When Peter Rudiak-Gould decamps to Ujae Island, of the Marshall Islands, South Pacific, to teach English for a year he learns the limits and the bounties of residing on a remote island âparadise.â According to the author, Ujae is a third of a square mile in size and populated by approximately 450 citizens.
In Surviving Paradise Rudiak-Gould summarizes the book as:
"My portrait of one Marshall Island at the turn of the twenty-first century, and how it felt to live alone in this alien culture on a remote speck of land at a rather tender age â how it was just like a rocky first romance, complete with infatuation and disillusionment."
Still later Rudiak-Gould confesses, âI wanted Ujae to be my far-off paradise. Ujae wanted me to be its English teacher. So we married and we met, in that order.â
It soon becomes clear to the author that Ujae is no Fantasy Island. While the author notes that he found great pleasure in "the unrushed friendliness, the fishing and chatting and lore, but many of the values and practices . . . [upset him] with unrelenting intensity. The pains of children, always and everywhere seen, but never addressed; the school's black hole of apathy; the tacit neglect of what appeared to [be] . . . obvious and fixable problems . . . ."
Surviving Paradise is a thoughtful account of a Westerner living the reality of life on a remote tropical island.
Publisher: Union Square Press; 1 edition (November 3, 2009), 256 pages.
Advance Review Copy Provided Courtesy of the Publisher.
Posted by DCMetroreader at 6:00 AM
In Surviving Paradise Rudiak-Gould summarizes the book as:
"My portrait of one Marshall Island at the turn of the twenty-first century, and how it felt to live alone in this alien culture on a remote speck of land at a rather tender age â how it was just like a rocky first romance, complete with infatuation and disillusionment."
Still later Rudiak-Gould confesses, âI wanted Ujae to be my far-off paradise. Ujae wanted me to be its English teacher. So we married and we met, in that order.â
It soon becomes clear to the author that Ujae is no Fantasy Island. While the author notes that he found great pleasure in "the unrushed friendliness, the fishing and chatting and lore, but many of the values and practices . . . [upset him] with unrelenting intensity. The pains of children, always and everywhere seen, but never addressed; the school's black hole of apathy; the tacit neglect of what appeared to [be] . . . obvious and fixable problems . . . ."
Surviving Paradise is a thoughtful account of a Westerner living the reality of life on a remote tropical island.
Publisher: Union Square Press; 1 edition (November 3, 2009), 256 pages.
Advance Review Copy Provided Courtesy of the Publisher.
Posted by DCMetroreader at 6:00 AM
