Customer Reviews

In Trouble Again: A Journey Between the Orinoco and the Amazon

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I wouldn't travel with Redmond O'Hanlon personally, although I'm quite happy to be a vicarious companion. And judging from O'Hanlon's opener here--where he tries to find someone to accompany him in his latest foray--it seem that my opinion is shared by O'Hanlon's friends. Except for one--who is shown to be under a mistaken impression about what a jaunt down the Amazon is like, not to mention having Redmond O'Hanlon planning the trip.

The title aptly describes the action. If you read O'Hanlon's Into the Heart of Borneo, this book follows without nary a break. While it doesn't have quite the originality of the first book, it doesn't fail to fulfill the promise of that book either. O'Hanlon's a little bit wiser, but still as trusting and stubborn. He presses on in circum- stances where most would have turned around--things like the fiercest tribe of natives in the world, torrential rainfall (not to be trifled with, especially on a river), and rapids in which he is dumped and unable to escape until a mile or so down river.

The best thing about O'Hanlon--although the amazing trips he takes are worthwhile in and of themselves--is the companions that he does manage to take. I'm not talking about the physical companions, who do provide humorous interludes, but the ones that are to be found in the books--the explorers who have traveled this route before. Rather than just supplying a bibliography, O'Hanlon uses them to annotate his own trip. An adventurer and a scholar, O'Hanlon's one of the best.

In the first half of this book, with the constantly hillarious Simon as a foil, Hanlon is hilarious. Through Simon's eyes and comments the reader can see the hilarity and, oftentimes, insanity of Hanlon's quests. But once Simon bugs out, Hanlon loses his reality check. The reader sees only Halnon's relentlessly cheery description of a journey that can only be becoming more unpleasant. Without Simon along to tell how it really is -- bizarre, unpleasant, and often painful -- the book loses its edge and becomes a mostly tedious recitation of the birds and plants seen along the way. The first half of the book would, by itself merit four or five stars, but the dull ending drags it down to three.

O'Hanlon is an academic, really; the natural history editor of the Times Literary Supplement and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Furthermore, he claims to look like Benny Hill, a claim borne out by his book-jacket photographs.
He is, therefore, an entirely unlikely candidate for the outrageous adventures he gets himself into while traveling.

I have read a handful of his accounts, and they are all completely mad. But I have to conclude that this is the best of the lot.

Briefly, this is the account of his travels through Amazonia, in a small wooden boat, ultimately to the homelands of the Yanomami (the "Fierce People" in Napoleon Chagnon's memorable phrase). Everyone O'Hanlon meets is terrified of the violent, unpredictable Yanomami, and he is hard pressed to find anyone to accompany him on his journey. When he finally meets them, he loses no time before joining them in a blast or two of hallucinogenic ebene, afterwards falling into a stupor while gazing lustfully at the local chief's young daughter.

Anyone could make these adventures interesting to read. After treatment by a writer of O'Hanlon's skill and humor, the book is impossible to put down.

Redmond O'Hanlon is a good travel writer, bringing the reader into his canoe as he faces a torrent of dangers and unpleasant situations. His British humour is very well placed in presenting some of the absurb situations he gets himself into. Especially with Simon as his sidekick (which gives the reader a somewhat normal view of things), the story is quite captivating.

However, some of his descriptions and stories did leave me with the feeling that he may have augmented the danger of situations to make the story more interesting. He also blew up the stupidity of some characters, giving in to what sounds like basic stereotypes of indians and the fears white people have of indians.

Overall, this is a decent book. If you are into Amazon travel, this is a nice adition. However, if you just want an intro to the Amazon through the eyes of an adventurer, there are better books, such as David Campbell's (1st person, more scientific pop writing with lyrical qualities) or Candice Millard's (old travel, relating Roosevelt's exploration in the Amazon).

Madcap and hilarious, this is a travel book written by a travel writer like no other. The natural history of the Venezuelan jungle, combined with an eclectic mix of characters so goofy and improbable as to seem fictional, told by a man who, if he wasn't already a science writer, would have made a nice addition to the Monty Python crew.

It's amazing that Mr. O'Hanlon is still alive, but I'm glad he is. I'm most definitely looking forward to reading some more of his adventures.

"In Trouble Again" by Redmond O'Hanlon is a book about exotic travel, exploration and adventure in the remote Amazon jungle and along its rivers.

