John GimletteRecensioni

Indeholder "Illustrations and Maps", "Acknowledgements", "Glossary", "Introduction", "Prologue", "Act I. St John's", "Act II. Planting Avalon (and reaping the storm)", "Act III. North with the Floaters", "Act IV. Down Labrador", "ACT V. Back via Old New France", "Act VI. Baby Bonus", "Epilogue", "Afterword", "Further Reading".

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enjoyable but a bit heavy on the military and political history for me.
I preferred the occasional glimpses of wildlife or stories about eccentrics

Extremely thorough and well-written. Such much darkness and death on this little island. Tourists don't seem to have a clue that they are looking at a fairly recent battlefield and mass gravesite. Wow. I gave it three stars because it was relentless in its horrors and I couldn't stomach some of it. I needed more breaks in the text, I guess.

Being an Australian my interactions with Sri Lanka have been through cricket, Sinhalese university friends, hearing about the Civil War and what Arthur C. Clarke may have been doing with young boys. Thanks to Elephant Complex, I now know far, far more about the country, its history and its customs and far, far more than I really needed to know about one of the most vicious cil wars imaginable and what many western men were doing with young boys.

Gimlette can write lyrically and evocatively and I often stopped reading to admire a turn of phrase. His connections to the great and the good of Sri Lankan society gave him access to many places barred to the hoi polloi so we get guided tours of Civil War era torture chambers and the like. In all, a fascinating, if not deeply unsettling read, even if Gimlette's distaste of cricket was baffling.½

56/2021. At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig by John Gimlette is a travel and history book focussing on Paraguay in South America. I found the author an unlikeable character and his often crude attempts to explain the, frankly, inexplicable history and society of Paraguay are an uphill struggle, although presumably less for the reader than the writer. Gimlette's not especially observant and his writing style is basic journalistic but one does feel he was trying his best. Of the 355 pages the first 115 are exclusively set within the capital city Asuncion and only feature interactions inside the mainstream urban middle to upper class, with not so much as a taxi driver, bartender, or retailer for variety. Gimlette does later attempt to wander further afield but appears handicapped by his limited Spanish and non-existent Guarani or Plattdeutsch.

There are all the atrocities one might expect: massacres of indigenous people; destruction of the environment (although as the environment includes horrors such as piranha fish one can sympathise to some extent); endless torturing and mass murdering dictators from 16th century Conquistadors onwards into the 20th century; pointless wars leaving up to 66% of the general population and 90% of the male population dead; long term extreme poverty and lack of healthcare. There are also less predictable outrages: the Jesuits who claimed for 160 years that they were protecting and educating indigenous people but who were responsible for many thousands of deaths while failing to produce even one indigenous Catholic priest; or the pacifist Mennonites resorting to fistfights with nazis on the streets of Mennonite colonies (readers will be heartened to know that even the avowedly right-wing Paraguayan army sided with the Mennonites and made the nazis leave for their own colony).

There's a single page map at the beginning, a double page chronology at the end, and a surprising four page Further Reading with fourteen sections that handily sum up the history of what European and US influences have inflicted on Paraguay without much addressing the cultures and people who were already there: Jesuits; Dr Francia; The War of the Triple Alliance; Eliza Lynch; The Mennonites; Utopians, Immigrants and Colonists; Chaco War; The Stroessner Years; Nazis; Natural History (three books all written by Englishmen before 1959); Travel and Exploration (only three books written after 1945, with the most recent from 1972); Paraguayan Literature (two books by Augusto Roa Bastos); English Literature (five books, with Graham Greene's two being the latest); General (only two specifically about Paraguay although they're both 1997 so that's something).

Quote

After the trains stopped: "The railway carried on. It carried on swallowing up eleven billion guaranis a year. Not a ticket was sold nor an ounce of freight moved. Once, these magnificent trains had rumbled all the way across the country and connected with others for Buenos Aires, for Brazil and the sea. They'd carried fruit and soldiers, girlfriends, sugar cane, Australian socialists to their Utopias and Polish peasants as far from feudalism as they could get. Then, line by line, the system had been overwhelmed by weeds and its sleepers pillaged for cooking. In the last few years it had run a wheezy service to the suburbs, but now even those trains had stopped. // But the railway carried on. It carried on employing nine hundred railway staff. Some, perhaps ten per cent, were fantasmas – ghosts – and were purely imaginary, the Mickey Mouses and Donald Ducks. Those that were real were often just planilleros or ticket-boys; moonlighting between their railway jobs and other distractions."½

A hart-searing tale of the violence in the history of what seems an idyllic Indian Ocean island paradise. Apart from a stylistic predilection to see malevolence in ordinary bushes and grasses, the author covers a huge swath of the island's past, and a good chunk of the more recent struggle with ethnic violence and the LTTE, through conversations, travels around the country, and old accounts.

