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| Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu | 
 enlarge | Author: J. Maarten Troost
Publisher: Broadway
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
Buy New: $3.97
You Save: $8.98 (69%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $3.97
Avg. Customer Rating:  (40 reviews)
Sales Rank: 6687
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 0767921992
Dewey Decimal Number: 919.59504
EAN: 9780767921992
ASIN: 0767921992
Publication Date: June 13, 2006
Release Date: June 13, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 I couldn't get into this book at all! November 30, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Since I'm really busy I admit to being picky about what I read. This book didn't do it for me: after 2 weeks I'm only on page 45. The concept of a middle class man in his early 30's going to discover himself in a 3rd world country might be cool, but it's not different or new anymore. Nowadays there are many people who do what the author did, or something similar it. I would feel bad giving this book such a bad review except that the author seemed a little arrogant and I'm sure he's made a lot of money off his "sex lives" "getting stoned" books. I will not finish this book. I'm glad that I didn't actually spend money on it but rather found it left behind in an airplane.
A Different Look at the South Pacific November 28, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Getting Stoned With Savages, J. Maarten Troost's second book on life in the South Pacific,follows the author and his wife as they spend time on Vanautu and Fiji. This comes approximately two years after the time spent on Kiribati, which was chronicled in the excellent Sex Lives of Cannibals. Maarten seems to understand a little more about what he's getting into this time; he's definitely wiser about the natives and more respectful of nature this time around. Missing from this book seems to be a sense of wonder; Troost and his wife live in Port Vila in Vanautu, which seems much more urban than their former life, and thus less of a culture shock.
Troost has a marvelous sense of humor, and it is most evident when he describes drinking kava with the locals, chasing Pip the kitten, or battling gigantic centipedes. He also does a great job of taking us into the remote areas of the islands while he tries to experience more of the personalities of both the peoples and the lands. Still, there seems to be either a lack of events or less wide-eyed wonder in these pages, particularly after Troost and his wife move to Fiji for the impending birth of their child. I can appreciate how different life in the Pacific is from the one I live daily, but somehow life in Fiji came off as decidedly smarmy with the constant propositions of sexual favors and the rife corruption of the government. I suppose I wanted more of the light, sunny attitude of the South Pacific and instead had to face that sometimes, life just isn't pretty.
This is indeed a funny book, and I enjoyed the descriptions of the areas Troost lived in. While it does lack the charm of his first book, this one is also entertaining, educational, and just plain fun. Recommended.
 Gilligan he is not... November 26, 2007
In this sequel, Maarten gets island fever and escapes civilization to the South Pacific once again. Only this time the story is not so much "a stranger in a strange land," but of an escapist trying to recapture that feeling. You get the sense that the author is looking for that first high he got from his initial visit to the islands.
This volume is more about the cultures he encounters, rather than the island-naive, slapstick situations he found himself in the past. In this book looks for answers to questions like why does a cannibal eat people? and goes into great detail about drinking Kava (a psychoactive intoxicant) with the natives. There is a lot of comparing between Kiribati (in the first book) and Vanuatu in this book.
Take a bit of advice, stop reading this book after chapter 9. In chapter 10 he goes off to Fiji and nothing amusing occurs after this point. Oh sure, he gets accosted by transvestite prostitutes and his backyard becomes a mudslide burying his neighbors house. But nobody is hurt, he shakes the prostitutes, and his neighbor wasn't home during the catastrophe. No suspense. It's more of a diary than anything else.
Maarten has a great sense of humor and his writing is well paced. I look forward to his future novels. Unfortunately, this one started mediocre and ended weak.
an unfortunate title done only for marketing purposes July 31, 2007
Troost book begins with him working in Washington D.C. for the World Bank. He worries himself with questions like "what tie to wear?" and "how much money did I make in the market today?"
Troost realizes the same maxim that many wisemen have realized since the dawn of civilization: money doesn't buy one happiness. Troost begins to think of the blue water and the truly meaningful days that he experienced in the South Pacific of his first book (which my roommate and almost every reviewer on Amazon cite as a superior book -- I'll read it within the next year). And then he utters a line at the bottom of page one that defines him:
"The escapist doesn't want to get ahead. He simply wants to get away."
He and his wife go to Vanuatu and move on to Fiji when she gets pregnant. He indulges in Kava (the getting stoned reference), fights large insects, hikes up a volcano, talks with cannibals and gives the reader a brief history about John From (Cargo Cults). He does a wonderful job mingling with the locals. He also has some nice insights into the long-term impact of colonialism, Indian-Fijian relations and the corruption in island politics.
The end is a little trite, as he finds himself when he becomes a father: "You can go far and wide and you can keep moving on and on through places and years, but somehow you never escape your own life. I, finally, knew where my life belonged. Home." While it's a nice sentiment, I hope that readers have already figured themselves out (or if they haven't, that they aren't looking to someone else's travelogue for the answer).
I liked the book. Very much so. It seems that other reviewers here were disappointed that it wasn't as good as his first book. I have not read his first book yet, so I didn't come to it with the same high expectations they did.
Very funny, engaging May 29, 2007
This is the first Troost novel that I have read, but it certainly won't be the last. Very entertaining, and at times hilarious, this is a look at island life that most of us don't get to see. A word of warning though, I got kicked out of bed for laughing too much while reading this!
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