THE HAPPY ISLES OF OCEANIA: Paddling the...
THE HAPPY ISLES OF OCEANIA: Paddling the Pacific by Paul Theroux Fawcett/Columbine: $12.95; 528 pp.). No one enjoys a bum time as much as Paul Theroux: No matter where he travels, the food is bad, the accommodations shoddy and the people unpleasant. His latest travelogue debunks the happy images of the South Seas as paradise, although he concedes the region is beautiful. Theroux’s descriptions of paddling a small kayak through the archipelagoes of Meganesia, Melanesia and Micronesia showcase his verbal panache, and this disgruntled account will delight his many fans, but his perpetual carping grows wearisome after a few hundred pages.
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