Customer Reviews

Up the Amazon Without a Paddle

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There's a limit of 1000 words on these reviews, and I'm going to use all of them. If you're in a rush, here's the summary:

"Up the Amazon Without a Paddle" is a horrible book. Don't buy it.

If you're not in a rush, sit back and let me explain why.

Doug Lansky is an unfunny, one-note writer. In almost every paragraph, he employs a single, childish device to trick you into thinking his adventures are amusing: EXAGGERATION. Lansky's exaggeration comes so thick and fast that you a) immediately stop trusting anything he says, and b) realize how desperate he is to mine laughs out of experiences that were clearly not particularly interesting or funny at the time.

He usually exaggerates with the help of a forced and trite comparison, preferably unflattering:

"As I boarded the Trans-Manchurian in Beijing for my six-day train ride to Moscow, I was greeted by a motherly Russian train attendant who had enough facial hair to knit a pair of leg warmers."

And it only goes downhill from there. Hardly a paragraph passes without some kind of exaggeration, negative caricature, and/or mean-spirited sarcasm. If you're looking for a book where a young American traveler insults the appearance, clothing, language, eating habits, and personal hygiene of most everyone he encounters, this one's for you.

Another of Lansky's key exaggeration tactics, utilized in almost all 60 essays, is the old "cheap shot at a celebrity" trick:

"I jumped on [the alligator's] back and placed both my hands firmly in the 'safety position' on his neck, which was about twice the width of Roseanne Barr's neck."

Only a gifted comic could take a story about alligator wrestling and masterfully turn it into a cheap shot at an overweight celebrity. Bravo.

"[The Old Course at St. Andrews, Scotland] has more lumps than Robert Redford's face, bunkers the size of the Gobi Desert, and other "small" bunkers deep enough to conceal the bodies of numerous golfers who refused to stop swinging away at their ball. The rough is thicker than Don King's hair, and there's usually enough wind to blow the makeup off Tammy Faye Bakker's face."

Some might call this funny. I call it desperate and grasping. And embarrassing. Good travel humor isn't something you impose on your subject with exaggeration and phony comparisons. Good travel humor comes from observing genuinely interesting and amusing things that are inherent in your subject, and rendering them in a way that not only communicates this humor, but also gives your reader a rich and authentic portrait of what you actually experienced. That's not what you find in this book. You find the above. Half the time Lansky goes for the cheap laugh, and the other half he goes for the nonexistent laugh.

Now let's see how Doug generates additional "humor" by flaunting his ignorance and laughing condescendingly at other people's poverty. This is where Lansky's writing goes from bad to downright ugly. Writing about a bus trip in Guatemala, Lansky has this to say:

"All of the windows [of the bus] were jammed shut, probably with thirty-year-old chewing gum left by junior-high baby-boomers in Nebraska before the bus was sold to the Guatemalans."

These sorts of 'wacky' observations display Lansky's essential malevolence. Isn't it funny that Guatemala is so poor they're using ramshackle, decades-old school buses America threw away, and they're such filthy people that they (apparently) haven't cleaned the bus once since they bought it? No, actually, it's not funny at all. And it's even less funny when you're not completely ignorant, and you know that in 1954, when those Nebraskan baby boomers were just being born, the CIA sponsored the overthrow of Guatemala's democratically-elected president and replaced him with dictator Castillo Armas, kicking off 40 years of brutal repression that put a lot more emphasis on liquidating hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans than maintaining a state-of-the-art bus fleet for Doug Lansky to ride around in. A good travel writer might have thrown in a paragraph or two about recent Guatemalan history (you know, context and all), but Lansky isn't here to educate us. No, his schtick is just having a cheap laugh at dirt-poor Guatemala.

The closest he gets to historical background and commentary on Guatemala:

"I liked the idea of being isolated in a third-world country, nothing to do but speak Spanish... and avoid death squads."

Yes, mass murder is hilarious when it isn't your people being killed. I can't wait to read about Doug's zany visit to Auschwitz. Whoops, his last name is Lansky. Bet it'll be a while before we see that one. Let's just stick to giggling at the slaughter of those dirty Latin Americans, shall we?

I'm sorry folks, but the oft-repeated charge that Doug Lansky is an "ugly American" sticks. I'll bet that most of those who say "lighten up, it's all in good fun" are American, and therefore unaware of how it feels to be on the receiving end of the smug American superiority complex. It's not funny to be laughed at. And that's what Lansky does.

Just so you know, I'm not a humorless or overly political person. I am in fact a professional comedian who loves travel literature. I wrote this review, my first, because Lansky's book was awful enough to shake my out of my complacency. Where writers like Tim Cahill entertain and enlighten, Lansky just insults. His flippant and callous ignorance does nothing but perpetuate the harmful mentality that the rest of the world is a playground for rich American kids to frolic in, make fun of, and feel superior to. And I hope this review, and more importantly, the bits of his book that I've quoted here, will convince you to give this one a miss.

I've been following Doug's column in my local paper and I was thrilled when this collection came out. I didn't realize how many columns I'd missed and it made me wish I'd started reading Vagabond sooner. I'm so sick of those overly politically correct takes on other countries I find in other books. They either read like ads or a bunch of euphemisms. Say what you really think, people! Doug's humor strikes a perfect balance between poking fun at other countries and poking fun at himself. I can't believe he actually finds jobs in these places! God. I couldn't do it. I guess I kind of travel through Doug. He's the only travel writer I've read, except maybe Dave Barry or P.J. O'Rourke, who isn't afraid to tell it how he really sees it. The adventures themselves are great and all, but I've found that it doesn't matter what he's writing about, his goofy self-effacing style makes any topic interesting. Sorry, I'm rambling. I've never written one of these before, but I just had to send something in. This book is just so different than any other travel book I've read.