O'Hanlon continues the flourishing line of eccentric English explorers who did so much to penetrate the far reaches of the known world a century or so ago - and indeed into the middle of the 20th century. To a man (and, with a few notable exceptions, they were mostly men) they relished hardship, discomfort and danger in the hope of extending the range of human knowledge of the physical and living worlds - and testing their own limits in the process.

It is a pity that similar challenges are disappearing for young men today, although not entirely as this book proves. O'Hanlons adventures would not have been out of place in the 19th century, yet the expedition described in the book took place in the mid-1980s.

The book describes O'Hanlon's expedition into the remote Amazonas jungle of Venezuela. Although the term "expedition" is perhaps too strong a term to describe a trip with idiosyncratic guides and companions that frequently went awry. He also encounters frightening animals and inhabitants. As a treat, the Yanomami inserted a long blowpipe into his nostrils and blew in yoppo, a mind-altering drug, during an evening hanging out in one of their villages. He met the dreaded assassin beetle, carrier of Chagas Disease.

However, the misadventures are very entertaining. O'Hanlon woke one morning to find his testicles looking like a bunch of green grapes. They were covered in ticks from a tapir killed the previous evening for food. Apparently some ticks migrate to the genitals of a new host because they have learned that the genitals are the only part of the body that a tapir will not scrape against a tree to dislodge parasites.

Anyone who has travelled down the Amazon and into its jungles as a conventional tourist will recognise many of the things described in the book: palm trees covered in long thorns, eating piranhas, the sounds of frogs, fire ants, curare arrows and much more. I highly recommend reading the book either before or after undertaking such a trip.

Redmond is, at heart, a gentle English Public School geek. This account of his river adventures in Venezuela "between the Orinoco and the Amazon" is made witty by his dry English humor. I particularly liked the thin thread of his dreams of being back as a child rowing on the River Avon with his father and discovering natural history there - an unexpected, but fitting, contrast to the overtly perilous and ungentle places he's visiting. He has a habit of checking out of the interpersonal conflict by describing the wildlife (esp. birds). Unlike Tim Flannery (in Throwim Way Leg), this is boringly written, confined mostly to physical descriptions and comparisons with the data in his 19th century guide books. He likes to dramatize, humorously, the danger in the adventure, though I wonder if this isn't really a cover for his lack of understanding of the people around him. I found the conflicts with Simon (his nightclub manager, cockney friend from "civilization") and the other guides most interesting. Also promising were the interactions with the Yanomami, though Redmond is nowhere near as perceptive or penetrating as Flannery is with the Papua New Guinea tribes. I came away from the book feeling that he might have missed the point of the people he was with and the Yanomami, but that he found a gentle, unassuming meaning for himself in the modest framework of his childhood.

I enjoyed reading this book; it was well-written. I learned a lot too; the author gives detailed accounts of his adventures as well as the plant and animal life that he encounters. Humor is sprinkled throughout the book; there are some really funny parts. There are also some parts that will really gross you out. It's great! The only drawback is the ending. It ends rather abruptly. I still wonder if he ever made it back home or if only his notes made it!!!

Reading Redmond O'Hanlon is like going on the worst camping trip ever, (bees, mosquitoes, ants, snakes and cannibals) without leaving your own living room. O'Hanlon has such a gentle way of describing the worst possible situations as though they were just par. I am glad I don't have to wade up piranha infested waters, but I am glad he did and lived to tell the tale.

Endearing. After reading this book I went and found all his previous and current publications. He gets better and better.

Redmond O'Hanlon displays a tempered lunacy in his account of an extraordinary search for the infamously violent Yamamoni tribe. It all seems a little contrived at first. He deliberately searches London for a traveling companion, then selects the most inappropriate he can find - a nightclub owner. Simon, his foil among the insects, snakes and spiders of the Amazon, loses his marbles half way through the book. The strength of In Trouble Again, is that despite feeling total sympathy for the sane, you can not help but admire O'Hanlon's crazed doggedness. Everytime he has an excuse to turn back, he redoubles his efforts, dragging his guides onwards. To say that he survives is certainly not spoiling the ending, but it is an extraordinary read and enough to limit adverturous dreams to the Discovery Channel. It deserves a 10, but O'Hanlon is obsessed with birds. I, like Simon, have always thought a bird is just a bird. Which is why I'm staying at home.