Into the Heart of Borneo

Rating:
Summary: At times screamingly funny
Review: This the fifth book I've read on traveling in Borneo, and in certain ways it rivals my favorite (Eric Hansen's "A Stranger in the Forest"). O'Hanlon is not only literate and well-informed on the subject (Borneo) but he's one of those highly educated writers who doesn't take himself (or his elderly, unathletic) traveling companion (a famous poet) seriously. Part of the screamingly funny parts are when O'Hanlon is either making fun of himself or the Borneo natives are making fun of his ineptness. O'Hanlon is fat and out-of-shape and his small, powerfully strong, local guides never let him forget it for a minute! O'Hanlon is able to write characters so well, one feels as if you are on the boat with them; the three guides are lovingly drawn. For those with an interest in the ecology of Borneo, birds, or river journeys, there is much to learn through this engrossing read. I recently saw a documentary that filmed the "remote" areas where O'Hanlon's journey took place and I am sad to say, it has been totally deforested by the Indonesian timber industry; huge corporations that are destroying the Borneo rainforest due to graft and a lack of enforcement by the Indonesian goverment... subjects that O'Hanlon writes about in this book. Think twice about buying teak furniture, much of it comes from poached wood that is illegally cut from Borneo's rainforest, a sad coda to this funny book.

Rating:
Summary: At times screamingly funny
Review: This the fifth book I've read on traveling in Borneo, and in certain ways it rivals my favorite (Eric Hansen's "A Stranger in the Forest"). O'Hanlon is not only literate and well-informed on the subject (Borneo) but he's one of those highly educated writers who doesn't take himself (or his elderly, unathletic) traveling companion (a famous poet) seriously. Part of the screamingly funny parts are when O'Hanlon is either making fun of himself or the Borneo natives are making fun of his ineptness. O'Hanlon is fat and out-of-shape and his small, powerfully strong, local guides never let him forget it for a minute! O'Hanlon is able to write characters so well, one feels as if you are on the boat with them; the three guides are lovingly drawn. For those with an interest in the ecology of Borneo, birds, or river journeys, there is much to learn through this engrossing read. I recently saw a documentary that filmed the "remote" areas where O'Hanlon's journey took place and I am sad to say, it has been totally deforested by the Indonesian timber industry; huge corporations that are destroying the Borneo rainforest due to graft and a lack of enforcement by the Indonesian goverment... subjects that O'Hanlon writes about in this book. Think twice about buying teak furniture, much of it comes from poached wood that is illegally cut from Borneo's rainforest, a sad coda to this funny book.

Rating:
Summary: I wouldn't want to travel with him
Review: This was sent me by David Baboulene, who also sent me Mayle's A Year in Provence. Both of these books are considered humorous books on travel, but they couldn't be more different. Mayle's book is like a TV sitcom in some ways--that is, everything is familiar enough to us at sight, but it is the occurrences that seem to work at odds. In O'Hanlon, we are lifted bodily out of the world we know and placed in a situation where it is truly difficult for the modern person to cope. O'Hanlon understands the modern fears--of insects, leeches, snakes, aboriginals--but instead of horror, he plays them as mock horrific. Repetition breeds humor (as fans of Saturday Night Life know well). Still, this book is also full of information. Things like:... b) the longevity of memory in a place fairly devoid of writing, seen through the relations between the Ukit and Iban tribes; and c) the descriptions of the leeches, including the thin, threadlike one which hides in the water, attached to a rock, waiting to be drunk by some animal, and then attaches itself to the inner walls of the throat. Overall, an excellent book; however, I was more amused by the Mayle.