Customer Reviews

Malaria Dreams: An African Adventure

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a story on HOW one travels in Africa. Some stories Stevens paints may sound outrageous or outlandish, but that's exactly how it is in Africa. Experienced in traveling and living in this fabolous continent, I can only say "welcome to reality". The author has a very humorous style of telling wild tales of African Bureaucracy and logic as encountered during their misfortunate trip through the Sahara. I smiled my way through the book that I hardly could put down. The tales are so real (as anyone will testify who has been there) that it rocks the reading chair of anyone getting into the book. Don't read the book, if you are planning your first trip to Africa but read it if you want to immerse yourself in real African mentality, shrewdness, and irrationality held together by a humor hard to resist.

This book is about how an American guy ends up driving from the Central Africa Republic all the way to North Africa. Suffice it to say that everything that can go wrong does. I've had a lot of personel experience in Cameroon and I can say that everything that happened to this guy didn't sound that far fetched. It is laugh outloud funny. I just couldn't put it down. If your looking for a funny read, then this book is for you. This is a fun book, it is not meant to be some philosophical consideration about the status of Africa or anything like that. There are several excellent and very seroius books about Africa, but this is not one. This book is an adventure story. It is hilarious, I was kind of sad to finish it. It made me want to go back to Africa and they my hand at driving from Capetown to Tunis. Don't miss it.

I have travelled more than the average and as a result, most of my reading tends to be travel guides and the travelogues of others. "Malaria Dreams" easily ranks as my favorite. Most travellers to the third world and particularly Africa will appreciate the truth in the stories which Mr. Stevens tells. I have lent the book to at least 15 other people and only one has not enjoyed it (he had lived in Africa for a number of years and said it was just too real for him to enjoy). I am now on my third copy of the book--the first I lent and never got back, and the second I passed on to some friends who were starting their second cross-Sahara trip. If I ever get around to writing about any of my trips, I hope that I can retell the story in as engaging and humorous a way as Mr. Stevens has.

This is just the book to read on a long flight in economy class. Any delays and discomforts you have to put up with will fade by comparison with what Stevens experienced. It's a hilarious account of travels in Central and West Africa. (incidentally at that time, the 1980's, Algeria was relatively safe).
Africans might have a legitimate gripe with the way they are portrayed but most comic travel books tend to portray the inhabitants of a country as childish or incompetent. Read Dickens's "American Notes." I would have liked to hear the author's ideas on why things are as they are in Africa. Whose fault is it? What can be done? What will happen in future? This may be complaining that he has not written a different book but I see that he is, according to the jacket a "political consultant" so he must have some opinions.

After reading some of the other comments, I can only conclude that there is a serious humour deficit amongst some segments of the Amazon book reviewing population. Only the hypersensitive or the irredeemably politically correct could possibly fail to enjoy this book.

The naysayers make a big deal about the author poking fun at the native Africans, but fail to notice the amount of self-depreciation he also engages in. Ultimately, you get the sense of an inexperienced but well-meaning traveller who was completely unprepared for Africa but who realises it and sees the funny side of his own naivete. He is poking fun at himself as much as anyone else. And assuming that the tales he tells of African bureaucracy are true - and having experienced it myself, I'm inclined to believe them - why on earth should he not have a laugh about them?

As a storyteller, the author has a real gift and I found the book difficult to put down.

One star subtracted only because of the abrupt and wholly unsatisfying ending.

this was my first venture into Stevens world and I became hooked. immediately i sent it to a friend with directions to send to a long list of friends and then it was lost in the shuffle. years later, after forgeting Stevens name, i stumbled upon Feeding Frenzy in a sale rack on the sidewalk of some snooty "private" library in Midtown and it was like meeting up with an old boyfriend on a ferry in a foreign place. After the discovery I went immediately to the bookstore and bought Malaria Dreams and The train. Malaria is of course great. it's the "i'm laughing out loud and i don't care what you think" kind of thing. it feels like the story is being told to you over coffee from a friend instead of a paperback you are experiencing alone. read it and then Feeding Frenzy.... my next pet will be a golden retriever named Henry. I guess you could say Stevens has at least one groupie.

I bought Malaria Dreams before I went to West Africa, but only recently read it. I am glad I waited, because without having been there, I would not have been able to appreciate how accurately Stu describes very real situations. His style and humor, however, should appeal to anyone.

This was a good read, well written adventure. The "characters" we meet are thoroughly African and provide an insightful view of that country. There are some questions that the book left unanswered. For instance, who is Ann? Why is she travelling with Stevens? And did they learn anything of lasting value from the trip? I loved the adventure. The writing is tight, humorous and makes even the outlandish situations believable.

My in-laws were medical missionaries in north east Cameroon back in the late 1990s. They were urged to read this travelogue as a preparation for life in sub Saharan Africa. I read it for fun, mainly because after flipping through a few pages I realized that it was a lot like the blog I kept during my year of military service in southern Afghanistan.

Some reviewers object to the author's depiction of Africa and Africans, which tends to revolve around omnipresent graft and simple anomie. I've never been to Africa and can't comment one way or the other. However, it wouldn't surprise me if veteran African hands roll their eyes at the dramatic tone applied to many of Stevens' adventures during his hundred day journey from Central Africa Republic (CAR) to Algeria by way of Cameroon, Niger and Mali, with a large dash of the Sahara Desert along the way.

What I loved about the book - admired to tell you the truth - was Stevens' ability to capture characters and events, often with uproarious, self-deprecating hilarity. The novelist Don De Lillo, one of our country's greatest prose stylists, once described his profession modestly as: "I write sentences." And Stevens', like De Lillo, writes wonderful sentences: balanced, original, insightful, often playful. I found myself slowly re-reading his character introductions and metaphors with a mix of respect and envy. I don't think I would have had the same appreciation for his skill had I not attempted to do the same thing, only writing about Afghan tribesmen and western military bureaucracy instead of African tribesmen and African governmental bureaucracy.

The narrative that drives the story - Stevens attempt to rescue a friend's Land Rover from CAR - is something like what Alfred Hitchcock called a MacGuffin in a great film: a plot element that catches the viewers' attention or drives the plot. In the end, what happens to the MacGuffin, the Land Rover or the Maltese Falcon or whatever, really doesn't matter; it's the characters and their experiences and conflicts that captivate the audience. Such is the case with "Malaria Dreams." Much of the story itself is borderline preposterous. A guy who seeks to rescue a Land Rover from the clutches of government officials in CAR for an acquaintance back in the US he barely knows? And who undertakes the odyssey with an attractive young woman even though he's married and she has a fighter pilot boyfriend?

But all of this is ultimately beside the point, at least for me. I loved the writing, and that's all I need.

My husband and I read this book back in 2006 as we traveled around Tanzania. It was a perfect read for the trip and we still talk about the book today! There aren't many books that keep you laughing and talking more than three years later. A definate must read- especially if you're planning a trip to Africa. An hysterically funny travel book!