Superb travel book

The first half of this book is a reasonably traditional travel book; the author wanders pacific, cosmopolitan Colombo and its environs, describing people, places, and history. His nose for a good anecdote is telling, and he's a fine writer. As for his history, though, I felt a touch of Baron Munchausen setting in; his grasp is probably firm enough going back about two centuries, but whenever he started in on gigantic ancient cities, now backwaters if they survive at all, which were bigger and better-known than Rome, I felt as though I was watching a cable TV documentary on Atlantis, particularly since none of these supposed metropoles are sited anywhere near a coast, let alone a harbor, or a river, which are the places that ancients invariably located their cities.

After the first half of the book's whimsies, he settles into a grim tour of the war zones of the generation-long Tamil Eelam insurgency and attendant civil war, uncovering atrocity after atrocity. Some will find this gruesome and difficult to take; I mostly found it a slow read, and ultimately this sluggishness is what makes this book, however well-written, less than a masterpiece. It's simply too long by half, and its vocabulary demands too daunting (has this man never heard of a thing called a 'glossary'?) His banquet of delightful anecdotes becomes a little less delightful during one's third week of reading than it was during the first week. It's not easy to isolate sections of the book which could be excised, but I fear that for me, the memory of the author's logorrhea will linger for at least as long as his fine prose stylings.½

I first heard of John Gimlette when he spoke at the Galle Literary Festival here in Sri Lanka. I have travelled widely myself and picked up the occasional travel book. But this was a real treasure for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, and my favourite aspect of the book was that he brought to life much of the dry dull history I learned in school many years ago. And there were so many interesting facts and anecdotes that none of us had read about! And put across with such humour too...
What impressed me was that he tackled both ancient and recent history, including the ethnic war. There are many who believe he as an outsider had no right to write of what he knew nothing about, but I disagree. He handled sensitive issues without much open bias. Neither party were completely blameless in the whole sordid affair.
He also highlighted many social issues such as prostitution that is the ugly truth that many ignore.
I read the paperback edition, and it was quite a massive tome - I lugged it up and down for days before finally getting to the end of it. But not once did I wish to abandon it halfway.

Great stories....the only complaint is that there is too much information in the books. Tis difficult to keep everything straight. Very interesting, though!½

One-country travel histories don't come any more immersive or impressive than this. The author finds the perfect balance between anecdote and exposition, between the sweep of history and the vignette. We meet Paraguayans from across the wildly attenuated social spectrum, many of them ridiculous but mostly not objects of ridicule. The writing is punchy, brisk - often I was left wanting more, as with the story of the British nurse providing basic medicine to 18,000 natives in the Chaco. Gimlette relishes the savagery of the Paraguayan state of nature, and the irony of its adoption by various Utopians and lost tribes. And the country's exceptionally bloody history is splattered in bright colours throughout the book.

The first section, covering the author's time in the capital and the Stroessner regime, struck me as a little disjointed. The book really coheres in its second part, with the narrative of Marshall Lopez and Madame Lynch framing a wild tour of the country's east, and the final part on the Chaco I thought was brilliant and insufficient.½

I am a traveler, and was thrilled to find a book about a part of the world that is rarely written about. My expectation with this book was to really get a sense of the three countries - the culture, a little history, the people...and some reasons to follow the author's lead in visiting them. So I guess I was using Gimlette as an advance team. To his credit he did a very nicely detailed job, it's clear that he spent the time and did his homework. That said, there's something about his style that doesn't compel me. With Theroux it's a love/ hate relationship...I'm always intrigued, am often irritated with his perspectives, am surprised by my agreement, and almost always want to take the same journey to see how I feel about it. With Bryson I laugh, I am satisfied that he has done his homework, and I want to go and meet the people he has met. With Gimlette, though, I found myself not wanting to do any of those things. What comes across as detailed, yeoman-like reporting really turns into a long slog through some apparently god-forsaken places. There is little to no humor. Anecdotes and compelling storylines are absent, and what we're left with is reporting and cold travelogue. Perhaps this is not much more than "Joe Friday's" trip report. I am sorry for being so critical, yet the more I think about it the less compelling the book is to me. Perhaps, though, as Gimlette illustrates, these three countries really are god-forsaken messes. I suppose I will have to go and see for myself, and for that I thank Gimlette.

