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Tales from the Torrid Zone: Travels in the Deep Tropics (Vintage Departures) | 
 enlarge | Author: Alexander Frater
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 706682
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 1
ISBN: 0307388263
Dewey Decimal Number: 910
EAN: 9780307388261
ASIN: 0307388263
Publication Date: February 12, 2008
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Product Description
Alexander Frater was born to a family of Scottish expatriates on the tiny island of Irikiki in the South Seas. Following his dreams of being a writer, Frater left home, but the call of the tropics compelled him to return again and again.
Join him as he dines with the Queen of Tonga; makes his way through two civil wars; visits the spots where surfing and bungee jumping originated; and expresses his love for the region where he is at once a tourist, explorer, adventurer, and native son.
From Tahiti to Thailand, Mexico to Mozambique, Frater gives us a richly described, endlessly surprising picture of this diverse, feverish, languorously beautiful world.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Very disappointed August 3, 2008
I bought this book on an impulse (the premise seemed intriguing) and I have to say I have not enjoyed it very much. I am on the last 20 pages now and it has been really hard going.
The problem is with how the book is structured. For some reason the author chose to combine various vignettes together and seemingly randomly group them in chapters. There is no flow of narrative, no characters to interest the reader, no feeling for the place where the author is at a particular moment, no context, no placement in time; most of the time we have no idea when is a particular scene taking place. Worse, at times I found myself not knowing where! The author would start a paragraph mentioning whatever fact about a place (say, Bali) then two sentences after that, in the same paragraph, he would mention something about a Carribbean island that had a thing in common with Bali, and for the rest of the chapter would keep talking about 'that' place; I found myself scratching my head wondering if he was in Bali or in the Carribbean, because it was not clear at all (to me). Also the people in his book are remarkably uni-dimensional, and there seems to be little difference between Melanesian John and American John, since no real descriptions or character studies are provided.
The author uses this gimmick to string paragraphs together repeatedly: he mentions something about some place, then the same thing about a different place, and this mechanism supposedly provides the passage from one place to another. While some may find this stream of conscioussness type of writing interesting, I quickly tired of it, and in hindsight it appears a 'cheap' way of connecting unrelated fragments and avoiding proper narrative. It does not give the book any kind of depth and I found myself not very interested in picking it up again because really there was nothing to return to.
It is too bad because there is a lot of material here. By comparison, Theroux's "Happy Isles of Oceania" is a masterpiece.
Take this one to the beach, leaf through it, but don't expect to be gripped.
 Pleased a hard-to-please reader March 27, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I am generally turned off by books with coconut palms featuring too prominently on their cover -- they tend to be full of self-congratulation for finding a perfect spot to relax, and reading about other people sitting on the beach drinking funny-colored drinks is even more awful than sitting there alongside them. But after a recent trip to Fiji, I wanted to learn more about it, and grabbed this book after learning the author had actually grown up in Melanesia.
This rarely happens, but maybe once every couple of years I find myself smiling after a few pages, delighted to find myself in the hands of a masterful narrator. I realized almost immediately that Frater, bouncing from topic to topic but never seeming abrupt, was going to keep me engaged for many happy hours. He's a sharp and skeptical observer of the present, a fiend for historical research, and manages to keep the story flowing, whether talking about the life cycle of a tsetse fly contagion or an audience with the King of Tonga.
This is a guy I'd happily have a beer with if I met him on the beach someplace.
Didn't like May 26, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Somehow this book simply didn't appeal to me. It meanders all over the place, with no dates so you're often left to guess the chronology. Occasional reminiscences about bygone missionaries, their wives, church bells and so on. Not a travel book by any means. Although to be fair, the parts about flying boats and tropical diseases were quite interesting. If you are interested in the South Pacific, I'd reccomend as light fare "The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific" by J. Maarten Troost and the best I've ever read "The Fatal Impact: The Invasion of the South Pacific, 1767-1840"
Wandering through the tropics May 7, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
My first reaction to Frater's "Tales" was mildly negative. He offers digressions within digressions, often jump cutting from place to place with only the mildest narrative logic. After a while, though, I adjusted to the pace and style and became thoroughly engrossed with his account of a life-long passion for the tropics. The book is filled with interesting detail, and thoughtful musings on a wide variety of subjects. I would love to travel with Frater, and reading this book is the next best thing.
Deep Tropics April 27, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
The ellipical structure of the anecdotes will either enchant you or drive you batty trying to figure out when and where he is at any given moment. If you like Paul Theroux's travel books you may like this. It is more ephemeral, but in the end there is a linear tale with somewhat of an arc. I really enjoyed this book and hope to read more by him. You will want to visit most of the places when you put down the book. Just bring mosquito repellent and a wry sense of humor.
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