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With Mermaid up a Moonberry Tree
A beach on a tropical island. Sapphire water of a coral lagoon, coconuts swaying in a breeze, warm sand trickling between your toes. There is something primal and satisfactory in this image. You believe that if you can go living on a beach, you could easily forgo the amenities and conveniences of the big cities. You think, just give me a simple fisherman's shack, bowl of rice with fish, and a dusky partner to share my time with and it will be enough for the rest of my days.
For five years I was living this island dream. As with all dreams, it was not quite as I imagined. A number of important details were buried deep in the fine print. People react in different ways to those unforeseen glitches. Some end up forever complaining, yet they are still not able to leave. Some will drown in cheap grog and easily available sex, while their brains are turning to mush. Some will fight every inch to retain the standards they were used to in their old country. Everyone finds his own solution.
For all its drawbacks, it is an addictive lifestyle. Longer you spend in it, harder it becomes to tear yourself away, no matter how many hassles interfere with a technicolour template we all carry in the back of our minds, no matter how many inconveniences hammer on the door of reason. And reality presents itself in all its twisted forms.
Title of this book, "With Mermaid up a Moonberry Tree" , is an awkward mouthful which comes close to catching the unreality of our existence in Silaga. I did not write a travel guide, and I am afraid the plot is rather thin. It is a loose story, a kaleidoscope of fragments, characters, everyday observations, which I hope will together paint a picture what it was like, living with Cuyonin people on a beach in Paradise. You may call it "Paradise: a personal view". Like all my writing, it is a one-sided and biased view, but honest and uncensored.
Illustrated with pen and ink drawings by the author.
For five years I was living this island dream. As with all dreams, it was not quite as I imagined. A number of important details were buried deep in the fine print. People react in different ways to those unforeseen glitches. Some end up forever complaining, yet they are still not able to leave. Some will drown in cheap grog and easily available sex, while their brains are turning to mush. Some will fight every inch to retain the standards they were used to in their old country. Everyone finds his own solution.
For all its drawbacks, it is an addictive lifestyle. Longer you spend in it, harder it becomes to tear yourself away, no matter how many hassles interfere with a technicolour template we all carry in the back of our minds, no matter how many inconveniences hammer on the door of reason. And reality presents itself in all its twisted forms.
Title of this book, "With Mermaid up a Moonberry Tree" , is an awkward mouthful which comes close to catching the unreality of our existence in Silaga. I did not write a travel guide, and I am afraid the plot is rather thin. It is a loose story, a kaleidoscope of fragments, characters, everyday observations, which I hope will together paint a picture what it was like, living with Cuyonin people on a beach in Paradise. You may call it "Paradise: a personal view". Like all my writing, it is a one-sided and biased view, but honest and uncensored.
Illustrated with pen and ink drawings by the author.
350 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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