Getting Stoned with Savages

A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu

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Last edited by MARC Bot
August 8, 2024 | History

Getting Stoned with Savages

A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu

  • 3.2 (4 ratings) ·
  • 8 Want to read
  • 9 Have read

From the bestselling author of The Sex Lives of Cannibals, the laugh-out-loud true story of his years on the islands of Vanuatu and Fiji, among cannibals, volcanoes . . . and the world's best narcotics.With The Sex Lives of Cannibals, Maarten Troost established himself as one of the most engaging and original travel writers around. Getting Stoned with Savages again reveals his wry wit and infectious joy of discovery in a side-splittingly funny account of life in the farthest reaches of the world. After two grueling years on the island of Tarawa, battling feral dogs, machete-wielding neighbors, and a lack of beer on a daily basis, Maarten Troost was in no hurry to return to the South Pacific. But as time went on, he realized he felt remarkably out of place among the trappings of twenty-first-century America. When he found himself holding down a job--one that might possibly lead to a career--he knew it was time for he and his wife, Sylvia, to repack their bags and set off for parts unknown.Getting Stoned with Savages tells the hilarious story of Troost's time on Vanuatu--a rugged cluster of islands where the natives gorge themselves on kava and are still known to "eat the man." Falling into one amusing misadventure after another, Troost struggles against typhoons, earthquakes, and giant centipedes and soon finds himself swept up in the laid-back, clothing-optional lifestyle of the islanders. When Sylvia gets pregnant, they decamp for slightly-more-civilized Fiji, a fallen paradise where the local chiefs can be found watching rugby in the house next door. And as they contend with new parenthood in a country rife with prostitutes and government coups, their son begins to take quite naturally to island living--in complete contrast to his dad.

Publish Date
Publisher
Broadway
Language
English
Pages
256

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: Getting Stoned With Savages
Getting Stoned With Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu
August 2007, Blackstone Audiobooks
Audio Cassette in English - Unabridged edition
Cover of: Getting Stoned With Savages
Getting Stoned With Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu
August 2007, Blackstone Audiobooks
MP3 CD in English - MP3 Una edition
Cover of: Getting Stoned With Savages
Getting Stoned With Savages: A Trip Throught the Islands of Figi and Vanuatu, Library Edition
August 2007, Blackstone Audiobooks
Audio CD in English - Unabridged edition
Cover of: Getting Stoned With Savages
Getting Stoned With Savages: A Trip Throught the Islands of Figi and Vanuatu, Library Edition
August 2007, Blackstone Audiobooks
Audio cassette in English - Unabridged edition
Cover of: Getting Stoned with Savages
Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu
June 13, 2006, Broadway
Paperback in English
Cover of: Getting Stoned with Savages
Getting Stoned with Savages
2006, Broadway Books
E-book in English

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Book Details


First Sentence

"I have been called many things in my life, but if there has been but one constant, one barb, one arrow flung my way time after time, it is the accusation that I am, in essence, nothing more than an escapist."

Table of Contents

In which the author, much to his surprise, finds himself holding down a job, a real job that could possibly lead to a career, which causes him considerable distress as he envisions his world reduced to swirling acronyms, whereupon his beguiling wife offers him another way, an escape, an alternate road, and together they decide to move to the distant islands of the South Pacific.
In which the author offers some interesting arcana about Vanuatu—its one-hundred-some languages, its history of cannibalism, its smoldering volcanoes—and arrives on the island of Efate, where he soon gets stuck.
In which the author is confounded by Port Vila, which is not at all like the South Pacific he has known—he does not, for instance, have to eat fish every day—and after dipping into the past, which strikes him as being uncannily like the present, he cannot help but feel that for the whites in Vila it's forever 1900.
In which the author is introduced to kava, which he likes very much, oh yes, very much indeed.
In which the author is reduced to a state of wondrous awe as the prime minister of Vanuatu conspires to sell his country in exchange for a ruby, a giant ruby, which curiously no one is allowed to examine.
In which the author ponders cannibalism and discovers that he just doesn't get it—not at all, cannot get past the icky factor—and so, left to is own devices by his beguiling wife, he decides to seek enlightenment on the island of Malekula, where until recently, within his own lifetime even, they lunched on people.
In which the author experiences his first cyclone, causing him to reconsider his position on Nature—whether he's for it or against it—and after a terrifying encounter with a giant centipede seems to have settled the issue, his wife gives him News, which only complicates the matter further.
In which the author travels to the island of Tanna, where he ascends an active volcano; witnesses the extraordinary Nekowiar ceremony, culminating with the slaughter of two hundred pigs; and meets with villagers deep within the forest who live according to the tenets of kastom, which is another word for naked.
In which the author arrives in Fiji and soon finds himself cavorting with prostitutes, which he acknowledges he shouldn't be doing, especially as his wife is in a family way, but seediness, as usual, has a way of finding him.
In which the author embraces Fijian history and culture, particularly the Fijian national rugby team, and discovers rugby to be very exciting, uplifting even, as he finds that when the national team plays, for an hour or two at least, Fiji is harmonious.
In which the author discovers, shortly after rising from his slumbers, that his backyard has disappeared and that it can be found residing by the shanty down the hill, leaving in its place a cavernous chasm upon which his house is delicately perched, a circumstance that provides him with one more reason to take a holiday, to get away from it all, and so with his wife he travels far, far away to Fiji—that is, the Other Fiji.
In which a child is born, causing much bewilderment for his parents, though fortunately they are soon set straight by Anna, who shows them how to raise a child island-style.
In which the author travels to Savusavu on the island of Vanua Levu, a journey that causes him to reconsider his aversion to flying, and while exploring the island he discovers that even here, in what might be called a paradise, there are many yearning for escape.
In which the author and his wife decide to depart the islands of the South Pacific and return to the United States, which strikes most people—even most Americans they know—as utterly insane, all things considered, but they do it anyway, because now, at last, for the first time ever, they find themselves yearning for home.
Author's Note
Acknowledgments

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
919.59504
Library of Congress
DU600.T75 2006, DU600 .T75 2006

The Physical Object

Format
Paperback
Number of pages
256
Dimensions
7.8 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
Weight
8.8 ounces

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL8064968M
Internet Archive
gettingstonedwit00troo
ISBN 10
0767921992
ISBN 13
9780767921992
LCCN
2006042612
OCLC/WorldCat
64511312
Goodreads
122574

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History

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August 8, 2024 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
December 14, 2020 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
August 1, 2020 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
July 15, 2019 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
April 29, 2008 Created by an anonymous user Imported from amazon.com record