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Redmond O'Hanlon

Author of Into the Heart of Borneo

15+ Works 2,751 Members 48 Reviews 10 Favorited

About the Author

Redmond O'Hanlon was the Natural History editor of The Times Literary Supplement.
Image credit: Picture:Shannon Morris

Works by Redmond O'Hanlon

Associated Works

Bad Trips (1991) — Contributor — 232 copies
Granta 20: In Trouble Again (1986) — Contributor — 131 copies
Granta 50: Fifty (1995) — Contributor — 117 copies
Granta 39: The Body (1992) — Contributor — 105 copies
Granta 10: Travel Writing (1984) — Contributor — 88 copies
Granta 11: Greetings From Prague (1984) — Contributor — 60 copies
Naar huis (1994) — Contributor — 16 copies
Op reis met... — Contributor — 6 copies
Ondertussen ergens anders (2014) — Contributor — 4 copies
Grenzeloos (1999) 3 copies
Vakantieverhalen — Contributor — 1 copy

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Reviews

This is a complex and rich book: it takes the form of a diary of an intrepid tropical journey, but at a deeper level it is an observant and challenging look at the people (predominantly men in greater depth) whom O'Hanlon travels with and meets. These people's manners and moods run the gamut of responses to their circumstances as more or less marginal residents of Congo-Brazzaville: chiefly Marcellin, his main guide, a highly educated man of some authority whose resentment at his lack of opportunity to express his talents seems to have twisted his character into domineering, nymphomania and deviousness. He also encounters Marcellin's subordinate nephews, bothersome government officials and soldiers (in a wonderful opening section dealing with his efforts to obtain the right visa), tyrannical local bosses, feuding villagers, exotic pygmies, and many women who in each location gravitate to Marcellin. There are shocking scenes, as on the river convoy, a malaria fever-dream, and untold wildlife sightings and disease reports. O'Hanlon is by turns adventurous, fearful, anxious, and curious, not to mention subject to drug-induced hallucinations and self-doubt, while fellow traveller Larry's reservations and homesickness serve as a foil to his romantic ideas. There is loads here for the nature and adventure reader, but even more for the reader interested in getting an unvarnished, unexpurgatedly realistic view of the relations between people of differing levels of power and opportunity in a modern post-colonial society, one where Euro-Americans are not much esteemed but still vastly wealthier in money and life-chances: the academic adventurers with money and daring, reduced to dependence and ignorance in their strange surroundings; the thwarted local 'big man'; the hangers-on doing the best they can without much hope for the future; the traditional pygmies hoping to keep out from under the thumb of the region's Bantu colonists; a country of meaningless official ideology, corruption, unsatisfying liaisons, callous bargaining and everybody trying to make the best of a losing hand. There is very little explicit authorial editorialising, and there is so much going on in this book that it can be hard to get a mental handle on it, but this is also what makes it so richly thought-provoking. This is a reality presented with very little censorship or opinionation; it is in many ways saddening and startling. It is not necessarily a hugely enjoyable book, or one that is easy to read, but it is a strange travel book of rare human depth.… (more)
 
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fji65hj7 | 9 other reviews | May 14, 2023 |
could've used a little more violence. who knew the jungle was so benign?
 
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farrhon | 10 other reviews | Nov 13, 2021 |
I've now completed the three O'Hanlon jungle books: Into the Heart of Borneo (1984), In Trouble Again (1988) and Congo Journey (1996) - they are best read in that order as they grow increasingly longer and complex. Congo has been called his magnus opus. I found it the least enjoyable. It's a hot mess, reflecting the place. As another reviewer pointed out, this is not an easy read with a lot going on, many characters who are mostly distasteful, an aura of magical realism, drugs and alcohol, death and sex, fear, disease, painful insects, claustrophobia. It deserves multiple closer readings, I'm not sure I could take it.… (more)
½
4 vote
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Stbalbach | 9 other reviews | Mar 4, 2020 |
Into the Heart of Borneo is Redmond O'Hanlon's first book that made his name as a travel writer, prior to this he was an academic and TLS book reviewer. He made a number of further trips in the 80s and 90s producing 3 more travel books to the Amazon, Congo and North Atlantic. I read the Amazon account first and found this to be similar in approach. There is a Boswell (O'Hanlon) writing about a curmudgeon Johnson (poet James Fenton) accompanied by a handful of native guides whose main interests are boiled bushmeat and jungle women, colorful bird sightings and descriptions of other flora and fauna. The Borneo book is not nearly as grotesque as the Amazon book, it is more civilized. O'Hanlon is oddly juvenile in the Amazon account, unhinged at times, though he was years older. In Borneo he maintained decorum, perhaps finding a voice.… (more)
½
1 vote
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Stbalbach | 10 other reviews | Apr 4, 2019 |

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Danny Ilegems Contributor
Tineke Straatman Contributor
Remco Daalder Contributor
Mensje van Keulen Contributor
Aya Zikken Contributor
Stan van Houcke Contributor
Herman Hesse Contributor
Benno Barnard Contributor
Kester Freriks Contributor
Gaston Van Camp Contributor
Erik Zevenhuizen Contributor
Tijs Goldschmidt Contributor
Michael Richardson Contributor
Midas Dekkers Contributor
Ch Boissevan Contributor
Heinrich Heine Contributor
Ivan A. Gontsjarov Contributor
Wilfred Thesiger Contributor
Tinke Davids Translator
Martsje de Jong Translator
Meinhard Büning Übersetzer

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Works
15
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14
Members
2,751
Popularity
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Rating
½ 3.7
Reviews
48
ISBNs
114
Languages
6
Favorited
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