John Gimlette

One-country travel histories don't come any more immersive or impressive than this. The author finds the perfect balance between anecdote and exposition, between the sweep of history and the vignette. We meet Paraguayans from across the wildly attenuated social spectrum, many of them ridiculous but mostly not objects of ridicule. The writing is punchy, brisk - often I was left wanting more, as with the story of the British nurse providing basic medicine to 18,000 natives in the Chaco. show more Gimlette relishes the savagery of the Paraguayan state of nature, and the irony of its adoption by various Utopians and lost tribes. And the country's exceptionally bloody history is splattered in bright colours throughout the book.

The first section, covering the author's time in the capital and the Stroessner regime, struck me as a little disjointed. The book really coheres in its second part, with the narrative of Marshall Lopez and Madame Lynch framing a wild tour of the country's east, and the final part on the Chaco I thought was brilliant and insufficient. show less

Being an Australian my interactions with Sri Lanka have been through cricket, Sinhalese university friends, hearing about the Civil War and what Arthur C. Clarke may have been doing with young boys. Thanks to Elephant Complex, I now know far, far more about the country, its history and its customs and far, far more than I really needed to know about one of the most vicious cil wars imaginable and what many western men were doing with young boys.

Gimlette can write lyrically and evocatively show more and I often stopped reading to admire a turn of phrase. His connections to the great and the good of Sri Lankan society gave him access to many places barred to the hoi polloi so we get guided tours of Civil War era torture chambers and the like. In all, a fascinating, if not deeply unsettling read, even if Gimlette's distaste of cricket was baffling. show less

"At the tomb of the inflatable pig" was my introduction to John Gimlette, who quickly became one of my preferred writers. Part travelogue/part history, this is one of those books that makes you realise that an otherwise-little thought of nation, region or people has played a much more interesting role in history than previously imaginable.

Gimlette wanders through Paraguay, name dropping figures like Josef Mengele, who arrived here not long after the war and happily found Paraguay completely show more unconcerned about his past, to the Jesuits of the film "The Mission", to the absolute lunatic dictator who managed to kill off about 90% of his male population fighting an unwinnable war. Also noted is the more recent dictator Stroessner and his rule, which must serve as the model for all aspiring dictators. And who can not like "New Australia", the Socialist Utopia set up in the Paraguayan jungle? show less

I first read "At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig", John Gimlette's ode to Paraguay, and realised that further reading of Gimlette's oeuvre was required.

That led me to "Theatre of Fish", Gimlette's travelogue/history of Newfoundland and Labrador, once an independent nation but now part of Canada. Whereas "... Inflatable Pig" was a (somewhat darkly) humorous look at Paraguay, Gimlette ratchets up the depressive elements as we get the horrible history of Newfoundland; the cold, the poverty, the show more over-reliance on a cod based economy that came crashing down, the misery of the Indigenous peoples.

Gimlette introduces us to his great-grandfather, who travelled around Newfoundland in the nineteenth century, and then follows in his footsteps. He gets to meet direct descendants of the locals his forebear met and name checks many of the famous people who spent time in Newfoundland (no matter how fleetingly) over the years.

Although not quite as enjoyable as "Tomb of the Inflatable Pig", "Theatre of Fish" still led me to hunt down copies of Gimlette's other books, and surely that's as high a compliment as you could wish for. show less