Basically...he drops a few funny lines, but doesn't really write about his travels in any depth. If you are actually interested in the travels themselves...don't read this book. If you want a few laughs....from a skimpy and slightly dull book, read it. It's not horrible. I just expected more.

This book claims to contain 60 offbeat adventures from around the world. I found none. So what if Doug Lansky watches a bullfight, takes dancing lessons, picks grapes, eats a steak, and goes moose hunting. My grandmother, who is 80, had done all of those 'adventures' too. Let's forget about the fact that the book is a tour guide for senior citizens, and talk about Lansky's attitude. He sounds like a fat, spoiled American who has a wonderful life but still isn't satisfied. Lansky manages to complain about every 'culture' he claims to have experienced. In reality, Lansky never allows himself to experience true cultures. He only takes part in typical tourist activites that actually contribute to the decay of the societies he is visiting. My recommendation is to skip this book. Avoid Lansky's egomania and pessimistic outlook on the world at any cost.

Judging from the reviews, this clearly is a book which is not likely to leave the reader indifferent. My personal experience is that it is a very funny and winning collection of travel vignettes, one which should appeal to anybody who has ever longed to cut-loose and, as the Navy would say, "See the World"--or is it "Come join the Adventure?!!!" I can't remember and it doesn't matter: the point is, if you're the kind of person likely to find humor in ad campaigns such that, then you're probably going to understand and enjoy Mr. Lansky's point-of-view. I recommend picking-up a copy and seeing for yourself. My guess is that you'll be drawn-in and that you'll know right away that this is a writer with a genuine comic talent.

I read the online reviews here and thought I'd check out this book. Let me be blunt: It is really bad. I couldn't even read more than a few articles. Then I noticed that many of the "glowing" reviews on Amazon for Doug's book read just like Doug's book. Is he stocking the page with reviews. Sound like it. The only reason I can see this book getting a decent review is if the author writes one.

In this book, Doug Lansky summarizes observations and experiences from over 60 of his travels worldwide. Each chapter is a new fascinating story and after finishing the book you are just sort of astonished that the man lived to tell his adventures. Because adventures they are, each one described in Lansky's own characteristic, observational, sometimes understated-sense-of-humour-but-always-to-the- point- style. One of the best things about the book is that I don't see anyone who would not benefit from reading it, be it the experienced traveller who will nod quitely in recognition while chuckling towards hypoxia or the domestic couch lover whose travel demons are bound to be set free by this witty collection of experiences. To pick a personal favourite among his stories is difficult but the journey up the Nambesi river, spending the night on the river banks while crocodiles are marching up and down of the water next to you definately had me biting my finger nails of. Keep up the good work Doug. I hope this planet will be big enough for you in the end.

Doug Lansky is a syndicated columnist whose travel columns are published in a handful of newspapers around the country. I have caught a few of his columns in my local paper and thought that I'd check out this book. Unfortunately, his writing really disappointed me.

'Up the Amazon' is a collection of some 60 plus of Doug Lansky's travel columns. Lansky's particular hook on travel writing is that he travels the world looking for humorous adventures off the beaten track that most tourists travel. This setup has a lot of potential; after all, what traveler hasn't experienced his or her share of funny mixed up stuff while 'on the road.'

The problem is that Lansky's book fails to live up to its 'off the beaten path' billing. First off, I realized that I had read different accounts of the places and events Lansky describes in his books in the work of other travel writers. Perhaps Lansky discovers the out-of-the-way places he visits by reading what others have written first. For novice travelers and readers, this isn't a problem. However, if you have read more than a passing of travel literature, the constant deja vu of Lansky's experiences will really irritate.

My second problem with this book was Lansky's paternalistic, spoiled-American view of life. If he isn't complaining about how much people in other cultures smell (such as this quote, describing what is special about India: '...it's a wicked combination of curry, cow [dung], and breath-taking body odor.') then he is trying to show how he isn't a coarse foreign tourist, even as he does the things all the other tourist do.

For example, while in Thailand, Lansky takes the 'original' trip to a Bangkok sex show. After describing in infinite detail all of the kinky stuff that goes on there, he closes with the comment: 'As I later found out, thousands of young girls are forced into this 'work.' Tourists who don't know this may be curious and venture in. Perhaps this description--and I hope I have made myself clear--will satisfy your curiosity.' This seems to be a convenient rationalization so that Lansky doesn't have to feel embarrassed by partaking of the Thai sex industry.

My final problem with the book is that Lansky's writing is merely adequate. For example, his poorly-constructed metaphors will drive you crazy, and his descriptions of exotic places are totally lacking. While I did laugh at his writing, I doubt it was in the way he intended.

All of this is a shame. Doug Lansky is the son of two well-known writers. His parents, Bruce and Vicki Lansky, founded Meadowbrook Press, where his mother published numerous influential parenting books and his father publishes children's poetry books. Still, I imagine that if Doug Lansky continues to work on his writing, his work will eventually measure up to that of his parent's.

I really enjoy being an armchair traveler... Mr.Lansky's book is just a fast moving, light hearted, mind trip around the world... I am glad he did these incredible things, so I really don't have to wonder if I have missed anything by not actually doing "that thing"... especially the camel stuff...I may pan for emeralds, however, I can't say for sure... nice "mind candy" book...a fantastic perspective on things and relatable humor...

Disappointing. Dull. The only saving grace is that the travel stories are short. Like pulling a tooth, at least it is over quickly.