If you haven't taken in any of John Gimlette's writing, you are missing out. I've relished every page of every one of them, and 'Elephant Complex' is no exception. Another masterpiece, this one takes us deep into Sri Lanka. I've learned so much about a country that hasn't exactly been splashed across the canvas of travel or history writing. Gimlette combines both in leading us through the island. It's evocative and, as ever, Gimlette introduces us to some eccentric characters, appalling colonial history (I'm looking at you, Portugal) and current affairs. The bloody civil war and the tsunami of Boxing Day, 2004 are examined in exhaustive detail. What I would give to travel with John Gimlette.
An absolute must read. Thank you, Mr. Gimlette. More please!½

Do not expect a travel guide or even a travelogue. The “Elephant Complex” is more of a random collection of the author’s visits to places in Sri Lanka with detailed leaps into culture and historical as desired by the author. One has the sense that the collection is written more for the author than the reader.

You get the sense that this book is not the ordinary travel guide in the introduction. John Gimlette, the author, explains that he became interested in visiting Sri Lanka by getting to know the large Sri Lankan population in his home city of London. He took three months to consider his decision and two years to prepare for the trip!

Much of Gilmette’s background detail is told through interviews of people of historical and local prominence that he met in Sri Lanka, for example, a former president, terrorists, and a war hero. He doesn’t just read about history and culture, he experiences it.

Some of Gilmette’s material describes “investigative travel.” When he expounds on the tragedy of sex tourism and pedophilia, Gimlette attempts to track down pedophiles in Negombo. When trudging around beaches, streets and hotels did not produce “the trade,” he me up with his contact, a pedophile hunter associated with a child protection agency called PEACE. Gimlette describes the contact as wearing a long green coat, with a ratcatcher’s bag and yellow eyes. The contact gave him the address of a private house where a boy who looked about 18, with a topknot, showed him the bedroom a propositioned his. Under a “torrent of concupiscence” from the boy, Gimlette escaped the house.

Gimlette presents appalling contrasts about Sri Lanka. For instance, when he visits the beaches of the southern coast, Gimlette points out that in 2007, at the height of the 26-year Sri Lankan Civil War, the World Travel Awards nominated Sri Lanka as “Asia’s leading destination.”

In short, Elephant Complex gives you detailed descriptions of bits and pieces of culture and history through his rambles through Sri Lanka. It is interesting background for a trip to Ski Lanka and a complement to practical travel guides or food for the armchair traveler.

Although Gimlette has previously published 4 other travel books and is a noted travel writer, I did not enjoy his wandering style, with detailed lapses into history based on various people he met. This writing was a bit too wandering and random for me.

I've read a good number of travel books. From my armchair I've mushed across snows, climbed Everest and K2, even descended into the bowels of the earth and trekked across Asia. This book by John Gimlette is unlike Krakauer's, Viesturs', Danziger's or even Sarah Marquis' journals.

Gimlette takes a different, more erudite approach. His approach is part history, part investigative journalism and part travelogue. I think in part he takes this approach because so many people are not up-to-date with the turbulent history of Ceylon/Sri Lanka. As such there's something to be learned about how that history effects the people and the environment as they live today.

The book begins then with the recent history and the Tamil struggle. But throughout the book there is information about all the peoples that have come to this paradise: the British, the Moors, Indians, Portuguese and more. Each have left their imprint and as he travels throughout the country we get to see remnants that survive. Some of the relics of the British Empire are quite amusing.

What is less amusing is the child-sex industry. And here we get a bit of investigative journalism. Gimlette writes about how the perverted use of children has been driven into hiding, but that it's just as bad as it ever was. An unpleasant topic, to be sure, but nothing will change unless good people know about this sort of thing and find ways to combat it.

So this is what you need to know going into ELEPHANT COMPLEX. It's a well written book by an author who has done his research and knows his stuff. The book isn't just a simple book of here's-what-I-did-and-saw. It slips in bits of history (which I found easily digestible), and it includes a bit a journalistic inquiry. It's serious at points and funny at points. A good read.

~review copy
~book #15 for 2016½

I first read "At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig", John Gimlette's ode to Paraguay, and realised that further reading of Gimlette's oeuvre was required.

That led me to "Theatre of Fish", Gimlette's travelogue/history of Newfoundland and Labrador, once an independent nation but now part of Canada. Whereas "... Inflatable Pig" was a (somewhat darkly) humorous look at Paraguay, Gimlette ratchets up the depressive elements as we get the horrible history of Newfoundland; the cold, the poverty, the over-reliance on a cod based economy that came crashing down, the misery of the Indigenous peoples.

