Customer Reviews

Paradise

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

 

 

If Larry McMurtry stops his autobiographical musings with this latest installment, it would be a fitting end of a trilogy: "Walter Benjamin At The Dairy Queen: Reflections At Sixty And Beyond" (1999), "Roads" (2000), and "Paradise" (2001). Hopefully, there will be an additional volume or two.

It is necessary to mention "Walter Benjamin" and "Roads" before getting to "Paradise". While not strictly an autobiography, "Walter Benjamin" explains something of McMurtry's upbringing, his younger days, his middle-age, and includes some family history (particularly his paternal grandparents and his father). Some of the book recalls portions of his 1968 work "In A Narrow Grave: Essays On Texas" (which contains one of the best pieces ever written about family: "Take My Saddle From The Wall: A Valediction"). "Roads" contains an abundance of opinions and reminiscings from McMurtry's life, and is combined with his 1999 thoughts as he uses America's great interstate highways to traverse the country as the great rivers were once used.

The autobiographical portion of "Paradise" includes the relationship between McMurtry's parents from their marriage in 1934 up through the death of his father (in 1977), and then onward with his mother. Intertwined with this is an early-2000 vacation to Tahiti which focuses on a cargo-cruise tour of the Marquesas Islands. The sly thing about this slight book (it is a quick read) is that one is reading a first-class travel book without even realizing it. As a bonus, the reader gets some interesting views of his fellow travelers (American, French, Belgian, German, and others), as well as some commentary on the Polynesians (past and present).

Once again, the novelist McMurtry succeeds in writing some great essay/non-fiction.

Fans of Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen and Mr. McMurtry's many fine western novels will be very disappointed in this book.

He visits Tahiti and the Marquesa Islands in the few days before his mother dies (which seems like strange timing, since her passing was expected), and sees the area as paradise in a sad way. Obviously affected by his mother's failing health, he pretty much sticks to himself and reads books. Occasionally, he makes an observation about how beautiful tropical islands mainly vary by the extent to which "civilized" amenities have been plunked down in them. He ruminates about why people who lived there fought with one another, or became cannibals. But he doesn't really take the thinking anywhere. He is struck by the fact that the ocean surrounding a South Sea island isolates its inhabitants much like the desert does around Southwestern Indian pueblos. That's about the level of insight here. A high point is when a Polynesian woman gives him some passion fruit as an unexpected gift.

Like in Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen, he reflects on his parents' marriage. But he doesn't reflect on it very much. Most of that ground is covered in the earlier book.

I only kept reading the book because Mr. McMurtry is normally a fine writer, and often has interesting observations. My reward for doing so was to find out about the logistics of visiting the Marquesas, which I have been thinking about visiting. I graded the book at two for its value as a travelogue. Otherwise, I would have graded it as a one.

Some people might characterize this book as an essay on the subject of paradise. It certainly has ruminations along those lines, especially about Gauguin. But the content isn't organized as an essay. It looks like notes in a daily journal, that were never turned into an essay or a book.

Paradise comes across as the work of a very depressed person who is grieving, who won't share his emotions with the reader.

If you want to keep your high opinion of Mr. McMurtry's thinking and writing, skip this book!

Granted, this is not McMurtry's best work, but if I were sitting beside him, and we were chatting "in a stream of consciousness" way, I would find his thoughts interesting enough, sharing as one tourist to another, in an unhurried, leisurely exchange of views. This is a period in his life when McMurtry was having to face "loss" and the reader needs to include this understanding in his analysis of the book. I feel I learned more about McMurtry as a person, from having read Paradise.

Evelyn Horan - author
Jeannie, A Texas Frontier Girl, Book One
Jeannie, A Texas Frontier Girl, Book Two

For those of you who enjoyed "Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen" and "Roads", this is a briefer introspective work by the same author. This time he's vacationing in the South Seas while taking a break from the mental anguish of watching his mother slowly pass on. We start with a lot of family history and assume that this will be the theme. Then we go off in a different tangent as the book becomes something of a cynical tourist guide to the Marquesa Islands. Ultimately we find ourselves at a very appropriate ending.

This book, even more so than the other two aforementioned books, is something of a free verse of observations by the author. One comes away wondering why this book was written and I guess my impression that it was more for the author than for us. We are able to follow, somewhat, McMurtry's attempts to resolve some of his inner feelings as he knows his mother is slowly drifting away (albeit several thousand miles away). Yet at the same time, his observations about his trip and fellow travelers confuse us as to the depth of any of his feelings. Perhaps that is the point; a man who is at one of those points in life where life itself is a numbing sensation.

Should you read this book? Probably not unless you, like many of McMurtry's literary aficionados, enjoy getting to know the author a bit better. Otherwise it is just a journal of a trip. And it's a trip that the reader has to feel would have been more enjoyable if we rather than McMurtry were the ones taking it. Nonetheless, I'm glad I read it.

I had adopted Larry McMurtry as one of my favorite writers after "Lonesome Dove", in spite of the insidious shift to more depressing depictions of bleak frontier life in his sequels and prequels. It's getting harder and harder to endure the the pessimism of his writing. This book, as well as the similarly focused travel report, "Roads", really tested my tolerance of his grim observations, and frankly I couldn't pass the test.

