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The Mosquito Coast
In a breathtaking adventure story, the paranoid and brilliant inventor Allie Fox takes his family to live in the Honduran jungle, determined to build a civilization better than the one they've left. Fleeing from an America he sees as mired in materialism and conformity, he hopes to rediscover a purer life. But his utopian experiment takes a dark turn when his obsessions lead the family toward unimaginable danger.
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First published January 1, 1981
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About the author
Paul Theroux
239 books2,614 followersPaul Edward Theroux is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work is The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), a travelogue about a trip he made by train from Great Britain through Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, through South Asia, then South-East Asia, up through East Asia, as far east as Japan, and then back across Russia to his point of origin. Although perhaps best known as a travelogue writer, Theroux has also published numerous works of fiction, some of which were made into feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel The Mosquito Coast.
He is the father of Marcel and Louis Theroux, and the brother of Alexander and Peter. Justin Theroux is his nephew.
He is the father of Marcel and Louis Theroux, and the brother of Alexander and Peter. Justin Theroux is his nephew.
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April 13, 2025
The film adaptation from the mid-1980s with Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren and River Phoenix (cast as the teenage narrator) had such an impact on me. I knew I would read the novel one day, even if it was to see how well the director, Peter Weir, recreated it for the screen.
Both the novel and film are brilliant, depicting how this teenager was torn between idolising and dreading his strong-willed, ingenious but often cruel father who takes his family to Honduras as a means to escape a capitalist America, only to refashion some of those exploitations in the jungle. Some reviewers have called it child abuse disguised as wanting to protect the children, and I wouldn’t strongly argue against that.
The writing helps you feel the incessant hum of the insects and stickiness of the jungle:
‘The river water changed its colour with every change in the weather, and it was different at every hour. I liked it brassy, its daytime green, the red mudbank showing underneath like a soaked cake, its shoving, slipping bunches of spinach, the way it moved through the unmoving jungle.’
A couple of fun facts I found out after reading = the author's family consists of other writers, actors and documentary makers, including his son, Louis Theroux and his nephew, Justin Theroux who played the father figure in a recent TV series adaptation.
Both the novel and film are brilliant, depicting how this teenager was torn between idolising and dreading his strong-willed, ingenious but often cruel father who takes his family to Honduras as a means to escape a capitalist America, only to refashion some of those exploitations in the jungle. Some reviewers have called it child abuse disguised as wanting to protect the children, and I wouldn’t strongly argue against that.
The writing helps you feel the incessant hum of the insects and stickiness of the jungle:
‘The river water changed its colour with every change in the weather, and it was different at every hour. I liked it brassy, its daytime green, the red mudbank showing underneath like a soaked cake, its shoving, slipping bunches of spinach, the way it moved through the unmoving jungle.’
A couple of fun facts I found out after reading = the author's family consists of other writers, actors and documentary makers, including his son, Louis Theroux and his nephew, Justin Theroux who played the father figure in a recent TV series adaptation.
July 24, 2018
My introduction to the fiction of Paul Theroux is The Mosquito Coast and readers in search of the Great American Novel would be hard pressed to find a more thrilling definition of the term. Not that there haven't been novels of high literary merit set in mundane locations, but the Great American Novel takes its characters on a great journey--physically, spiritually, often both--and says something definitive about the U.S.A. in the era in which it is set. Published in 1982, this novel achieves that, introducing an ingenious but self-destructive man whose obsessions drag his family off the map, where he's determined to keep gambling on his grandiose ideas until he has nothing left to lose.
The story is narrated by Charlie Fox, a fourteen-year-old who lives with his family outside of Hatfield, Massachusetts. Kept out of school with his younger siblings Jerry and twins April & Clover, Charlie spends his time with Father, Allie Fox, an inventor ("Nine patents," he liked to say, "Six pending.") who dropped out of Harvard to get what he considered a real education. Allie works for an asparagus farmer named Tiny Polski fixing things and inventing others, like a scale model box that generates ice from enriched ammonia and high-pressure hydrogen without any electricity or gas. Father dubs his invention Fat Boy.
Polski refers to Fat Boy as a "contraption" and seeing no application for it on his farm, is largely unimpressed. Father gives his working model to the migrant workers who live on the farm and who the inventor refers to with both admiration and derision as "the savages." What Allie Fox most likes to do other than take things apart is rant: free trade, education, pollution, crime, energy, nutrition, entertainment (the Foxes do not own a TV), etc. A trip to a hardware store in Northampton is enough to push him past the boiling point. He is far from optimistic about the direction the country is headed.
I'm the last man! That had been Father's frequent yell.
It was painful, back in my bed, in the dark unlocked house, not dreaming but thinking. I felt small and shrunken. Father, who believed there was going to be a war in America, had prepared me for his death. All winter, he had been saying, "It's coming--something terrible is going to happen here." He was restless and talkative. He said the signs were everywhere. In the high prices, the bad tempers, the gut worry. In the stupidity and greed of people, and in the hoggish fatness of them. Bloody crimes were being committed in cities, and criminals went unpunished. It was not going to be an ordinary war, he said, but rather a war in which no side was entirely innocent.
"Fat fools will be fighting skinny criminals," he said. "You'll hate one and be scared of the other. It'll be national brain damage. Who's left to trust?"
Without telling Charlie what's going on, Father and his compassionate but obedient wife Mother take the children to Springfield to purchase tents, canteens, cotton cloth, needles and thread, mosquito netting, fifty pounds of hybrid seeds. The field workers pay Father a visit, conferring over a map and giving him a machete as a gift. Leaving everything except for the camping equipment and most of Father's tools, they drive to Baltimore and board a cargo vessel. Charlie meets a family of missionaries, whose hip daughter Emily Spellgood takes a liking to him, and earns the confidence of Captain Smalls.
Charlie is embarrassed by his father’s humiliation of those he considers himself superior to. The boy's encounters with Emily remind him just how abnormal the Foxes are and he's glad they're headed where no one will see him: Mosquitia, the virgin jungle of Honduras. Just as Polski tried to warn Charlie about his dad ("Your father's the most obnoxious man I've ever met," Polski said. "He is the worst kind of pain in the neck--a know-it-all who's sometimes vight.") the captain advises Charlie that while the Indians live an easy life, for the Foxes, it will be like living in a zoo where the animals are free and he's the one in a cage.
Upon landing in La Ceiba, Charlie is enchanted by the stillness of the port, but seeing it in the harsh daylight, finds it hot and stinking and chaotic. Father, a fluent Spanish speaker, acquits himself wonderfully with strangers he wants to impress, such as a drunken German who for a sum of four hundred dollars, sells Allie his one-acre farm someplace up the Aguan River known as Jeronimo. Passage is booked on a launch piloted by Mr. Haddy, a mariner who like everyone else, buckles under the willpower of Charlie's father, letting him steer the boat all the way up the river to their new home.
Jeronimo reminded me of one time when we were in Massachusetts, and fishing. Father pointed to a small black stump and said, "That's the state line there." I looked at this rotten stump--the state line! Jeronimo was like that. We had to be told what it was. We would not have taken it for a town. It had a huge tree, a trunk-pillar propping up a blimp of leafy branches with tiny jays in it. It was a guanacaste, and under it was a half-acre of shade. The remnants of Weerwilly's shack and his failure were still there, looking sad and accidental. But these leftover ruins only made Jeronimo seem wilder this wet afternoon.
Along with Mr. Haddy, Father wins over a dozen Zambu Indians who live in the area, most of whom speak English, including a family squatting in Weerwilly's shack who Father asks to stay, putting them to work along with his family. His first invention is a paddle wheel on the river that moves water through pipes into a bathhouse, where the settlement can wash clothes, bathe and boil water. The natives remain dubious about the contraption, noting that water is readily available during the rainy season and can be fetched from the river with a bucket any time. Father moves ahead. Land is cleared, waterproof bamboo huts built and miracle seeds planted.
Work begins on a silo. Though Charlie recognizes what it is, Father keeps everyone else in suspense until a full scale version of Fat Boy delivers ice to the jungle. Everything Allie Fox has promised--food, water, shelter--is achieved and other than an unannounced visit from a missionary who Father chases away, no one bothers them. Mother is open to learning the Zambu ways for skinning and smoking meat or hanging peppers and the children build a hidden campsite with access to indigenous water and food, but Father becomes obsessed with spurring innovation and self-sufficiency among Indians of the region.
After failing to find an Indian settlement untouched by the white man along the river, Allie sets off with his gift of ice over the mountains, despite warnings from the Zambu that "They always troubles there. Contrabanders. Shouljers. Feefs. People from Nicaragua way." Taking Charlie and Jerry, they find an Indian settlement which appears to have three English speaking slaves. Father tells the captured men about Jeronimo and compels them to slip away. When the men show up, armed with rifles, Allie realizes that it was the Indians who were being held prisoner by the soldiers, who decide to stay in Jeronimo indefinitely. Allie finds this intrusion unacceptable.
The Mosquito Coast pushes its chips onto the table to tell an adventure story with ideas just as big as the trek the characters undertake. At the time of its publication, Allie Fox may have seemed like an aberration, that uncle whose rants about society are endured once a year at Thanksgiving. Thanks to social media, his type seem like they're everywhere today, white men disparaging everything from government to free trade to immigration to breakfast cereal to television. Rather than parroting talk radio, Fox is able to think for himself, and demonstrate that his solutions are right nine times out of ten. But when he's wrong, he's really, really wrong.
Theroux appeals to that pioneer in us who suspects something is rotten in America and fantasizes about getting out of here, to take on virgin nature with our ingenuity and live free. Fox's inventions--with names like Thunder Box or Atom-smasher--are the creation of a wily engineer yet are described with the language of a natural storyteller. I would have never thought there were forty different ways to beautifully and vividly describe a dirt poor country like Honduras, but Theroux does it, tickling our imaginations with his prose like National Geographic does with their color photographs as he describes the life of a jungle settler.
It was not an easy life these first weeks in Jeronimo. It was no coconut kingdom of free food and grass huts and sunny days, under the bam, under the boo. Wilderness was ugly and unusable, and where were the dangerous animals? There was something stubborn about jungle trees, the way they crowded each other and gave us no shade. I saw cruelty in the hanging vines and selfishness in their root systems. This was work, and more work, and a routine that took up every daylight hour. On the Unicorn and in La Ceiba, and even in Hatfield, we had done pretty much what we pleased. Father had left us alone and gone about his own business. Usually I had helped him, but sometimes not. Here, things were different.