Gimlette introduces us to his great-grandfather, who travelled around Newfoundland in the nineteenth century, and then follows in his footsteps. He gets to meet direct descendants of the locals his forebear met and name checks many of the famous people who spent time in Newfoundland (no matter how fleetingly) over the years.

Although not quite as enjoyable as "Tomb of the Inflatable Pig", "Theatre of Fish" still led me to hunt down copies of Gimlette's other books, and surely that's as high a compliment as you could wish for.

Could not put it down. John Gimlette is a passionate, endlessly curious guide through Newfoundland and Labrador, two strange places that remain strange to me, but...now, thanks to Gimlette, there's specificity and texture and history with the strange. If you're hesitant to read what is called "travel writing", start here, and you'll realize what is possible.

"At the tomb of the inflatable pig" was my introduction to John Gimlette, who quickly became one of my preferred writers. Part travelogue/part history, this is one of those books that makes you realise that an otherwise-little thought of nation, region or people has played a much more interesting role in history than previously imaginable.

Gimlette wanders through Paraguay, name dropping figures like Josef Mengele, who arrived here not long after the war and happily found Paraguay completely unconcerned about his past, to the Jesuits of the film "The Mission", to the absolute lunatic dictator who managed to kill off about 90% of his male population fighting an unwinnable war. Also noted is the more recent dictator Stroessner and his rule, which must serve as the model for all aspiring dictators. And who can not like "New Australia", the Socialist Utopia set up in the Paraguayan jungle?

So excellent. Makes me want to run away to Paraguay right now.

I have come to expect intriguing and humorous works from John Gimlette, and "Wild Coast" didn't let me down. I have been a fan of Gimlette since picking up "Tomb of the Inflatable Pig" some years ago and "Wild Coast" could be his best year. Gimlette takes us on a journey through Guyana, Surinam and French Guiana, introducing us to its people, its dark history and its uncertain future. To most people, the most one knows of the three countries is that Guyana is part of the West Indies cricket team (and the location of the Jamestown massacre), Surinam won a gold medal in swimming at the 1984 Olympics and French Guiana has a rocket launching site. This book gives you so much more.

And, yes, the book has increased my desire to visit these countries even more.½

John Gimlette is a travel writer with a flair for the historical with a bit of humor thrown in along the way. In Panther Soup Gimlette decides to retrace the European footsteps of the U.S. Army of 1944. He chooses to take Putnam Flint, a veteran of the tank destroyer battalion, "The Panthers" as his guide. Together, along with Flint's son, they travel Flint's path through France into Germany, starting with the seedy city of Marseille. This sets the tone for the entire travel adventure. Marseille had been described as "lethally weird," and "a freak show for the chronically unhygienic" (p 26). Having Flint along as a guide allows Gimlette to dip into history and provide commentary on the regions as Flint experienced them in 1944.½

Every once in awhile I stumble across a perfect marriage between a writer's style and a book's subject matter. Gimlette wonderfully describes this country's absurd and appalling history juxtaposed between his quirky travel log.

I tried. This book failed to engage me on any level. I found it rambling, confusing, and cluttered up with repetition. I was unable to get much past 1/4 of the way into it. Perhaps it would have improved, but I'm afraid I'll have to learn about Paraguay some other way.

This is totally not my genre. I picked this up in the bookstore because of the title (we have two black cats we call our panthers) and I bought it because I thought I'd learn something about the European theater in WWII. I'm on page 121 and so far the main messages are: There are whores in Marseilles. Whores. Whores whores whores whores whores whores whores. (Gimlette doesn't use the word whores that much, maybe not at all, but I'm up early feeding my infant son and kind of punchy. whores whores whores whores). The other lesson is that terrible things happen in a war.

The book is a travelogue, not a history lesson, so my expectations aren't fair. Still, a hundred pages about what a stinking mess of poo and whores Marseilles is? Really? I mean, the guy just went on and on. We get it! There are whores!

Another great Gimlette travelogue, topsy-turvy with his usual obtuse perspectives and a fractured structure which recalls his excellent At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig. His way of looking at the American experience in this theater of World War II is one you will not encounter elsewhere. Gimlette's great qualities are a tremendous power of observation, an equally strong ability to record these observations, and most importantly, the bravery and willingness to follow his own path not only in terms of actual travel but in terms of the extraordinary angles at which he comes to the things, cultures, and people he meets.