"Paradise" was intended to be a quest for a better understanding of his parents' difficult marriage while cruising the South Pacific. This sounded like a stretch at the outset, and still felt like one by the end. Apparently, his mother and father rarely ventured beyond their homestead. When they did manage a single trip out of state, it went badly, their marriage took a turn for the worse, and they stayed home from then on. McMurtry tries to put this into context of his own wanderlust as he visits the Marquesas in the company of some spoiled Europeans.

The result is a boring and depressing account that left me uncaring about his family, his travel companions, or the South Pacific. At the risk of sounding cynical, this book felt like it enabled a tax write-off for the trip itself, and achieved little else. I regret reading this book.

I confess: I have tried to read "Lonesome Dove" and have failed. My old school chums (McMurty was at Rice, years ago) stay loyal to their freshman English prof, and urge me to try again. Nope. But I like "Paradise." McMurtry claims at first to be getting away so he can write about his parents. But he as much as says that he's got to churn out prose to meet a deadline, and some of the book feels like words for hire. Well, that's a well-worn path for many authors: Think of Dickens. The product here is a low-key travelogue. The voice is that of the a sympathetic observer, well-read and well-spoken. (The tone reminds me of M.F.K. Fisher, who also wrote about the crew and fellow travelers on a cargo ship. ) I found it a delightful respite from plot-driven fiction.

As I have mentioned before, with a couple of exceptions, I tend to prefer McMurtry's non-fiction over his fiction. It is in his non-fiction that I hear his voice, learn his heart, discover his thoughts, and walk his footsteps. Through his journey to Tahiti and the surrounding islands, we hear about writers, painters, historical events, culture, and perceptive insights on fellow travelers. Intermingle this with personal comments on growing up, parents, siblings, and childhood events, and Paradise shimmers with interest.

Unusual for McMurtry, in Paradise he takes some time to describe the geography and the people, juxtaposing the past with the present in a kind of mosaic of personal experiences. In fiction, telling the story is paramount over any kind of knowledge gained; whereas in non-fiction, the cognition of the facts and circumstances can be quite enriching. Being a well-read author, McMurty is able to interject quotes from other writers as well referencing great books he has read. This makes for a relaxed, informative read that could easily fall into a simplistic trap of simply sharing facts and personal stories. But in the hands of master writer McMurtry, this book has an overriding artistry that leaves the reader with an optimistic, yet reflective spirit.

The ending of the book is touching and personal with hints of religious overtones, perpetuated by the impending death of the author's mother. While it is a weak practice to find the one magical sentence that seems to capsulize an entire book, the sentence that comes the closest is on page 158: "Perhaps that is paradise: the fresh, unqualified love of children for their moms and dads--a love before knowledge, which was the sort of love the God of Genesis intended for Adam and Eve." This book, like many of McMurtry's books, is a journey through a new land, yet it is also a journey through the life of a successful writer and his reflection of the past and the present. Worth reading by McMurtry enthusiasts but also by anyone curious about Tahiti, Paradise resonates with those curious philosophers wanting a different look at life and its meaning.

This was bought as a present for a friend. However, I have enjoyed all the novels I have read by McMurtry, especially Lonsome Dove. My friend did say that he liked the book and now had all the 'berrybender' series.
af

The book tries to place a finger on what love (or search for paradise or an undefined ache) means. The author/narrator is visiting Marquesa (Paradise on earth, as felt by a variety of authors over the last 2 centuries) while his mother is in death bed. Mother dies one day after the author returns. A quick read, but not necessarily thought provoking. It almost felt like the author could not penetrate into his own ego-chill (to consider one's own non-existence - Erik Erikson reference in the book). The book is filled with references to books which provide a background to the author's thoughts, which is very useful.

I found this McMurtry book to be less than satisfying. Primarily it's a travelogue, an account of a trip he took a couple of years ago to Tahiti, the Tuamotus and Marquesas Islands. It is also in part a reflection on the lives of his parents and on the meaning of paradise. The main problem with the book is that it has a rushed-into-print feel to it. It seems in need of further editing and rewriting, as if the editors at Simon & Schuster told McMurtry, just give us your notes and we'll put the book together. There are several places where the narrative changes verb tense in mid-paragraph. There are also some passages that seem out of order, where the author makes passing reference to a subject as if it has already been broached, though it's not until later that the subject is truly introduced. Other passages have a non-sequitur quality. For instance, an interesting consideration of Milton's Paradise Lost segues abruptly to a discussion of horses and seasickness.

My other problem with the book is that I began to lose patience with McMurtry as passive observer. I wanted him to jump ship, like Melville, and really experience life in the Marquesas, rather than simply record his fleeting impressions. Well, maybe a good work of fiction will come out of his working vacation--Some Can Hula, or maybe All My Friends Are Going To Be Dinner.

All this said, I still enjoyed the book and read it straight through. McMurtry's fine mind and refreshingly non-academic erudition make everything he writes worth reading. But I do not think Paradise is on par with his other recent works of nonfiction, Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen, and Roads.