One aspect of the novel that comes up short for me is that Allie Fox overpowers every other character in the story. He's a cue ball that strikes all the other balls on the table, moving them but only in relation to him. I anticipated Charlie asserting himself more and mounting a battle of wills against his father as his decision making becomes more questionable, but this expectation was entirely of my own design and unfair to criticize the author for. The Mosquito Coast may be best appreciated as a journal written by Charlie and documenting how, like America's action in Vietnam, Americans enter the jungle with too many resources, too many ideas and little by little, go insane.
Theroux's novel served as the source material for an overlooked movie released in 1986 starring Harrison Ford as Allie Fox, Helen Mirren as Mother and River Phoenix as Charlie Fox. Audiences were not sold on Ford playing something of a bad guy in a family tragedy and The Mosquito Coast was a commercial failure. Working with Peter Weir, the Australian filmmaker who'd directed Ford in Witness and has never made a bad movie, Ford is Allie Fox and gives a riveting performance completely against his virtuous type. The movie is definitely worth a look.
The story is narrated by Charlie Fox, a fourteen-year-old who lives with his family outside of Hatfield, Massachusetts. Kept out of school with his younger siblings Jerry and twins April & Clover, Charlie spends his time with Father, Allie Fox, an inventor ("Nine patents," he liked to say, "Six pending.") who dropped out of Harvard to get what he considered a real education. Allie works for an asparagus farmer named Tiny Polski fixing things and inventing others, like a scale model box that generates ice from enriched ammonia and high-pressure hydrogen without any electricity or gas. Father dubs his invention Fat Boy.
Polski refers to Fat Boy as a "contraption" and seeing no application for it on his farm, is largely unimpressed. Father gives his working model to the migrant workers who live on the farm and who the inventor refers to with both admiration and derision as "the savages." What Allie Fox most likes to do other than take things apart is rant: free trade, education, pollution, crime, energy, nutrition, entertainment (the Foxes do not own a TV), etc. A trip to a hardware store in Northampton is enough to push him past the boiling point. He is far from optimistic about the direction the country is headed.
I'm the last man! That had been Father's frequent yell.
It was painful, back in my bed, in the dark unlocked house, not dreaming but thinking. I felt small and shrunken. Father, who believed there was going to be a war in America, had prepared me for his death. All winter, he had been saying, "It's coming--something terrible is going to happen here." He was restless and talkative. He said the signs were everywhere. In the high prices, the bad tempers, the gut worry. In the stupidity and greed of people, and in the hoggish fatness of them. Bloody crimes were being committed in cities, and criminals went unpunished. It was not going to be an ordinary war, he said, but rather a war in which no side was entirely innocent.
"Fat fools will be fighting skinny criminals," he said. "You'll hate one and be scared of the other. It'll be national brain damage. Who's left to trust?"
Without telling Charlie what's going on, Father and his compassionate but obedient wife Mother take the children to Springfield to purchase tents, canteens, cotton cloth, needles and thread, mosquito netting, fifty pounds of hybrid seeds. The field workers pay Father a visit, conferring over a map and giving him a machete as a gift. Leaving everything except for the camping equipment and most of Father's tools, they drive to Baltimore and board a cargo vessel. Charlie meets a family of missionaries, whose hip daughter Emily Spellgood takes a liking to him, and earns the confidence of Captain Smalls.
Charlie is embarrassed by his father’s humiliation of those he considers himself superior to. The boy's encounters with Emily remind him just how abnormal the Foxes are and he's glad they're headed where no one will see him: Mosquitia, the virgin jungle of Honduras. Just as Polski tried to warn Charlie about his dad ("Your father's the most obnoxious man I've ever met," Polski said. "He is the worst kind of pain in the neck--a know-it-all who's sometimes vight.") the captain advises Charlie that while the Indians live an easy life, for the Foxes, it will be like living in a zoo where the animals are free and he's the one in a cage.
Upon landing in La Ceiba, Charlie is enchanted by the stillness of the port, but seeing it in the harsh daylight, finds it hot and stinking and chaotic. Father, a fluent Spanish speaker, acquits himself wonderfully with strangers he wants to impress, such as a drunken German who for a sum of four hundred dollars, sells Allie his one-acre farm someplace up the Aguan River known as Jeronimo. Passage is booked on a launch piloted by Mr. Haddy, a mariner who like everyone else, buckles under the willpower of Charlie's father, letting him steer the boat all the way up the river to their new home.
Jeronimo reminded me of one time when we were in Massachusetts, and fishing. Father pointed to a small black stump and said, "That's the state line there." I looked at this rotten stump--the state line! Jeronimo was like that. We had to be told what it was. We would not have taken it for a town. It had a huge tree, a trunk-pillar propping up a blimp of leafy branches with tiny jays in it. It was a guanacaste, and under it was a half-acre of shade. The remnants of Weerwilly's shack and his failure were still there, looking sad and accidental. But these leftover ruins only made Jeronimo seem wilder this wet afternoon.
Along with Mr. Haddy, Father wins over a dozen Zambu Indians who live in the area, most of whom speak English, including a family squatting in Weerwilly's shack who Father asks to stay, putting them to work along with his family. His first invention is a paddle wheel on the river that moves water through pipes into a bathhouse, where the settlement can wash clothes, bathe and boil water. The natives remain dubious about the contraption, noting that water is readily available during the rainy season and can be fetched from the river with a bucket any time. Father moves ahead. Land is cleared, waterproof bamboo huts built and miracle seeds planted.
Work begins on a silo. Though Charlie recognizes what it is, Father keeps everyone else in suspense until a full scale version of Fat Boy delivers ice to the jungle. Everything Allie Fox has promised--food, water, shelter--is achieved and other than an unannounced visit from a missionary who Father chases away, no one bothers them. Mother is open to learning the Zambu ways for skinning and smoking meat or hanging peppers and the children build a hidden campsite with access to indigenous water and food, but Father becomes obsessed with spurring innovation and self-sufficiency among Indians of the region.
After failing to find an Indian settlement untouched by the white man along the river, Allie sets off with his gift of ice over the mountains, despite warnings from the Zambu that "They always troubles there. Contrabanders. Shouljers. Feefs. People from Nicaragua way." Taking Charlie and Jerry, they find an Indian settlement which appears to have three English speaking slaves. Father tells the captured men about Jeronimo and compels them to slip away. When the men show up, armed with rifles, Allie realizes that it was the Indians who were being held prisoner by the soldiers, who decide to stay in Jeronimo indefinitely. Allie finds this intrusion unacceptable.
The Mosquito Coast pushes its chips onto the table to tell an adventure story with ideas just as big as the trek the characters undertake. At the time of its publication, Allie Fox may have seemed like an aberration, that uncle whose rants about society are endured once a year at Thanksgiving. Thanks to social media, his type seem like they're everywhere today, white men disparaging everything from government to free trade to immigration to breakfast cereal to television. Rather than parroting talk radio, Fox is able to think for himself, and demonstrate that his solutions are right nine times out of ten. But when he's wrong, he's really, really wrong.
Theroux appeals to that pioneer in us who suspects something is rotten in America and fantasizes about getting out of here, to take on virgin nature with our ingenuity and live free. Fox's inventions--with names like Thunder Box or Atom-smasher--are the creation of a wily engineer yet are described with the language of a natural storyteller. I would have never thought there were forty different ways to beautifully and vividly describe a dirt poor country like Honduras, but Theroux does it, tickling our imaginations with his prose like National Geographic does with their color photographs as he describes the life of a jungle settler.
It was not an easy life these first weeks in Jeronimo. It was no coconut kingdom of free food and grass huts and sunny days, under the bam, under the boo. Wilderness was ugly and unusable, and where were the dangerous animals? There was something stubborn about jungle trees, the way they crowded each other and gave us no shade. I saw cruelty in the hanging vines and selfishness in their root systems. This was work, and more work, and a routine that took up every daylight hour. On the Unicorn and in La Ceiba, and even in Hatfield, we had done pretty much what we pleased. Father had left us alone and gone about his own business. Usually I had helped him, but sometimes not. Here, things were different.
One aspect of the novel that comes up short for me is that Allie Fox overpowers every other character in the story. He's a cue ball that strikes all the other balls on the table, moving them but only in relation to him. I anticipated Charlie asserting himself more and mounting a battle of wills against his father as his decision making becomes more questionable, but this expectation was entirely of my own design and unfair to criticize the author for. The Mosquito Coast may be best appreciated as a journal written by Charlie and documenting how, like America's action in Vietnam, Americans enter the jungle with too many resources, too many ideas and little by little, go insane.
Theroux's novel served as the source material for an overlooked movie released in 1986 starring Harrison Ford as Allie Fox, Helen Mirren as Mother and River Phoenix as Charlie Fox. Audiences were not sold on Ford playing something of a bad guy in a family tragedy and The Mosquito Coast was a commercial failure. Working with Peter Weir, the Australian filmmaker who'd directed Ford in Witness and has never made a bad movie, Ford is Allie Fox and gives a riveting performance completely against his virtuous type. The movie is definitely worth a look.
April 19, 2024
It’s a hard book to categorise, this one: coming-of-age yarn, adventure story, literary fiction? Well, in truth, all of the above. I’d read one of the author’s renowned travel books (which I thoroughly enjoyed), but this was my first experience of his fiction. And a pretty good experience it turned out to be.
Allie Fox is an engineer, an inventor, and a bombastic know-it-all. Fed up with America – it’s fast food, television, religion and pretty much everything else – he surprises his family one day by packing up the car and decamping, with them in tow, to the jungles of Honduras. A bit drastic? Well, not for Allie! He’d already demonstrated that (to his own satisfaction at least) he knew more than anyone else about just about everything, so this was his opportunity to identify a new audience and some virgin territory in which to build his ideal world.
In truth, the first section of the book – pre the moonlight flit – was high octane stuff. Allie, despite his downsides, did actually demonstrate that he was quite a clever bloke, and he did seem to have some good ideas and decent engineering skills. His encounters with just about everyone he came across, though, ended with him ranting about just how rubbish everything he’d not himself invented was. It was, at times, hilarious.
