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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:
 Lost in the SoPac September 15, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
J. Maarten Troost takes us on another trip to the South Pacific. He and wife Sylvia decide to move to Vanuatu/Fiji. Just over the first half of the book is recounting some of his misadventures in Vanuatu and his discovery of kava. Afterwards, we're off to Fiji when the Troosts find out they are pregnant with Lukas, their first son.
This travelogue is less humorous than his first one but instead you get a better view on the less than ideal settings of what living on the islands are like to new arrivals. Troost actually delves into learning about cannibalism in the islands, talks about the gov't coups, learns how to deal with severe weather/geological problems (when your backyard disappears overnight it could be a bit unsettling), avoiding transvestite prostitutes, and drinks of many shells of kava with the island chiefs. With this travelogue, Troost is not nearly as humorous but instead gives us nice quick history lessons about Vanuatu and Fiji.
Overall, compelling but not as comical as other travelogues. Still worth reading although you may not enjoy it as much as his previous book if you are going for the same agenda/humor style.
You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll come away with a new appreciation for the South Pacific September 9, 2006
16 out of 17 found this review helpful
J. Maarten Troost's sophomore effort is another travel memoir about a suburbanite displaced to a remote, third-world culture. This time around, he's not merely following his wife's career in assisting impoverished countries. He's not moving around the world for lack of anything better to do; he's moving of his own free will and desire. Maarten and Sylvia, after returning temporarily to the hectic pace of Washington, D.C., make a conscious decision to return to the South Pacific and start a family. They research locations, look for employment, and consider the political unrest in various locales before deciding on their new homeland.
In his first memoir, Troost's reluctant adoption of his new culture is the core of the story. Heck, he wasn't even sure why he agreed to go there! His writing drew the reader into a foreign culture, bringing a higher level of appreciation for a dirty, poor, unconventional village that the average American wouldn't survive a day in. This time around, Troost has a goal of actively exploring his settings and writing a second book. The premise doesn't succeed quite as well as his fish-out-of-water basis for the first memoir.
Troost spends days bonding with natives over the psychedlic high providing by kava, but in the end, he appears to be just another man trying to escape with alcohol or drugs, only now it is conveniently packaged as a cultural experience. He is on a quest for a message and a purpose for his book, running around trying to find cannibals and other interesting characters to interview. The action seems forced. He's lost the innocence and reluctance that made the first memoir so wonderful. Is this still a great travel book? Absolutely! It is leagues above most anything else on the market. Unfortunately, Troost just set the bar really high with his first success.
I especially enjoyed the story of the Troosts' search for proper pre-natal and natal medical care for their first child. The end up moving within the region to begin their family, providing even more humorous material for our author (ever imagine paying for deluxe cable only to get three channels--the national station, a Bollywood station, and a sport channel which focuses on "Korean ping-pong and Malaysian high school basketball?").
Troot is a talented humorist who will open your eyes to an amazing world on the other side of the planet. Again and again, his tales serve to remind Americans how much danger and disease they are protected from every day. This will remain my second favorite of his efforts to date, but I welcome his third travel memoir!
 Mildly interesting, not as good as the first September 4, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I REALLY wanted to love this book because the author's first book, SEX LIVES OF CANNIBALS, was so hilarious. This one is mildly amusing, but mostly rather tedious and forced. Some chapters, especially the early ones, where he is trying to fit in to a suited Washington DC lifestyle after living like a beach bum in Kirabati, are the best. Didn't his editor tell him it's not that interesting to read chapter after chapter of him getting stoned and, like man, watching the sunset? I just felt sorry for his wife. Unlike the first book, here I didn't get any sense of what the people of Vanuatu are like. What would have been much more interesting would have been a few chapters on the development work his wife was trying to do, and the obstacles she encountered. We got none of that.
I gave this book 2 stars because I do like the author and his writing style is engaging... but it really should get no stars for content. Give this one a miss. I hope his next is better, and that his editors are more scrupulous next time.
 delightful and humorous August 27, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have read both of Troost's books, and my mind was totally captured during reading them! He has such a dry sense of humor and a true talent for telling a story, although, these stories are actually true....so they are even more exciting! If you have any desire to know what a South Pacific Island is like, you'll get an idea through the eyes of Maarten Troost, the people, the cultures, the history. You'll chuckle and shake your head at the author's commentary and be amazed at his choices throughout the book. He really is an exporer or escapist as he calls himself. It was sad when I finished, I enjoyed reading them so much. I'm still dying to experience some Kava(vanuatu kava!) after reading this book!
Just as good as the first August 19, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you liked the first book he did, you'll like this one as well. He has a great readers voice and really gets to the point of a situation without being obvious. The only negative was that at times it felt like in order to get more words on the page, he referenced his first book.
I'd had always wanted to go to really cool islands someday to live. Now, maybe for just a weekend.
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