Transit of Venus: Travels in the Pacific, by Julian Evans
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Transit of Venus: Travels in the Pacific, by Julian Evans
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With the potent myths of the Pacific Ocean in mind, Julian Evans journeys ever deeper into a world of gin-clear lagoons, palms, and sand, in search of both remnants of the fabulous kingdoms of the nineteenth-century European imagination and their twentieth century reality. Ever since Captain Cook first went to Tahiti in 1769 to observe the transit of Venus across the sun, the Pacific has offered this promise of Paradise, shadowed by a darker underbelly. With humor and honesty, Evans uncovers the modern reality: a brave new ocean where the islanders have money and booze, military coups and cold-war politics, atomic explosions and rising sea levels, but where, in the remotest atolls, beyond all our modernity and rationality, the old dreams continue to assert themselves. ""Laid-back, witty stroll through the islands of the Pacific. . . Gorgeously worded and relaxed.""--Booklist
Transit of Venus: Travels in the Pacific, by Julian Evans - Amazon Sales Rank: #4362042 in Books
- Brand: Evans, Julian/ Lewis, Norman (FRW)
- Published on: 2015-05-07
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.25" h x 5.50" w x .75" l, .84 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 275 pages
Transit of Venus: Travels in the Pacific, by Julian Evans From Publishers Weekly The "noble savages" of the islands of the South Pacific now have money and alcohol, military bases, atomic explosions and a good deal of Christianity. The British on Fiji, the French on New Caledonia and the Americans on the Marshalls have all remade these island paradises in their own images, according to Evans. In Suva, the Fiji capital, the author, a British journalist, walks down Victoria Parade past Albert Park, in a city that "reeks of the London suburbs." ("What do you think we're developing the South Pacific for? So everyone can go shopping," a friend tells him.) In New Caledonia, the French are so insistently French that for a long time their navy was the only one in the world to use navigational charts based on the Paris meridian rather than the international standard, the Greenwich meridian. The Americans on the Marshalls Islands have made Kwajalein into a "real nice . . . suburban trailer-park . . . a great place to bring up the kids," Traveling on a slow boat through the islands, Evans documents in sorrowful detail, interspersed with excellent historical background, the loss of innocence. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal Enticed by photographs, memories of Australia, and a desire to search for solitude, Evans sets out to experience the islands of the South Pacific. Leaving Sidney by freighter, he journeys by whatever means available through New Caledonia, Figi, Western Samoa, and a variety of islands in the region. With a lack of time restraint and a personal fluidity of choice, he saunters from island to island and meets a colorful array of informative local acquaintances. Evans describes his adventures in this tropical vastness with candidness and clarity. His journey concludes with a visit to the U.S. Army Base in Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, the site of the Missile Test Range. An obvious strength of the book is the brief but excellent history of the islands and the impact of various cultures upon it. This is a good introduction to the area and the people, places, and politics that make it unique. For travel collections.- Jo-Anne Mary Benson, Osgoode, OntarioCopyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review Julian Evans is a meticulous, vivid writer... honest and shrewd: a first-rate reporter. --Financial TimesLaid-back, witty stroll through the islands of the Pacific. . . Gorgeously worded and relaxed. --Booklist
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Most helpful customer reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Terrifically witty and insightful travel guide to the South Pacific By Donald A. Johnson I cannot speak highly enough about the writing style of this author. From the very first page he had captured my interest and held it raptly throughout. I picked up the Pantheon Books hardcover edition of this book just before I left for SE Asia, because it had been withdrawn from the Worcester (Mass.) Public Library. A criminal shame because this author deserves much better, but a spectacular find for me! This book is a thoroughly unromantic review of the state of the South Pacific islands he wandered through, written with "passion, biting wit, and lyrical sadness" to quote from the review on the dust jacket. Because it was first published in 1992, I will keep a sharp eye out for an update, revision or subsequent books by the same author. Here is but one example of the excellence of his prose in his confession on page 23 for why he undertook this journey:"The consolation of travel is the control it offers to cowards: you get up and leave; you abandon people; there are fresh winds and fresh places for faulty egos to dilate in; there is a sort of enjoyment to the fear."So true!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Excellent reading, engaging, and thought-provoking By John Emm I enjoyed every page of this excellent travel memoire. I happen to be an admirer of Paul Theroux, but if you're not, Evans' style is a bit less grumpy than Theroux' (I hate to put it that way, but for non-Theroux fans it should do). Evans applies the same eye for detail and character and I expect to read it again in a few years.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. "The Pacific is not just a third of our planet...it is the tide-beating heart of Earth, the canary in our coal-mine" By sally tarbox Travelogue in which the author takes in most of the Pacific nations: sailing out from Sydney, he visits New Caledonia, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands. For me, the disadvantage of covering so many places in a relatively short (270 p) work was that this reader ended up with a somewhat jumbled picture as to exactly what happened where.If you're expecting a romantic work of palm trees and beauty, this book doesn't contain too much of that: the author explains "the Pacific that most interested me was a post-nuclear ocean of bad politics, bad aid, bad faith: the more dystopian it was, the more I liked it...I consciously avoided most of the reputedly peaceful, friendly, unpolluted, apolitical or beautiful places."Certainly I feel I've learnt a lot about the Pacific, notably the Marshall islands, home of the Bikini atoll and ongoing US military testing. While the Americans are billeted on the US-only base of Kwajalein (with all mod cons), the native labour force are housed on a cramped and dirty neighbouring islet, malnourished on the refined foods shipped in by America. He describes the people, removed from their natural lives before the white men came: "Among the young men there was the same kind of jiggling of the legs that I had noticed with uraki, a repetitive muscular tic that went on constantly and reminded me of male polar bears in a zoo, pacing up and down...caused by removal from their snow caves and plains of ice."A vivid picture of the negative side to the islands of Oceania.
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