Once the family – Allie, his wife and four children - had reached deepest jungle territory, the tempo dropped, and, for me, the book went into a temporary lull. The energy had gone out of the story, and it was noticeable that it only picked up whenever Allie was centre page.
Thankfully, this was only temporary. The final section of the book became a wild adventure as the family’s future was thrown into the balance, and they were forced to confront the confirmation that Allie was not always right.
The tale is narrated by Charlie, the eldest son. Through his initially naïve, teenage eyes, we witness these events unfolding and bear witness to his inner thoughts. It’s all very cleverly done. We see Charlie grow up before our eyes as he gradually discovers the truth about his domineering father and is faced with important decisions that could decide the ultimate fate of the family.
Some great characters are introduced along the way – I particularly loved Mr Haddy – and it’s by and large a very entertaining romp. Though, that’s probably not doing it justice. It’s more accurately a fine work of fiction by a writer who obviously has more than one string to his bow. If you’ve yet to experience the power and dexterity of Theroux’s prose, then I’d urge you to grab one of his books and give it a try. Whether you choose his fact or his fiction, I’d wager you’ll be amused and charmed by his ability to put words on a page.
Allie Fox is an engineer, an inventor, and a bombastic know-it-all. Fed up with America – it’s fast food, television, religion and pretty much everything else – he surprises his family one day by packing up the car and decamping, with them in tow, to the jungles of Honduras. A bit drastic? Well, not for Allie! He’d already demonstrated that (to his own satisfaction at least) he knew more than anyone else about just about everything, so this was his opportunity to identify a new audience and some virgin territory in which to build his ideal world.
In truth, the first section of the book – pre the moonlight flit – was high octane stuff. Allie, despite his downsides, did actually demonstrate that he was quite a clever bloke, and he did seem to have some good ideas and decent engineering skills. His encounters with just about everyone he came across, though, ended with him ranting about just how rubbish everything he’d not himself invented was. It was, at times, hilarious.
Once the family – Allie, his wife and four children - had reached deepest jungle territory, the tempo dropped, and, for me, the book went into a temporary lull. The energy had gone out of the story, and it was noticeable that it only picked up whenever Allie was centre page.
Thankfully, this was only temporary. The final section of the book became a wild adventure as the family’s future was thrown into the balance, and they were forced to confront the confirmation that Allie was not always right.
The tale is narrated by Charlie, the eldest son. Through his initially naïve, teenage eyes, we witness these events unfolding and bear witness to his inner thoughts. It’s all very cleverly done. We see Charlie grow up before our eyes as he gradually discovers the truth about his domineering father and is faced with important decisions that could decide the ultimate fate of the family.
Some great characters are introduced along the way – I particularly loved Mr Haddy – and it’s by and large a very entertaining romp. Though, that’s probably not doing it justice. It’s more accurately a fine work of fiction by a writer who obviously has more than one string to his bow. If you’ve yet to experience the power and dexterity of Theroux’s prose, then I’d urge you to grab one of his books and give it a try. Whether you choose his fact or his fiction, I’d wager you’ll be amused and charmed by his ability to put words on a page.
March 7, 2016
An overzealous father uproots his family in the middle of the night to leave America, with only their clothes on their back, to journey to the deep jungles of Honduras. Here he has grandiose hopes to build a radical new civilization in which he is the leader of. Although a brilliant inventor, he is both paranoid and manic and the journey that transpires is both disastrous and dangerous, putting his family at risk. The story is taken from the perspective of his eldest son, Charlie, who throughout attempts reconcile the man whom he loves with the mad man whom he has become. Themes of water, fire, religion rebound throughout the novel. What started out as a slow burn became a raging inferno of a story. 4 ****
dnf
August 29, 2015Sometimes you just have to say, this is not the book for me. I could plow through it for the sake of my book club, but why put myself through 3 or 4 hours of angst and misery, reading about a wildly dysfunctional family trying to create their own utopia in the jungles of the Honduras?
In an intellectual way I appreciate that the father, Allie Fox, is an amazing character, but he's just painful for me to read about. It was like fingernails on a chalkboard. He pursues one scheme after another, with his family deep in poverty. He thinks society and technology are degenerate (unless it's something he himself has invented). He's brilliant, loud-mouthed, rude, abusive to his family, mentally unbalanced, a know-it-all, and doesn't listen to anyone. It's a combination guaranteed to drive me nuts in real life, and I just can't enjoy reading about him, or what he puts his poor wife and kids through.
So I skipped to the end and read the last few pages. Don't tell my husband -- he hates when I do that. #sorrynotsorry
DNF @ 22%.
In an intellectual way I appreciate that the father, Allie Fox, is an amazing character, but he's just painful for me to read about. It was like fingernails on a chalkboard. He pursues one scheme after another, with his family deep in poverty. He thinks society and technology are degenerate (unless it's something he himself has invented). He's brilliant, loud-mouthed, rude, abusive to his family, mentally unbalanced, a know-it-all, and doesn't listen to anyone. It's a combination guaranteed to drive me nuts in real life, and I just can't enjoy reading about him, or what he puts his poor wife and kids through.
So I skipped to the end and read the last few pages. Don't tell my husband -- he hates when I do that. #sorrynotsorry
DNF @ 22%.
November 4, 2024
I first watched the movie in high school and felt deeply moved by it. Read the book a few years after graduating college and was equally swept. Saw the new Apple TV series last year and turned it off - diverged too much from the book.
For many years, if someone asked me what my favorite book was, I probably answered The Mosquito Coast. With MAGA politics dominating these days and the xenophobia and white and western evangelical Christian supremacy that flows through its lifeblood, I'm reminded The Mosquito Coast remains timeless in its aptness for as long as xenophobia and white and western evangelical Christian supremacy exists in the US.
For many years, if someone asked me what my favorite book was, I probably answered The Mosquito Coast. With MAGA politics dominating these days and the xenophobia and white and western evangelical Christian supremacy that flows through its lifeblood, I'm reminded The Mosquito Coast remains timeless in its aptness for as long as xenophobia and white and western evangelical Christian supremacy exists in the US.
March 5, 2021
I am shocked that Paul Theroux has written such a book. I am shocked that he wanted to have it published with him as its author. I read it to the very end. I thought there had to be something good here, something I was missing, but no, it gets worse and worse as you go. Don’t even consider reading this. Phew, I am so glad it is over!
The story is set in the late 70s, early 80s. The central protagonist is an American going by the name of Allie Fox. He is married, has a son of thirteen years, a younger son of ten and twin girls, five years of age. He believes America is doomed. He rails at consumerism, all foreigners and foreign products, fat people and fast foods and lots of other things too. Basically, he is critical of everything American, but keep in mind that back in the 70s this was a common sentiment. He is rude, obnoxious, abusive, arrogant and always thinks he knows best about everything. What comes out of this guy’s mouth gets on your nerves. I searched very hard to find something to like about him. I try to be fair. All I can come up with is that he is not lazy and rather than only complaining, he takes steps to change the situation he dislikes. So, he picks up his family and leaves America for Honduras. There is no discussion. In this family, he is the boss. He is off to the tropics to show it is possible to live in another way.
Allie is an inventor; he is great at making mechanical gadgets. He has created an ice-making machine, the genius of it being that it runs without electricity. In the tropics such a machine is sure to be an immediate success and highly appreciated. Ice is a preservative, alleviates pain and reduces swelling. He and his family are there for a little bit more than one year. The story is about what happens there.
The book looks at those individuals that go against the current. This is theme number one. Allie is such a man, but his behavior is so excessive and so exaggerated that it loses credibility. A second theme is the relationship between Allie and his two sons. In this respect it is also a coming of age story, about freeing one’s self from parental ties. A corny teenage love attraction and family squabbles are thrown in for good measure.
Make no mistake, this is an adventure story. It is intended to excite, to thrill and incite horror. This is not my cup of tea. It may be yours.
The story is too long and drawn out. What occurs is so implausible it totally boggles the mind.
The characters are black and white cutouts. They are flat. They represent typical kinds of people rather than being complicated and nuanced as people really are.
I grappled with what the book’s message was meant to be. That traditional ways of doing things are to be valued? That modern inventions can be taken too far? That people often take comfort in the easy way out? These are not groundbreaking ideas.
I do not think this book is intended to make you think. It is intended to excite and scare you. At best it could be said to be noisy and colorful.
David Aaron Baker narrates the audiobook. I have given his performance three stars. He is performing, not simply reading the text, and I must admit this does fit the kind of book that it is. It fits the book, but I did not like the book, so what does this say about the narration? It says that it reinforces the unpleasant reading experience, but it seems unfair to me to blame a narrator for how a book is written. It is not hard to follow. Baker has a tendency to sing out the lines. This annoyed me particularly in the beginning, but after a while I got used to it.
********************
Non-fiction
*Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads 4 stars
*The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas 4 stars
*Ghost Train to the Eastern Star 4 stars
*The Last Train to Zona Verde: My Ultimate African Safari 4 stars
Fiction
*The Mosquito Coast 1 star
*The Lower RiverTBR
I will try one more book of fiction by the author. Did I try the wrong book? Is The Mosquito Coast perhaps simply an exception?
The story is set in the late 70s, early 80s. The central protagonist is an American going by the name of Allie Fox. He is married, has a son of thirteen years, a younger son of ten and twin girls, five years of age. He believes America is doomed. He rails at consumerism, all foreigners and foreign products, fat people and fast foods and lots of other things too. Basically, he is critical of everything American, but keep in mind that back in the 70s this was a common sentiment. He is rude, obnoxious, abusive, arrogant and always thinks he knows best about everything. What comes out of this guy’s mouth gets on your nerves. I searched very hard to find something to like about him. I try to be fair. All I can come up with is that he is not lazy and rather than only complaining, he takes steps to change the situation he dislikes. So, he picks up his family and leaves America for Honduras. There is no discussion. In this family, he is the boss. He is off to the tropics to show it is possible to live in another way.
Allie is an inventor; he is great at making mechanical gadgets. He has created an ice-making machine, the genius of it being that it runs without electricity. In the tropics such a machine is sure to be an immediate success and highly appreciated. Ice is a preservative, alleviates pain and reduces swelling. He and his family are there for a little bit more than one year. The story is about what happens there.
The book looks at those individuals that go against the current. This is theme number one. Allie is such a man, but his behavior is so excessive and so exaggerated that it loses credibility. A second theme is the relationship between Allie and his two sons. In this respect it is also a coming of age story, about freeing one’s self from parental ties. A corny teenage love attraction and family squabbles are thrown in for good measure.
