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Now that I am the same age as Thomsen was when he authored this and now I am a bit of a traveller as well, finding myself thousands of miles from home, alone among stragers, I just repurchased this book so I could experience it again. and more, many more. I've been reading traveler's tales for decades and this one ranks at the top of my list. don't hesitate.
I read and loved Nick Danziger, Thor Heyerdahl and James Michener. Well you've found your way here to reviews of Moritz Thomsen's amazing travel book "Saddest Pleasure" - if you haven't read this you are just a slight movement away from the sweetest most poignant travelogue you've ever encountered. I still own my original copy but it's packed away in a box thousands of miles from here, so I bought another. Thomsen shares tales of his travels both external and internal. too many to list.
So friend, - IF your finger is hovering over the "buy" button please allow me to urge you. He possessed a wonderful gift for personal observation and insight. I've read travel authors from Marco Polo to Paul Theroux to Michael Palin, to Herman Mellville and Pierre Loti writing about their sojourns in the South Seas. Reading this book will touch you in some deep ways. Moritz Thomsen's "Saddest Pleasure" tops my list of favorites.
I first read it in the early nineties when I was in my mid forties and it stunned me then. By all means - do not pass this one by. Not to be missed.
There are many reasons why I loved this book. They are just a few seconds away from a total breakdown that would destroy forever the macho image they have spent a lifetime cultivating". In "The Saddest Pleasure" he has left that place, left poverty in the village of his Peace Corps service and the farm he started with his Ecuadorian partner. Paragraphs of description that somehow tied in a view, a history, and a personality with succinct power. In the "Saddest Pleasure" Moritz expounds not only on poverty and place but more on what life is for, what life has become. Moritz did have a somewhat dour outlook on life and plenty of reason for it. There were sentences that astonished me, word-craft simple precise and searing. I read another scene to my son about Moritz's avoidance of foods from the roadside stall that had me laughing so hard that I struggled to continue reading.Moritz's first two books, "Living Poor" and "Farm on the River of Emeralds" also great books, were rooted in place in Esmeraldas Province of Ecuador.
His gift was to write of it with his personal life journey and to embilish his world view with the great connections of history,literature, music and a empathy for the poor, disadvantaged, and struggling people of South America.He also is able to write of situations that leave me laughing hysterically as in the "despidida", the family ritual of mourning the departing traveler where the "male members of this tragic group, the uncles, the brothers, the godfathers, stand at the fringes. They stare at the floor, take deep drags on their cigarettes, and clench and unclench the muscles in their jaws. In this book he faces the end of his life, returning to a "bourgeois" fate and begins this journey not knowing that it will redefine his life.It may be helpful but not necessary to read Moritz's first two books before this. I found the first two books to be much easier to assimilate than this but this again is richer and I will be sure to read it again.I highly recommend this book to all avid readers I know.
Enjoyable reading. The man who works the land owns the land.
I liked the aimless walks through Brazilian cities such as Rio, Bahia, and Belem. I liked the descriptions of river life; the leaves of plants, intricate flowers, the patch of sky, the dark soils, the quiet hillside, the jungle bacteria and fungi that grow on your body, the sound of a mango falling to the ground at night, and hungry, poor, dangerous people creeping around the farm.
Faced with Ramon's "you don't belong here" he realizes we are all being pushed out, there is no safe place. I appreciated Thomsen's isolation from pretty much everyone, his inability to speak Portuguese or communicate well, and his sense of failure at life.
I appreciated his openness to experience, perception, and courage to be the animal that suffers and works. Be a farmer.
Thanks.
He weaves his personal story of early psychic hurt at the hands of his father and eccentric family into an exploration of global woes and human suffering, all the while with truly beautiful language. I had this book for over ten years before I finally sat down to read it recently, at home from work with a cold. Alternately funny, gross, awful and awe-inspiring, you will come away dazzled, moved and yes, shaken by the vividness of his images and the depth of his understanding of the human condition. I quickly became engrossed in it to the point where I had a hard time putting it down. Thomsen's writing is superb. It is one of those rare books that transcends its own story line to show you a window onto our world of great clarity and understanding on issues like the economics of class, the gulfs between cultures, exploitation and poverty, the meaning of beauty, and the individual's struggle to find meaning in a chaotic world. In the end, you're not sure where you have gone, whether to Ecuador, Brazil, or on your own inner journey of discovery that you've unsuspectingly embarked on without ever leaving your room.
After leaving the Corps, he remains in Ecuador and scrapes out a living on a farm. I found out about Thomsen from a Paul Theroux reference and like many of Theroux's references to other writers and books, this turned out to be a winner. It's the story of an expatriate, perhaps running from his father, or looking for life's answer, joins the Peace Corps at the age of 48. After being forced off the farm by a younger co-worker, Thomsen embarks on a journey that takes him to Brazil and the Amazon basin. The journey is described from the poor travler's point of view with many sad recollections of his life.
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