Tales from the Torrid Zone: Travels in the Deep Tropics

by Alexander Frater

Book Overview

From one of the most celebrated travel writers at work today-a vibrantly observant, witty, utterly captivating account of a lifetime's worth of travel between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Part... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679408711
• ISBN13: 9780679408710
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.6" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

An ideal read to warm a reader in a frigid winter

Tales from the Torrid Zone is an eclectic series of yarns than span the centuries before the voyages of Ferdinand Quiros to the late 1990s and circle the equator. Its focus is however mainly in the Pacific and builds upon the childhood experiences of the author to provide insights into the history of the myriad of islands that support as many cultures. Although offspring of Presbyterian missionaries/doctors he approaches the impact of this unsympathetic facet of European culture with an unbiased eye that celebrates the resilience of islanders as much as it reveals his own inevitable ties with the places of his youth. Built around the story of a church bell the author's humorous stories and reflections take a few chapters to pull you in, but by the second half of the book the storytelling, interspersed with anecdotal paragraphs, will keep you absorbed and fill you with regret when the last page is read. This book was a great companion for my daily winter commute. Dipping into its storyline bathed my body in tropical warmth and left me debating about an afternoon siesta in my office (with the door closed). This author is on my hit list for other titles.

Pleased a hard-to-please reader

I am generally turned off by books with coconut palms featuring too prominently on their cover -- they tend to be full of self-congratulation for finding a perfect spot to relax, and reading about other people sitting on the beach drinking funny-colored drinks is even more awful than sitting there alongside them. But after a recent trip to Fiji, I wanted to learn more about it, and grabbed this book after learning the author had actually grown up in Melanesia. This rarely happens, but maybe once every couple of years I find myself smiling after a few pages, delighted to find myself in the hands of a masterful narrator. I realized almost immediately that Frater, bouncing from topic to topic but never seeming abrupt, was going to keep me engaged for many happy hours. He's a sharp and skeptical observer of the present, a fiend for historical research, and manages to keep the story flowing, whether talking about the life cycle of a tsetse fly contagion or an audience with the King of Tonga. This is a guy I'd happily have a beer with if I met him on the beach someplace.

Wandering through the tropics

My first reaction to Frater's "Tales" was mildly negative. He offers digressions within digressions, often jump cutting from place to place with only the mildest narrative logic. After a while, though, I adjusted to the pace and style and became thoroughly engrossed with his account of a life-long passion for the tropics. The book is filled with interesting detail, and thoughtful musings on a wide variety of subjects. I would love to travel with Frater, and reading this book is the next best thing.

Deep Tropics

The ellipical structure of the anecdotes will either enchant you or drive you batty trying to figure out when and where he is at any given moment. If you like Paul Theroux's travel books you may like this. It is more ephemeral, but in the end there is a linear tale with somewhat of an arc. I really enjoyed this book and hope to read more by him. You will want to visit most of the places when you put down the book. Just bring mosquito repellent and a wry sense of humor.

So Many Fascinating Stories ... But When Did They Happen?

The structure of Frater's book is built around his birth to a missionary family in the South Pacific, the love of the tropics that never left him despite many years in rainy England, and his purchase of a new bell for the church founded by his grandfather. A long time travel writer for a British newspaper, Frater has many good stories to tell, and they surface in this book in strange ways; a moment in, say, Fiji, wil remind him of a previous moment, in Mozambique for example, which will remind him of yet another story. Although this is certainly a change from itinerary-based travel writing, I would have liked to at least have footnotes saying when exactly a set of events took place. I often had to re-read paragraphs and sections after I realized that he was in Vanuatu, reminiscing about someplace like Burma.