Make no mistake, this is an adventure story. It is intended to excite, to thrill and incite horror. This is not my cup of tea. It may be yours.
The story is too long and drawn out. What occurs is so implausible it totally boggles the mind.
The characters are black and white cutouts. They are flat. They represent typical kinds of people rather than being complicated and nuanced as people really are.
I grappled with what the book’s message was meant to be. That traditional ways of doing things are to be valued? That modern inventions can be taken too far? That people often take comfort in the easy way out? These are not groundbreaking ideas.
I do not think this book is intended to make you think. It is intended to excite and scare you. At best it could be said to be noisy and colorful.
David Aaron Baker narrates the audiobook. I have given his performance three stars. He is performing, not simply reading the text, and I must admit this does fit the kind of book that it is. It fits the book, but I did not like the book, so what does this say about the narration? It says that it reinforces the unpleasant reading experience, but it seems unfair to me to blame a narrator for how a book is written. It is not hard to follow. Baker has a tendency to sing out the lines. This annoyed me particularly in the beginning, but after a while I got used to it.
********************
Non-fiction
*Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads 4 stars
*The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas 4 stars
*Ghost Train to the Eastern Star 4 stars
*The Last Train to Zona Verde: My Ultimate African Safari 4 stars
Fiction
*The Mosquito Coast 1 star
*The Lower RiverTBR
I will try one more book of fiction by the author. Did I try the wrong book? Is The Mosquito Coast perhaps simply an exception?
March 7, 2013
I do research in spoken language technology, building software that people can talk to. Right now, our main project is an app that lets beginning language students practice their speaking skills; if you're interested, you can find out more here. We have been working on it for about three and half years, and so far we don't really know if it's a good idea or not. We get mixed messages from the people who have tried it out. Some of them are enthusiastic and say it's really improved their French or Japanese. Others complain about this and that: not fast enough, speech recognition isn't sufficiently reliable, doesn't let you practice enough different things. We continue with it, because we believe in the basic concept, but it's quite possible we're just going down a dead end.
I read this book about 25 years ago, when I was starting out in this field, and it's a frightening parable for anyone who works with new technology. Ally Fox is a gifted engineer who completely lacks any kind of common sense. He conceives an insane plan to move his family to Honduras and set up house in the jungle. He will build an enormous refrigerator and make large quantities of ice. The near-savage inhabitants of the area have never seen ice. For no particular reason, Fox is convinced that they will be amazed and thrilled by it.
They locate a good spot to pitch camp, they build their house and their monster refrigerator, but no one comes asking for ice. Fox decides he has to go to the clients. He wraps up some big blocks of ice, insulating them as well as he can, and sets off to find his user base.
If you're in the tech innovation business yourself, you will probably find this book fascinating. But be warned that it could also give you nightmares.
I read this book about 25 years ago, when I was starting out in this field, and it's a frightening parable for anyone who works with new technology. Ally Fox is a gifted engineer who completely lacks any kind of common sense. He conceives an insane plan to move his family to Honduras and set up house in the jungle. He will build an enormous refrigerator and make large quantities of ice. The near-savage inhabitants of the area have never seen ice. For no particular reason, Fox is convinced that they will be amazed and thrilled by it.
They locate a good spot to pitch camp, they build their house and their monster refrigerator, but no one comes asking for ice. Fox decides he has to go to the clients. He wraps up some big blocks of ice, insulating them as well as he can, and sets off to find his user base.
If you're in the tech innovation business yourself, you will probably find this book fascinating. But be warned that it could also give you nightmares.
July 19, 2018
" ülkenin uyuşturucu müptelası, evlerinin kapılarını kilitleyen, ülserli, müsrif çapulculardan, cani milyonerlerden ve ahlakçı gammazlardan oluşan bir tehlike bölgesi haline geldiğini anlattı. Ya şu okulların durumu? Hele de politikacılar. Patlak bir lastiği değiştirebilecek veya on şınav çekebilecek tek bir Harvard mezunu bulamazdın. New York City’de kedi köpek mamasıyla karnını doyuran, bozuk para için adam öldürecek insanlar vardı. Bu normal miydi şimdi? Peki değilse, neden kimse sesini çıkarmıyordu?"
Bu kitap " Osurukçu" Allie Fox, Harvard ve medeniyet kaçkını mucidimizin eşi ve dört çocuğu ile birlikte Amerika ve temsil ettiği her şeyden kaçışın hikayesi. Plastik ürün, diet cola, fast food gıda, geri zekalı yetiştirme merkezi okullar ve işlevsiz teknolojisiyle Amerika yıkımın eşiğindedir. Ciklet ve vaizlerin yozlaştırdığı, kaosa teşne apokaliptik dünyada ayakta kalan son insan Allie Fox’dur ve ailesini kurtarmak için, ailesine danışmadan Honduras’ın din, eğitim, medeniyet girmemiş ormanlarına doğru yolculuğa çıkılır. Lakin Allie, cangıla küçük Amerika’sını da yanında taşımıştır; "dünyayı olduğu gibi kabul etmek yabaniliktir, batıl inançlı olmaktır. Kurcala ve bir faydasını bul" felsefesi ile cangılı ailesi, Zambular, oraya sığınmışlar için kendi medeniyetini kurma adına adeta çalışma kampına çevirir. Edebiyatta en bilinen örneğini Robinson Cruose’da gördüğümüz medeni insanın "düştüğü" doğayı modernleştirme çabası kitabın da önemli izleklerinden. Yalnız şöyle bir durum var; bu eserde doğaya düşme değil, modernitenin yıkıcı şehrinden, şerrinden kaçıp doğaya dönme vardır; yola böyle çıkılır. Ancak isyankar oğlu Jerry’nin yerinde tabiriyle "Osurukçu" Allie’nin -nam-ı diğer son insanın- doğaya teknolojik müdahalesi cangılı zehirler, yaşanmaz hale getirir. Başka bir dünyaya doğru yeniden yola düşülecektir.
Peter Weir tarafından beyazperdeye de aktarılan bu romanı evin büyük oğlu Charlie’nin dilinden dinliyoruz, ki bu okura Allie’ye katlanma imkanı sağlıyor. Kendinden gayrısına kör bir doğrucu Davut’un öğreten adam, gardiyan, zorba hattında ilerleyen yıkımından bir alıntı ile bitireyim yazımı, herkese iyi okumalar.
“"Yirminci yüzyılın hastalıklarından biri mi?" dedi. "Size en kötüsünü anlatayım. İnsanlar yalnız kalmaya dayanamıyorlar! Buna katlanamıyorlar! Bu yüzden sinemaya gidiyor, arabalarıyla hamburger alıyor, telefon numaralarını paçavralara yazdırıp " Lütfen beni ara!" diyorlar. Bu, hastalık. Kendileriyle olmaktan nefret ediyorlar, kendilerini aynada görünce ağlıyorlar.”
Bu kitap " Osurukçu" Allie Fox, Harvard ve medeniyet kaçkını mucidimizin eşi ve dört çocuğu ile birlikte Amerika ve temsil ettiği her şeyden kaçışın hikayesi. Plastik ürün, diet cola, fast food gıda, geri zekalı yetiştirme merkezi okullar ve işlevsiz teknolojisiyle Amerika yıkımın eşiğindedir. Ciklet ve vaizlerin yozlaştırdığı, kaosa teşne apokaliptik dünyada ayakta kalan son insan Allie Fox’dur ve ailesini kurtarmak için, ailesine danışmadan Honduras’ın din, eğitim, medeniyet girmemiş ormanlarına doğru yolculuğa çıkılır. Lakin Allie, cangıla küçük Amerika’sını da yanında taşımıştır; "dünyayı olduğu gibi kabul etmek yabaniliktir, batıl inançlı olmaktır. Kurcala ve bir faydasını bul" felsefesi ile cangılı ailesi, Zambular, oraya sığınmışlar için kendi medeniyetini kurma adına adeta çalışma kampına çevirir. Edebiyatta en bilinen örneğini Robinson Cruose’da gördüğümüz medeni insanın "düştüğü" doğayı modernleştirme çabası kitabın da önemli izleklerinden. Yalnız şöyle bir durum var; bu eserde doğaya düşme değil, modernitenin yıkıcı şehrinden, şerrinden kaçıp doğaya dönme vardır; yola böyle çıkılır. Ancak isyankar oğlu Jerry’nin yerinde tabiriyle "Osurukçu" Allie’nin -nam-ı diğer son insanın- doğaya teknolojik müdahalesi cangılı zehirler, yaşanmaz hale getirir. Başka bir dünyaya doğru yeniden yola düşülecektir.
Peter Weir tarafından beyazperdeye de aktarılan bu romanı evin büyük oğlu Charlie’nin dilinden dinliyoruz, ki bu okura Allie’ye katlanma imkanı sağlıyor. Kendinden gayrısına kör bir doğrucu Davut’un öğreten adam, gardiyan, zorba hattında ilerleyen yıkımından bir alıntı ile bitireyim yazımı, herkese iyi okumalar.
“"Yirminci yüzyılın hastalıklarından biri mi?" dedi. "Size en kötüsünü anlatayım. İnsanlar yalnız kalmaya dayanamıyorlar! Buna katlanamıyorlar! Bu yüzden sinemaya gidiyor, arabalarıyla hamburger alıyor, telefon numaralarını paçavralara yazdırıp " Lütfen beni ara!" diyorlar. Bu, hastalık. Kendileriyle olmaktan nefret ediyorlar, kendilerini aynada görünce ağlıyorlar.”
July 31, 2022
Great book to read when you are on a holiday. It's a great story told in a very tangible colourful way which makes you read on and on.
June 23, 2021
The Mosquito Coast - otherwise known as my backyard in July *ba-dum ching*
I picked this up after seeing the preview for the new Apple TV series. (I also vaguely recall it being a film when I was a kid, but I don’t think I ever watched it.) “Inspired by” the book might have been a better way to describe the reality of what I read compared to my expectations regarding the story based on the commercial. Liberties were definitely taken in an attempt to turn this into a thriller rather than just being about a whackadoo who moves his entire family to the Honduran jungle to create his own utopia.
Overall my reaction to this was . . . . .
