit book's web p
“Virtuosic. A master writer, reporter, comic and playwright. Spalding Gray is a sit-down monologist with the soul of a stand-up comedian. A contemporary Gulliver, he travels the globe in search of experience and finds the ridiculous.”—The New York Times
In 2004, we mourned the loss of one of America’s true theatrical innovators. Spalding Gray took his own life by jumping from the Staten Island ferry into the waters of New York Harbor, finally succumbing to the impossible notion that he could in fact swim to Cambodia. At a memorial gathering for family, friends and fans at Lincoln Center in New York, his widow expressed the need to honor Gray’s legacy as an artist and writer for his children, as well as for future generations of fans and readers. Originally published in 1985, Swimming to Cambodia is reissued here 20 years later in a new edition as a tribute to Gray’s singular artistry.
Writer, actor and performer, Spalding Gray is the author of Sex and Death to the Age 14; Monster in a Box; It’s a Slippery Slope; Gray’s Anatomy and Morning, Noon and Night, among other works. His appearance in The Killing Fields was the inspiration for his Swimming to Cambodia, which was also filmed by Jonathan Demme.
Visit book's web p
December 20, 2020
Maybe it's just me, but I found "Swimming to Cambodia" overrated and dull, and I struggled to get through it despite the book's small size. It seems like a lot of reviewers want to fawn over the book because of the performed monologue, which I've never seen, but I think they are two separate art forms. Gray seemed like a great writer in need of a subject, because I felt like the topics here never really coalesced. Apparently, "The Killing Fields" was Gray's first big film. It's a well-regarded film, but it's not exactly "Citizen Kane." Still, a book about the experience of working in the movie industry, no matter the movie, might be interesting. But "Swimming to Cambodia" isn't really that book. Gray writes a little bit about landing the role, then he skips to the end of filming, and suddenly he is listlessly wandering around Thailand, riding on a bus, swimming at a beach, having a crew dinner, then he's back in New York, then the book ends with him in LA searching for an agent. In this case, "monologue" seems to double for "lack of organizing structure." There's a semi-theme that emerges of how the film stands in for real life, with certain Cambodian actors re-enacting scenes from history, playing themselves, and there's an interesting section about how film is a substitute for religion. But these themes aren't really developed. There are a lot of people mentioned in "Swimming to Cambodia," few of whom are familiar to modern readers.
July 30, 2017
I'm not sure I reacted to this short monologue as intended. I heard some people say it was funny, but that was not my reaction, although some events could be construed as humorous. Perhaps it is funnier in delivery, and now I feel as though I must see the movie. But for me, I found it a sad insight into the mind of an insecure, troubled actor, as he details his participation in a movie that was powerful and heartbreaking. The book is more focused on off set incidents and life in an exotic shooting location (Thailand) and relations with the locals (primarily prostitutes), as Gray searches for a supreme moment. Nothing in the book was that mind blowing (ok, perhaps the apparent frequency of Thai women castrating unfaithful husbands made me shiver), though perhaps in the late eighties some of his readers may have been made uncomfortable. Some tidbits about the acting life were interesting, but I felt he really needed mental help, and this felt lie a cry for help (though I may be projecting, in light of his later suicide). I may have to see if any of his stage monologues were taped.
January 25, 2021
James Bond 007 creator Ian Fleming's brother Peter wrote '…the notorious East, where white men go to pieces…' in his book, One’s Company. I was reminded of the line while reading Swimming to Cambodia. Potent marijuana, unlimited alcohol, searing heat, limitless sex on tap, and a culture seemingly geared to fun can spell disaster. Ostensibly a monologue about the fiiming of Cambodia's Killing Fields, which was actually created in Thailand, Spalding Gray squeezes in thoughts about cross-cultural communication, acting, drugs, sex, and 'perfect moments.' As he mentions, he was often on drugs and the monologue often veers in unexpected directions. Entertaining to some, it may be offensive to others. There are some cultural errors which I have explained here:
https://www.quora.com/What-can-you-sa...
https://www.quora.com/What-can-you-sa...
February 28, 2020
Rating this book only 3 stars kind of hurts, because Spalding Gray was an absolutely great monologist - indeed could be credited with the great re-enlivening of the genre in the late 20th century that lead to all the storytelling that we have so much of these days. So why only 3 stars? Because this genre is much better heard than read. I recommend highly any of the films of his monologues, including the film of this book.
May 7, 2020
Spalding Gray is a genius who teaches us how to stay true to your own voice. He brilliantly takes us into his mind as he interprets each situation, encounter and character he is confronted with. Cliche maybe but the truth is he is a MASTER STORYTELLER! Bless his life because he had a tough time on this earth but he most certainly made a deep cut into the atmosphere with his originality and power to follow his instincts artistically. What a great read this is!
June 6, 2017
Anxious, rambling, dark humor that weaves episodes of breathtaking introspection. It's a rare and honest look into a man's greatest trepidations, and concurrently his quest to find that "Perfect Moment" we all want to live, but often don't have cognizance to recognize nor to identify in the deepest recesses of personal reflection.
June 18, 2018
The trouble with well-renowned monologues is that they can tend to sound pretty dry when transferred to the page, and that's unfortunately what I found here. Nonetheless, some pretty amusing anecdotes and I get the feeling Spalding Gray would have been a great dinner guest (with a lot of prodding).
May 19, 2019
So Spalding Gray is hired to work on The Killing Fields, and in so doing learns about himself and the political history of Cambodia. The book sort of pedals back and forth between his movie experiences and his takes on this new culture he explores.
This is just barely a four, but a four. The John Malkovich anecdotes really did it for me.
Recommended for monologists.
This is just barely a four, but a four. The John Malkovich anecdotes really did it for me.
Recommended for monologists.
September 10, 2023
I imagine it is better seen performed than read. My little brother is living in Cambodia right now, which is what drew my eye to this book in the first place as I glanced through the selection in a used bookshop. Definitely some moments where I laughed out loud, and I could relate to Gray’s kind of constant dissatisfaction and longing for life to be something more meaningful than it often is.
April 13, 2018
Always quirky and unconventional, here, in his best known piece, Gray is at his free-associating best. He can shift from the universal to the deeply personal in the same sentence, making for a wild and entertaining ride.
April 16, 2025
Just like the movie of the same name, Gray spins a yarn ostensibly about filming the movie The Killing Fields in Cambodia, but includes every tangent and turn of his odd brain. At times, laugh-out-loud hilarious.
August 15, 2017
Thoughtful, honest, kinda funny, just a touch trippy, and organized with its own internal logic that, well - it makes sense when you read it.
July 13, 2019
Bought my son this . Really intelligent interesting and fantastic narrative structure
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