Getting Stoned With Savages by J. Maarten Troost

From The Week of July 03, 2011

When we were last with Mr. Troost in Sex Lives of Cannibals, he and his wife, Sylvia, were struggling to re-adjust to the saturation of Western life after spending two years in tiny and bizarre Kiribati, a country in the South Pacific leagues from civilization. Though they both found gainful employment upon their return to the West, a certain disaffection for the rat race, along with a seemingly insatiable wanderlust, soon motivated them into a search for another adventure. Which is how, not long after recovering from Kiribati, Mr. Troost is once again surfing the cultures of far away lands, this time dividing his penetrating wit between Fiji, which has recently suffered a military coupe, and the island nation of Vanuatu, later to be popularized by the television series Survivor which used it as the setting for one of its many cycles.

Getting Stoned With Savages is aptly named for it does often seem as though Mr. Troost's insights into these island cultures are gleaned through the powerful and revolting intoxicants imbibed there. And yet his willingness to try any substance, to risk every adventure, to confront every monstrous insect, imbues this, his second journey into the wilds of the undeveloped world, with a passion and a humor to rival his Kiribati experience. Despite the Kava haze which lingers over his account, Mr. Troost is able to knit his adventures here into a coherent if fragmented narrative which educates the reader on Vanuatu's French colonial history, on the eccentricities of its people and practices, and on the vast inequities between its rulers and its citizens which seem to characterize most island cultures. All this while Sylvia bravely gives birth to their first child who spends his initial year on Earth in the sun, sea and sweat of the Pacific islands.

Without his telltale wit, Mr. Troost's work would be nothing more than interesting if unspectacular logs of his various travels. But it is his packaging of his distinct brand of humor with a savage dislike for both colonialism and political corruption which allow hiss journeys to leap off the page. Though Sex Lives of Cannibals had a novelty that Getting Stoned With Savages lacks, Mr. Troost is, in every other respect, at the peak of his powers.

Conceptually, the only flaw here is the extent to which he has to cover up for the fact that this tale is devoid of a central event around which the rest of the story pivots. His attempt to talk to a living cannibal offers up some momentary hope in this regard, but this effort soon fails, lapsing the reader back into a series of barely connected adventures which have but one thing in common, that they all occur to Mr. Troost. This ought to be disappointing, but I would rather authenticity than dishonesty designed to sensationalize a flagging tale. And besides, the human experience is, here, a quality substitute for drama as, with admirable courage, the author exhibits himself and the cultures he explores, leaving little hidden away. Entertaining work. (3/5 Stars)