It was a fast enough read, but I can’t say I enjoyed much of the book. If you’re looking for a story about a holier than thou white dude who uproots his family believing he is going to make the world a better place I recommend skipping this and reading The Poisonwood Bible instead.
I picked this up after seeing the preview for the new Apple TV series. (I also vaguely recall it being a film when I was a kid, but I don’t think I ever watched it.) “Inspired by” the book might have been a better way to describe the reality of what I read compared to my expectations regarding the story based on the commercial. Liberties were definitely taken in an attempt to turn this into a thriller rather than just being about a whackadoo who moves his entire family to the Honduran jungle to create his own utopia.
Overall my reaction to this was . . . . .
It was a fast enough read, but I can’t say I enjoyed much of the book. If you’re looking for a story about a holier than thou white dude who uproots his family believing he is going to make the world a better place I recommend skipping this and reading The Poisonwood Bible instead.
September 7, 2017
Hell is - the other people .
But really ?
When everything’s going wrong one may like Zorba tell that’s nothing to worry about or like Scarlett I’ll think of it tomorrow or jack everything in and set off to look for promise land. And so Allie does.
Allie Fox, handyman and gifted inventor, disappointed with America, disgusted with consumer, corporate or whatsoever lifestyle, out of the blue packs his family and set off to Honduran jungle.
But let’s not be mislead by this idyllic picture. Neither America is so spoilt and devilish nor the brave new world that wonderful and flawless. The story revolves around the danger illusion of creating new life, endurance and human ability to adapt for new circumstances. Nature, its beauty and toughness at the same time clashes with the man who broke with life in the civilization jungle and went into the real one to make a new civilization.
The sense of threat and growing madness, stifling atmosphere, jungle with its luxuriance, dizzying heat. All that evokes a bit a choking atmosphere of Heart of Darkness. One can’t admire Theroux’s dexterity at depicturing main protagonist. His personality shouts out from the very first page, his ideas are stunning, imagination has no bounds, arrogance has no limits.
While reading I was pissed off at what Allie Fox has done and what he hasn’t. I was pissed off at his wife, unnamed – what’s a bit significant, I guess, so passive and inert. I was pissed off at all the sufferings Allie brought on his family. But finally I felt only relief. And when everything’s finished I couldn't even say: what a beautiful catastrophe it was.
December 28, 2009
Paul Theroux understands fathers and sons like few authors I have read, but I still struggle with Allie Fox's descent into madness. Part of me feels that we are supposed to struggle with his descent, to feel pity and empathy for him, but part of me feels that I am expected to feel anger and hate towards him -- things I do not and can not.
Whether this is the failure of the author or the reader is beyond me, but it is enough to drop this book out of my true favorites (and it was one of my favourites before my most recent rereading), making it a mere curiosity that I am compelled to return to once every decade. Of course, that in itself tells me that The Mosquito Coast is definitely worth the time I spend immersed in its world, but I can't help wanting to apportion blame to myself or Theroux or both of us with a degree of certainty.
The more I read Theroux's work, however, the more I think that he and I are simply incompatible. We are that high school couple that should fit perfectly but don't. I want to love him, but I can't, and I think it is about time we break up. C'est la lecture.
Whether this is the failure of the author or the reader is beyond me, but it is enough to drop this book out of my true favorites (and it was one of my favourites before my most recent rereading), making it a mere curiosity that I am compelled to return to once every decade. Of course, that in itself tells me that The Mosquito Coast is definitely worth the time I spend immersed in its world, but I can't help wanting to apportion blame to myself or Theroux or both of us with a degree of certainty.
The more I read Theroux's work, however, the more I think that he and I are simply incompatible. We are that high school couple that should fit perfectly but don't. I want to love him, but I can't, and I think it is about time we break up. C'est la lecture.
February 5, 2013
Setting off on a big international trip, I asked an eighty-year-old man with the reputation of being a wise counselor for his input on my destination options. I was obsessing over this decision. He responded, "The place doesn't matter, because wherever you go, there you'll be." He was hinting at the annoying truth that my character, not places or circumstances, was hindering my spiritual journey. He was absolutely right.
Paul Theroux wrote a classic book on heading for parts remote with spiritual as well as physical baggage. In The Mosquito Coast, Allie Fox leaves home for a barely-mapped corner of Honduras. He has the survival skill of a foot fungus. Yet, he's a cruel bully married to a weak conflict-avoider. Thus, wherever they go, there they be.
Harrison Ford and River Phoenix did a film version, but the novel is better. Harrison does a masterful job portraying a guy who is too smart and independent for the world's bullshit. He makes the character relatable, despite the demonic scourge Allie Fox is to his family.
Watching the sought-after Garden of Eden descend into the jungle from hell is rather shocking. It seems like humanity has met the enemy, and it is us. I highly recommend this work for all travel lovers - not to promote chickening out and staying home but getting out and growing up. Travel demands character but also instills it in those who are willing to learn. You actually can hit the road and leave it all behind - except yourself.
Paul Theroux wrote a classic book on heading for parts remote with spiritual as well as physical baggage. In The Mosquito Coast, Allie Fox leaves home for a barely-mapped corner of Honduras. He has the survival skill of a foot fungus. Yet, he's a cruel bully married to a weak conflict-avoider. Thus, wherever they go, there they be.
Harrison Ford and River Phoenix did a film version, but the novel is better. Harrison does a masterful job portraying a guy who is too smart and independent for the world's bullshit. He makes the character relatable, despite the demonic scourge Allie Fox is to his family.
Watching the sought-after Garden of Eden descend into the jungle from hell is rather shocking. It seems like humanity has met the enemy, and it is us. I highly recommend this work for all travel lovers - not to promote chickening out and staying home but getting out and growing up. Travel demands character but also instills it in those who are willing to learn. You actually can hit the road and leave it all behind - except yourself.
February 28, 2010
It’s not the craziness and hypocrisy of American evangelical Christians and other nuts building utopias, or realizing their personal dreams among the ignorant and poor peoples of the under-developed world, but writing descriptions of rare sights:
"It sank [an outboard engine:] into the weeds and began bleeding rainbows."
of nature:
"The howler monkeys were drumming in the thunder rumble across the black lagoon, and the rains boom and crackle made a deep cave of the earth and filled the sky with dangerous boulders, too big to see. And all around us in the wet and dark was this dark edge of monkeys."
and thoughts and feelings (of Charlie, the first-person narrator):
"Once, I had believed that Father was so much taller than me, he saw things I missed. I excused adults who disagreed with me, and blamed myself because I was so short. But this was something I could judge. I had seen it. Lies made me uncomfortable, and Fathers lie, which was also a blind boast, sickened me and separated me from him."
The last quote is an example of Therouxs grasp of the way a teenager thinks (in this he is very much like Ian McEwan). But in the end it is the mind of the perfectionist near-religious nut, Father (Allie Fox) that stands out. His crazy philosophy, the way his mind works is what drives a great part of the message of this book home:
"Man sprang out of this faulty world, Charlie. Therefore, I’m imperfect. What’s the use? It’s a bad design, the human body Skin’s not thick enough, bones aren’t strong enough, too little hair, no claws, no fangs. Drop us and we break... We weren’t meant to stand up straight, our posture exposes the most sensitive parts of the body, heart and genitals. We should be on all fours, hairier, more resistant to heat and cold, with tails. What happened to my tail, that’s what I’d like to know. I had to turn inventor. I was too weak to live any other way... Yes, sir, I’m going to live on all fours from now on. And that’s what I’m fit for, hands and knees!"
With such an extremist, furious madman of a father, it’s no wonder Charlie, the narrator, and his family, fear him as the followers of some ancient religion would fear their god after going through some terrible natural catastrophe or war:
"There were moments when we half-expected him to show up, although we knew he was dead-- expected him to appear somewhere astern and fling himself aboard and howl at us... Seabirds rested on this boat. I saw them, and heard Fathers howls in the wind... It made us watchful. We never talked about him, not a word."
"It sank [an outboard engine:] into the weeds and began bleeding rainbows."
of nature:
"The howler monkeys were drumming in the thunder rumble across the black lagoon, and the rains boom and crackle made a deep cave of the earth and filled the sky with dangerous boulders, too big to see. And all around us in the wet and dark was this dark edge of monkeys."
and thoughts and feelings (of Charlie, the first-person narrator):
"Once, I had believed that Father was so much taller than me, he saw things I missed. I excused adults who disagreed with me, and blamed myself because I was so short. But this was something I could judge. I had seen it. Lies made me uncomfortable, and Fathers lie, which was also a blind boast, sickened me and separated me from him."
The last quote is an example of Therouxs grasp of the way a teenager thinks (in this he is very much like Ian McEwan). But in the end it is the mind of the perfectionist near-religious nut, Father (Allie Fox) that stands out. His crazy philosophy, the way his mind works is what drives a great part of the message of this book home:
"Man sprang out of this faulty world, Charlie. Therefore, I’m imperfect. What’s the use? It’s a bad design, the human body Skin’s not thick enough, bones aren’t strong enough, too little hair, no claws, no fangs. Drop us and we break... We weren’t meant to stand up straight, our posture exposes the most sensitive parts of the body, heart and genitals. We should be on all fours, hairier, more resistant to heat and cold, with tails. What happened to my tail, that’s what I’d like to know. I had to turn inventor. I was too weak to live any other way... Yes, sir, I’m going to live on all fours from now on. And that’s what I’m fit for, hands and knees!"
With such an extremist, furious madman of a father, it’s no wonder Charlie, the narrator, and his family, fear him as the followers of some ancient religion would fear their god after going through some terrible natural catastrophe or war:
"There were moments when we half-expected him to show up, although we knew he was dead-- expected him to appear somewhere astern and fling himself aboard and howl at us... Seabirds rested on this boat. I saw them, and heard Fathers howls in the wind... It made us watchful. We never talked about him, not a word."
July 29, 2016
Okay, I'm quitting. So keep that in mind with regard to my 1 star rating. I got half way through and this was the last section I read: "Then the darkness, which was like fathoms of ink, softened, became finely gray, and, without revealing anything more of the sea, turned to powder. All around us the powdery dawn thickened, until, growing coarser and ashy, in a sunrise without sun, it threw us glimpses of the soapy sea and the shoreline and the jungle heaped like black rags of kelp." OMG! I can't take it anymore! This was just describing the teenage son waking to find his father steering the boat in the morning.
Even if there hadn't been this constant over description of small scenes, it was just not the story for me. It didn't work at all. I could never figure out the father character - if he was a jokester or was I supposed to think he was a villain? Maybe I just didn't like the premise. I've always disliked that whole America's-a-capitalist-shithole-place-to-live story line for a book or movie. The whole thing was very masculine, as well. Tinkering, inventing, engines, weird father-son conversations that, as a woman, I couldn't relate to at all. The wife character was useless - at least up to this halfway point that I read.
Oddly enough, I think I want to watch the movie now (with Harrison Ford). The only thing that kept me reading was that I heard there was a surprising & tragic end. So maybe I can get through the rest of the story quickly with the 1 1/2 hour movie.
Even if there hadn't been this constant over description of small scenes, it was just not the story for me. It didn't work at all. I could never figure out the father character - if he was a jokester or was I supposed to think he was a villain? Maybe I just didn't like the premise. I've always disliked that whole America's-a-capitalist-shithole-place-to-live story line for a book or movie. The whole thing was very masculine, as well. Tinkering, inventing, engines, weird father-son conversations that, as a woman, I couldn't relate to at all. The wife character was useless - at least up to this halfway point that I read.
Oddly enough, I think I want to watch the movie now (with Harrison Ford). The only thing that kept me reading was that I heard there was a surprising & tragic end. So maybe I can get through the rest of the story quickly with the 1 1/2 hour movie.
January 1, 2023
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Kitap harika ama yazarın anlatmak istediği neydi tam anlamıyla bunu anlamış değilim.Burda ki kaçık, ben merkezci ,kendine hayran adam yaşadığı ülkenin kalpazanlıkları, yalanları iki yüzlülüğüne toplumsal çürümüşlüğüne karşı koyarak ailesini az gelişmiş henüz ülkesindeki yozlaşmışlığın dışında kalmış fakir geri ama doğal bir ülke olan Honduras'a götürürken bahanesi kötülükten kaçmak ama kendisi ile getirdiği kötülüğün gerçekten farkında değil midir; yoksa hiç bilmedikleri bir ülkede ailesinin tamamiyle ona bağlı olabileceği düşüncesi midir kendi ülkesinden bu kadar uzakl....
Kitap harika ama yazarın anlatmak istediği neydi tam anlamıyla bunu anlamış değilim.Burda ki kaçık, ben merkezci ,kendine hayran adam yaşadığı ülkenin kalpazanlıkları, yalanları iki yüzlülüğüne toplumsal çürümüşlüğüne karşı koyarak ailesini az gelişmiş henüz ülkesindeki yozlaşmışlığın dışında kalmış fakir geri ama doğal bir ülke olan Honduras'a götürürken bahanesi kötülükten kaçmak ama kendisi ile getirdiği kötülüğün gerçekten farkında değil midir; yoksa hiç bilmedikleri bir ülkede ailesinin tamamiyle ona bağlı olabileceği düşüncesi midir kendi ülkesinden bu kadar uzakl....
October 19, 2017
This is a popular book from the early 1980's that I never got around to reading until now. It's the first book by Paul Theroux that I've read. It's my understanding that he first became famous for his travelogue "The Great Railway Bazaar (1975)." He's written a number of novels since and most (maybe all) are fictionalized travelogues by having their characters end up in some exotic and isolated corner of the world. That's certainly the case with this book.
This story evolves around a man who is so fed up with what he perceives as deteriorating quality of life in the United States that he takes his family (wife and four children) to the most isolated place he knows of, the Mosquito Coast on the east coast of Honduras. Once there he goes up river trying to find a place untouched by civilization. He has the gift of having no doubt that he always right. No matter what happens, he insists--and apparently believes it himself--that he's not surprised because he was expecting it all along.
He sets up a machine to make ice from heat energy of fire and expects the natives to be grateful. The results are mixed and from there it gets worse. He hates the missionaries who he believes are contaminating the natives with civilization. But he thinks his ice machine is a good idea of course.
The story is told in first person by the man's son. As the story progresses it becomes obvious that his father is out of touch with reality (i.e crazy). Things get tense toward the end of the book.
The book provides an entertaining way to learn about the geography of the up-river areas of the Mosquito Coast of Honduras.
The following is a review from PageADay Book Lover's Calendar for October 19, 2017:
________________
A paranoid inventor and dark genius, Allie Fox decides to leave civilization behind and move his family to the jungle of Honduras to live in a shack. The family is horrified by their new surroundings, but Allie embraces the opportunity—exercising control over everyone around him. When his control starts to slip, darkness descends, and his family is put in grave danger. A riveting and beautifully written adventure tale for fans of Heart of Darkness, Robinson Crusoe, and Lord of the Flies.
THE MOSQUITO COAST, by Paul Theroux (1982; Houghton Mifflin, 2015)
This story evolves around a man who is so fed up with what he perceives as deteriorating quality of life in the United States that he takes his family (wife and four children) to the most isolated place he knows of, the Mosquito Coast on the east coast of Honduras. Once there he goes up river trying to find a place untouched by civilization. He has the gift of having no doubt that he always right. No matter what happens, he insists--and apparently believes it himself--that he's not surprised because he was expecting it all along.
He sets up a machine to make ice from heat energy of fire and expects the natives to be grateful. The results are mixed and from there it gets worse. He hates the missionaries who he believes are contaminating the natives with civilization. But he thinks his ice machine is a good idea of course.
The story is told in first person by the man's son. As the story progresses it becomes obvious that his father is out of touch with reality (i.e crazy). Things get tense toward the end of the book.
The book provides an entertaining way to learn about the geography of the up-river areas of the Mosquito Coast of Honduras.
The following is a review from PageADay Book Lover's Calendar for October 19, 2017:
________________
A paranoid inventor and dark genius, Allie Fox decides to leave civilization behind and move his family to the jungle of Honduras to live in a shack. The family is horrified by their new surroundings, but Allie embraces the opportunity—exercising control over everyone around him. When his control starts to slip, darkness descends, and his family is put in grave danger. A riveting and beautifully written adventure tale for fans of Heart of Darkness, Robinson Crusoe, and Lord of the Flies.
THE MOSQUITO COAST, by Paul Theroux (1982; Houghton Mifflin, 2015)
December 17, 2021
I was wholly taken with this book. Theroux weaves a gripping and harrowing tale that is at once a coming of age story, an adventure piece, and a possibly unmatched character study in the brilliant and paranoid Allie Fox. Told through the maturing eyes of his teenage son, the reader is made to feel like a dependent, ever anxious to anticipate shame or endorsement. The author's writing style brings to life both a unique literary figure and the perfect environment for his tale to thrive.
And what an enthralling figure Allie Fox is! His manic and disillusioned diatribes accompany a slew of events, products of his own designs, that at first rise to a nigh utopian existence, and then gradually slide into desolation and denial as things fall apart and the sand slips through his fingers. Though he may be brilliant, he is also brutish and ignorant to the ways that his best intentions harden and alienate those around him. He is a hurricane of a man, more cruel than the terrain he inhabits, and to see him ever circling his wagons around a madcap sort of optimism made for a singular and disquieting experience.
What if your father were Icarus, or Don Quixote? What if artisan wings and tilting at windmills were part of your most formative years? Overall I found this to be a beautiful and tragic story that says so much about misguided adventures and embittered fathers.
And what an enthralling figure Allie Fox is! His manic and disillusioned diatribes accompany a slew of events, products of his own designs, that at first rise to a nigh utopian existence, and then gradually slide into desolation and denial as things fall apart and the sand slips through his fingers. Though he may be brilliant, he is also brutish and ignorant to the ways that his best intentions harden and alienate those around him. He is a hurricane of a man, more cruel than the terrain he inhabits, and to see him ever circling his wagons around a madcap sort of optimism made for a singular and disquieting experience.
What if your father were Icarus, or Don Quixote? What if artisan wings and tilting at windmills were part of your most formative years? Overall I found this to be a beautiful and tragic story that says so much about misguided adventures and embittered fathers.
December 12, 2024
2.75 stars ...
Meh 🤷♂️ ...
this is the kinda book
teachers make kids
read in high school that
turns them off reading.
It had its moments ...
but mostly dull.
Meh 🤷♂️ ...
this is the kinda book
teachers make kids
read in high school that
turns them off reading.
It had its moments ...
but mostly dull.
September 15, 2022
The Mosquito Coast is a novel that challenges the reader’s perception of heroism. It asserts that heroism may start with physical acts of bravery and visionary promises of greatness. The book then slowly transitions over the span of its pages. The hero’s moral character is degraded act-by-act and false hope is inserted to fill the void each and every time. The question that Theroux challenges his readers to answer at any given point along the way is do you still believe?
In this way, The Mosquito Coast echoes recent times. For the past six years true believers in a certain political hero had to stand by and watch the same sort of erosion in moral character and the same assertions of false hope at every failing. Along the way, some of the more reasonable of the once dedicated believers have turned their backs, but some still believe.
Beyond the philosophical elements, however, The Mosquito Coast is an adventure (worthy of a map). It explores the northern coastal jungles of Honduras. It journeys through its mountains and it slowly voyages up and down its rivers. Along the way, the country’s people are seen through western eyes, which is to say that their mystique remains intact. It is through this aspect of the book that the genuine misery of the inland tropical environment is felt through Theroux’s writing.
Map of the Adventure
In this way, The Mosquito Coast echoes recent times. For the past six years true believers in a certain political hero had to stand by and watch the same sort of erosion in moral character and the same assertions of false hope at every failing. Along the way, some of the more reasonable of the once dedicated believers have turned their backs, but some still believe.
Beyond the philosophical elements, however, The Mosquito Coast is an adventure (worthy of a map). It explores the northern coastal jungles of Honduras. It journeys through its mountains and it slowly voyages up and down its rivers. Along the way, the country’s people are seen through western eyes, which is to say that their mystique remains intact. It is through this aspect of the book that the genuine misery of the inland tropical environment is felt through Theroux’s writing.
Map of the Adventure
May 6, 2021
Astonishing, overwhelming, breathtaking...!!!
This is one of the most marvellous and extraordinary books I have ever set my eyes upon.
There is so much to be said about it, that I feel a savage myself for not being able to articulate the exact words and feelings. Wonderful, full of humor, nightmarish, fantastic and extremely frightening... the power of Paul Theroux's imagination as well as his absolute mastery with exploring and manipulating the human character is enormous.
This book is a pure gem, a whirl of emotions, adventures, first-rate wisdom, as well as of sinister, ominous and surrealistic thoughts and actions. Amazing!
This is one of the most marvellous and extraordinary books I have ever set my eyes upon.
There is so much to be said about it, that I feel a savage myself for not being able to articulate the exact words and feelings. Wonderful, full of humor, nightmarish, fantastic and extremely frightening... the power of Paul Theroux's imagination as well as his absolute mastery with exploring and manipulating the human character is enormous.
This book is a pure gem, a whirl of emotions, adventures, first-rate wisdom, as well as of sinister, ominous and surrealistic thoughts and actions. Amazing!
January 20, 2016
Човек срещу природата – но и срещу себе си: http://knigolandia.info/book-review/b...
Досега с Пол Теру се бяхме срещали само в “Улица “Полумесец”, но тя не ми помогна с нищичко за книгата, която ме очакваше. “Брегът на москитите” ми направи впечатление още с излизането си заради връзките с “Повелителят на мухите” на Голдинг, но сега, няколко дни след като я прочетох – трябваше ми време да я осмисля – си мисля, че това не е точната връзка. Да, и тук има отхвърляне на цивилизацията и извеждане на физическото оцеляване на преден план, и тук има отричане на света и връщане в лоното на майката природа, но много повече това е книга за човешкия дух. Но за разлика от много други, в тази Теру показва не само какви чудеса може да съгради този дух при пълно отдаване на някоя идея, но и как може да затъне в плашещо безумие, от което излизане няма.
Вярата е да приемаш за вярно нещо, което знаеш, че не е истина.
Издателство "Изток-Запад"
http://knigolandia.info/book-review/b...
Досега с Пол Теру се бяхме срещали само в “Улица “Полумесец”, но тя не ми помогна с нищичко за книгата, която ме очакваше. “Брегът на москитите” ми направи впечатление още с излизането си заради връзките с “Повелителят на мухите” на Голдинг, но сега, няколко дни след като я прочетох – трябваше ми време да я осмисля – си мисля, че това не е точната връзка. Да, и тук има отхвърляне на цивилизацията и извеждане на физическото оцеляване на преден план, и тук има отричане на света и връщане в лоното на майката природа, но много повече това е книга за човешкия дух. Но за разлика от много други, в тази Теру показва не само какви чудеса може да съгради този дух при пълно отдаване на някоя идея, но и как може да затъне в плашещо безумие, от което излизане няма.
Вярата е да приемаш за вярно нещо, което знаеш, че не е истина.
Издателство "Изток-Запад"
http://knigolandia.info/book-review/b...
August 12, 2023
Really engaging story about a survivalist father, who despises modern living, taking his family into the jungle to scrabble out an existence, before he ultimately loses the thread and his mind. Theroux’s fiction is frequently underrated and ignored.
September 9, 2018
not the best of Theroux. let him stick to travel
July 24, 2021
I had a love/hate relationship with this book. I loved the story itself and was surprised by the ending. I was not a fan of the storytelling.
January 9, 2023
Life lesson:
When you let a friend borrow a book, be sure to stress "borrow." Borrow. BORROW, God dammit! Especially when your usual book arrangement with the fellow is letting him have the ones you want to get rid of since he takes them to the library/goodwill once he finishes them or doesn't want them. I know for a fact I said "borrow," but I didn't stress it. I also realize it was a rushed conversation and we were going over some other cat-sitting stuff at the same time. This crossed my mind about a week after the exchange, and knowing how this friend is, I figured (correctly, unfortunately) that he thought it was one I was just giving to him to do with as he pleased. He took it with him on his trip to Canada, got three or four chapters in, found he had read it before and hated the father in it just as much now as the first time he tried it, and unloaded it on some mother Canucker north of the border. I had planned to keep this one because I wanted to read chapter six again from time to time. Alas.
Review:
I'm glad I saw the movie version of this first because Harrison Ford's performance was excellent, and I was able to see him as Allie Fox all the way through the book. The movie truly is an underrated treasure, and I'm sorry to say I almost liked it better than the book, which is rare.
Plus, it has River Phoenix in it, and I had the biggest crush on him when I was a kid, so that might be tainting my perception, but I don't think so. Both he and Harrison Ford give great performances in the film. River even said “I did my best work in The Mosquito Coast. I know it wasn't such a big hit, but for me it was more meaningful than anything else I'd ever done.” (I don't have a date for that quote, so I'm not sure how many other movies he's comparing it to.) Strange that two movies I like better than the book have River in it. (The other is Stand by Me which is based on Stephen King's novella The Body.)
But while I could picture Ford as Allie, I couldn't see River as Charlie. River lent his character a dimension that was missing in the book, though I can't explain what, exactly. You'll just have to read and watch them for yourself and see if you agree. I guess I found the movie version a little more realistic. In fact, all of the characters in the book were missing that third dimension except Allie, but Jesus, what a character. It's like Theroux took everything he had for characterization and put it into Allie. And maybe a little bit he had left over into Jerry at the end. Other than that, everyone comes across a little flat.
The writing is good but not great. I got tired of the descriptions but was able to speed through them when I recognized we were going to see more about trees and water and birds and whatever else you find in the jungle. As for dialogue, that sometimes got a bit awkward as well, and the way most people react to Allie is not always believable. If I were captain of a boat, anyone who started telling me how to run it would be encouraged to shut the hell up, and anyone who took over the wheel would be dropped off on the shore. People just roll over for this guy, and while his personality is quite forceful, I just don't see that happening for everyone. I don't even see it happening for most people.
While the writing isn't quite my style, it's certainly not bad, but the story is great. I'm not sure how to classify it. It's a little bit coming of age, a little bit adventure, a little bit drama, there's a bit of suspense, some comedic elements, but not a ton of any of it. They all fit together to make a good story.
The book is divided into four parts. The first concerns the family in America and traveling to Honduras. This part was my favorite because we get Allie's sarcastic rants on the state of the country. He's pretty much a wantonly cynical asshole with an opinion about everything.
The second section was the slowest, and unfortunately also the longest. It covers his main project in Honduras and the importance of ice. Section three shows his descent into madness... Actually, descent might not be the best word; he was already a bit crazy to begin with. He was a tad cruel to Charlie on occasions, but here it gets worse and bleeds over to the rest of the family. In section four he's pretty much insane, and the family fears for its safety.
This is a great character study but just for Allie. I suggest this for anyone who enjoys such and can also muddle through a lot of description and a few weird conversations and occasional actions that don't make a great deal of sense.
When you let a friend borrow a book, be sure to stress "borrow." Borrow. BORROW, God dammit! Especially when your usual book arrangement with the fellow is letting him have the ones you want to get rid of since he takes them to the library/goodwill once he finishes them or doesn't want them. I know for a fact I said "borrow," but I didn't stress it. I also realize it was a rushed conversation and we were going over some other cat-sitting stuff at the same time. This crossed my mind about a week after the exchange, and knowing how this friend is, I figured (correctly, unfortunately) that he thought it was one I was just giving to him to do with as he pleased. He took it with him on his trip to Canada, got three or four chapters in, found he had read it before and hated the father in it just as much now as the first time he tried it, and unloaded it on some mother Canucker north of the border. I had planned to keep this one because I wanted to read chapter six again from time to time. Alas.
Review:
I'm glad I saw the movie version of this first because Harrison Ford's performance was excellent, and I was able to see him as Allie Fox all the way through the book. The movie truly is an underrated treasure, and I'm sorry to say I almost liked it better than the book, which is rare.
Plus, it has River Phoenix in it, and I had the biggest crush on him when I was a kid, so that might be tainting my perception, but I don't think so. Both he and Harrison Ford give great performances in the film. River even said “I did my best work in The Mosquito Coast. I know it wasn't such a big hit, but for me it was more meaningful than anything else I'd ever done.” (I don't have a date for that quote, so I'm not sure how many other movies he's comparing it to.) Strange that two movies I like better than the book have River in it. (The other is Stand by Me which is based on Stephen King's novella The Body.)
But while I could picture Ford as Allie, I couldn't see River as Charlie. River lent his character a dimension that was missing in the book, though I can't explain what, exactly. You'll just have to read and watch them for yourself and see if you agree. I guess I found the movie version a little more realistic. In fact, all of the characters in the book were missing that third dimension except Allie, but Jesus, what a character. It's like Theroux took everything he had for characterization and put it into Allie. And maybe a little bit he had left over into Jerry at the end. Other than that, everyone comes across a little flat.
The writing is good but not great. I got tired of the descriptions but was able to speed through them when I recognized we were going to see more about trees and water and birds and whatever else you find in the jungle. As for dialogue, that sometimes got a bit awkward as well, and the way most people react to Allie is not always believable. If I were captain of a boat, anyone who started telling me how to run it would be encouraged to shut the hell up, and anyone who took over the wheel would be dropped off on the shore. People just roll over for this guy, and while his personality is quite forceful, I just don't see that happening for everyone. I don't even see it happening for most people.
While the writing isn't quite my style, it's certainly not bad, but the story is great. I'm not sure how to classify it. It's a little bit coming of age, a little bit adventure, a little bit drama, there's a bit of suspense, some comedic elements, but not a ton of any of it. They all fit together to make a good story.
The book is divided into four parts. The first concerns the family in America and traveling to Honduras. This part was my favorite because we get Allie's sarcastic rants on the state of the country. He's pretty much a wantonly cynical asshole with an opinion about everything.
I never wanted this. I'm sick of everyone pretending to be old Dan Beavers in his L. L. Bean moccasins, and his Dubbelwares, and his Japanese bucksaw -- all these fake frontiersmen with their chuck wagons full of Twinkies and Wonderbread and aerosol cheese spread. Get out the Duraflame log and the plastic cracker barrel, Dan, and let's talk self-sufficiency!This quote is followed up by Chapter six where he takes the family shopping, and that might be my favorite chapter in the book. He goes off on everything, but instead of ruining it here you should check it out for yourself.
The second section was the slowest, and unfortunately also the longest. It covers his main project in Honduras and the importance of ice. Section three shows his descent into madness... Actually, descent might not be the best word; he was already a bit crazy to begin with. He was a tad cruel to Charlie on occasions, but here it gets worse and bleeds over to the rest of the family. In section four he's pretty much insane, and the family fears for its safety.
This is a great character study but just for Allie. I suggest this for anyone who enjoys such and can also muddle through a lot of description and a few weird conversations and occasional actions that don't make a great deal of sense.
August 31, 2009
Re-reading . . . how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love the guaranteed happiness (how often does one get that?); I love meeting old friends and familiar enemies; and oh, how I love the anticipation of coloring in the faintly remembered.
Truly-addicted readers have books to which they repeatedly return; we become so entranced by an author’s words we even hope (in bouts of the truest example of suspension of disbelief) that perhaps this time, if we read very slowly, or very carefully, or with one eye squinted half shut, events may change. (Don’t leave her, Rhett!)
First published in 1982, MOSQUITO COAST is on the highest rung of books to which I return (even buying a second copy when the first hid and I couldn’t find it quickly enough to satisfy my urge.) Upon finishing it for the second, third, fourth time, I’ll begin anticipating the day I’ve forgotten enough plot details to sink into it once again. MOSQUITO COAST created by Paul Theroux satisfies every bit of my readerly soul with young Charlie, a watchful narrator who captures one’s heart with his push-pull toward his larger-than-life father, Allie, a villain who terrifies by his good intentions gone wild. Charlie’s family is in thrall to this growing madman, including Charlie’s mother, who we watch, waiting, praying she will speak the truth. Minor characters pop off the page and into our imagination like toothsome treats both wholesome and delicious, satisfying both our mouths and cellular matter.
You’ll know Allie Fox immediately. He could be the current day environmentalist gone many steps cracked, the one who upbraids and lectures employers, neighbors (he has no friends) his wife, children, anyone crossing him on his mission to redeem a greedy world. Using both enforced simplicity and brilliant inventions, Allie attempts to convince an unwilling world of his ability to see what no other man can, while Charlie, his fourteen-year-old son, a watcher, and narrator of the book, brings the reader with him as he moves down the uncomfortable road of a son moving from admiration to horror.
Theroux manages to provide a magnificent balance of Scheherazade-worthy story-telling and deceptively work-man-like prose upon which you could balance a Pulitzer. Allie Fox drags his family from Massachusetts to the jungles of Central America, intent on rescuing the steaming encampment in which they settle into a new world on the shoulders of a giant ice-making machine in the midst of the tropical jungle.
As Allie moves deeper into a mission turned folly, his family, most especially his son, Charlie, wrestle with their loyalty to the bully who rules their shrinking world. The demons they must fight up to the dramatic end—how does one say no to a parent, a husband who’s towered over them forever? —make THE MOSQUITO COAST the most thrilling and unusual of coming-of-age stories.
I count the days until I’ve forgotten it, and can read it once more.
December 31, 2013
Read this book years ago! (Before being a member of Goodreads) Fabulous!
A friend sent it to be 'to read'! I AGREE!
A friend sent it to be 'to read'! I AGREE!
August 27, 2021
Желанието да избягаш от познатия цивилизован свят и да съградиш един нов и по-добър свят винаги води до неочаквана развръзка. И ако понякога с него са започвали велики открития, то друг път се е стигало до Апокалипсис.
В "Брега на москитите" на Пол Теру ще видим един такъв развой. Главната фигура, която задвижва събитията, Ал Фокс, ексцентричен изобретател предрича през цялото време упадъка и края на Америка, и за да спаси семейството си, жена си и четирите си деца, напуска "обречения свят" и се заема да сътвори нов и по-добър според собствените си представи в джунглите на Хондурас. Разказът се води от първо лице от най-големия му син Чарли и докато в началото, той почти безрезервно вярва в бащините думи, в течение на пътуването и различните преживявания в него се пораждат и засилват съмненията.
Романът е изключително многопластов. Макар упадъкът и деградацията на на обществото, сблъсъкът между човекът и цивилизацията и поставянето на човека в условия на трудно оцеляване без почти никакви провизии и инструменти да не са водещи теми, те са много подробно разгърнати.
В началото Ал звучи много убедително и има много истина в думите му - вредните храни, евтиният внос, повишаването на цените, алчността, телевизията, която манипулира хората, бегло засегнати теми, които събуждат сериозни въпроси. Защо трябва да живеем така? Но всъщност как можем да живеем по различен начин, извън познатия свят?
"Някой хора там не са виждали бял човек, нито знаят какво е колело. Ако огладнеят, просто се катерят на палмата и си откъсват кокосов орех. Могат да преживяват без пари. Всичко, от което имат нужда, им е подръка и не плащат за него. Повечето ходят без дрехи, Това е волен и лесен живот.
- Затова отиваме там - казах аз.
- Но това място не е за вас"
В началото идеята на Ал изглежда примамлива - незаселено място в джунглата, където ще построи къща и ще измайстори удобства като баня, ще облагороди земята и ще отглеждат растения. Парадоксалното е, че те напускат цивилизацията, за да я построят на ново. Но човек дори да започне от нулата носи своите недостатъци със себе си. Като първа форма на протест и неподчинение, децата изграждат свои собствен лагер "Земята":
"Благодарение на "Земята" донякъде успях да разбера защо татко се гордее с Херонимо. Чак, когато построихме лагера си, разбрах защо толкова се хвалеше с онова, което беше направил там... Огледах се и видях, че моделът на живот и нещата, които бяхме направили сами, ни принадлежаха безусловно... Но имах чувството, че сме постигнали повече от татко, защото ядяхме плодове, растящи наоколо, използвахме всичко намерено и се приспособявахме към джунглата."
Като изобретател Ал търси несъвършенствата в света и все крои планове как да го "поправи": "Мисля,че по тази причина мразеше толкова мисионерите: защото учеха хората да се примиряват със земните си тегоби...Само че вместо да правят подобрения на света, каза той, повечето хора се опитват да направят Бог по-добър".
Да, може би светът не е идеален, може би прекалено много сме свикнали с комфорта, консуматорството и забавленията, че понякога е нужно да видим един различен начин на живот, за да оценим това, което имаме и да си помислим дали бихме искали друг може би по-смислен и отдаден на някаква по-стойностна цел, но в този разказ целта се оказва илюзия.
С времето изобретателските стремежи на Ал изчезват за сметка на желанието да живее първично и примитивно, първоначалната му ексцентричност бавно и методично се превръща в лудост. От демиург и създател, той се превръща в крехка и тленна част от света, напълно подвластен на капризите на природата. За него бъдещето не принадлежи на високите технологии, а на силата на мускулите и примитивните сечива за обработка на земята, в неговия собствен реален, а всъщност само в неговото съзнание апокалипсис, не е останало нищо освен тях, последното семейство, на което принадлежи бъдещето. Бъдещето все повече изглежда като бълнуване. Нямах конкретни очаквания за развръзката, но я намирам за сполучлива и логична.
В "Брега на москитите" на Пол Теру ще видим един такъв развой. Главната фигура, която задвижва събитията, Ал Фокс, ексцентричен изобретател предрича през цялото време упадъка и края на Америка, и за да спаси семейството си, жена си и четирите си деца, напуска "обречения свят" и се заема да сътвори нов и по-добър според собствените си представи в джунглите на Хондурас. Разказът се води от първо лице от най-големия му син Чарли и докато в началото, той почти безрезервно вярва в бащините думи, в течение на пътуването и различните преживявания в него се пораждат и засилват съмненията.
Романът е изключително многопластов. Макар упадъкът и деградацията на на обществото, сблъсъкът между човекът и цивилизацията и поставянето на човека в условия на трудно оцеляване без почти никакви провизии и инструменти да не са водещи теми, те са много подробно разгърнати.
В началото Ал звучи много убедително и има много истина в думите му - вредните храни, евтиният внос, повишаването на цените, алчността, телевизията, която манипулира хората, бегло засегнати теми, които събуждат сериозни въпроси. Защо трябва да живеем така? Но всъщност как можем да живеем по различен начин, извън познатия свят?
"Някой хора там не са виждали бял човек, нито знаят какво е колело. Ако огладнеят, просто се катерят на палмата и си откъсват кокосов орех. Могат да преживяват без пари. Всичко, от което имат нужда, им е подръка и не плащат за него. Повечето ходят без дрехи, Това е волен и лесен живот.
- Затова отиваме там - казах аз.
- Но това място не е за вас"
В началото идеята на Ал изглежда примамлива - незаселено място в джунглата, където ще построи къща и ще измайстори удобства като баня, ще облагороди земята и ще отглеждат растения. Парадоксалното е, че те напускат цивилизацията, за да я построят на ново. Но човек дори да започне от нулата носи своите недостатъци със себе си. Като първа форма на протест и неподчинение, децата изграждат свои собствен лагер "Земята":
"Благодарение на "Земята" донякъде успях да разбера защо татко се гордее с Херонимо. Чак, когато построихме лагера си, разбрах защо толкова се хвалеше с онова, което беше направил там... Огледах се и видях, че моделът на живот и нещата, които бяхме направили сами, ни принадлежаха безусловно... Но имах чувството, че сме постигнали повече от татко, защото ядяхме плодове, растящи наоколо, използвахме всичко намерено и се приспособявахме към джунглата."
Като изобретател Ал търси несъвършенствата в света и все крои планове как да го "поправи": "Мисля,че по тази причина мразеше толкова мисионерите: защото учеха хората да се примиряват със земните си тегоби...Само че вместо да правят подобрения на света, каза той, повечето хора се опитват да направят Бог по-добър".
Да, може би светът не е идеален, може би прекалено много сме свикнали с комфорта, консуматорството и забавленията, че понякога е нужно да видим един различен начин на живот, за да оценим това, което имаме и да си помислим дали бихме искали друг може би по-смислен и отдаден на някаква по-стойностна цел, но в този разказ целта се оказва илюзия.
С времето изобретателските стремежи на Ал изчезват за сметка на желанието да живее първично и примитивно, първоначалната му ексцентричност бавно и методично се превръща в лудост. От демиург и създател, той се превръща в крехка и тленна част от света, напълно подвластен на капризите на природата. За него бъдещето не принадлежи на високите технологии, а на силата на мускулите и примитивните сечива за обработка на земята, в неговия собствен реален, а всъщност само в неговото съзнание апокалипсис, не е останало нищо освен тях, последното семейство, на което принадлежи бъдещето. Бъдещето все повече изглежда като бълнуване. Нямах конкретни очаквания за развръзката, но я намирам за сполучлива и логична.
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