“Surviving Paradise” a Wonderful Read
Peter Rudiak-Gould’s new memoir, Surviving Paradise: One Year on a Disappearing Island, is a unique and conflicted account of his year as a young adult volunteer living among the Marshallese people of the small island of Ujae. When he says small, he means small: the island is home to only around 400 people and is a third of a square mile. Here’s his first “exploration” of this island:
“This was my new world, so I decided to explore it. After making some hand signals to Alfred and Tior to explain what I was up to, I stepped onto the beach and embarked on a bold one-man expedition: to circle the entirety of the island’s shore. Forty-five minutes later, I wondered what else I could do for the rest of the year.”
The author strives to and succeeds in providing the reader with two stories in one book. The first and most obvious at the start chronicles his sometimes bumbling and always well-intentioned efforts to understand a new language, strange and new customs, and the sometimes odd crossover of cultures existing in the Marshall Islands.
The breadfruit tree - a staple of the Marshallese diet
Rudiak-Gould’s delightful and dry sense of humor is evident throughout, as when he refers to the group of children who follow him around, wide-eyed as the “paparazzi toddlers” and his “junior fan club.” Or when he gets jealous of the previous year’s volunteer:
“His skills in all of these areas were, of course, vastly, unquestionably superior to mine. Oh yes – and he was better looking than me too. The children were no being mean. They were just telling me the truth about my obvious inferiority in every category to that brilliant, beloved, omnicompetent model of humanity that came before me. I could understand little of what people said, but with the adoring pantomimes, the word “Patrick,” and that repeated phrase aolep raan (“every day”), I got the gist all too well.”
But as the reader laughs her way through the chapters, she finds that Rudiak-Gould has slyly inserted another story in these pages, a more nuanced, serious, touching and enlightening narrative. From what he writes, the educational system, as compared to our own Western views of what education should be, is abysmal. The school year starts weeks later than it should, the school day shrinks throughout the year, unused and impossible textbooks are provided instead of supplies like paper and pencils, students use rocks to sharpen their pencils, and so on.
Roasted breadfruit - mmm...
But as the months go by for Rudiak-Gould, so the reader comes to understand as he did: our own ethnocentric view of the Marshall Islands color the truth and form our opinions for us, good or bad. Rudiak-Gould writes:
“So culture shock, for me, wasn’t a sharp sting: it was a dull ache, a basso continuo of frustration and confusion. I never overcame it. But one thing did fall into place, perhaps in April. I realized – to my surprise – that their way of life made sense. So much that had once seemed accidental now revealed itself to be deliberate… This was a culture based on survival. What looked like paradise was actually one of the hardest places on earth to live.”
The author goes on to spell out in stunning clarity what he sees as the defining characteristics of the Marshall Islands people. After his year of bonding with children and adults, eating “starch, starch, and starch,” learning how to spear fish and open coconuts, learning a difficult language, rejecting local girls’ interest in marriage, attending birth and death ceremonies, Peter Rudiak-Gould has come to see the Marshall Islands for what they are: a culture, like ours, that functions the way it functions.
Typically, when we read a book knowing we’re going to review it, we’ll dog-ear a few pages that we think we’ll want to reference in the review. This technique did not work for Surviving Paradise because after only the first couple chapters, we realized we’d have 80% of the book dog-eared by the time we finished.
More breadfruit? Fried breadfruit...
The only part of the book that seemed a bit out of place was the epilogue in which Rudiak-Gould recounts his return to the island, now as an anthropology student doing fieldwork focusing on the rising sea waters that are all too clear after his 3-year absence. However, as we know that this “disappearing island” piece is the subject of his dissertation, could this be his way of teasing the reader with this small bit of information that he’ll make his next book project? We sure hope so.
In addition from the humor and fascinating and educational look into Marshallese history and culture, Rudiak-Gould’s writing is quite excellent. It’s organized well and written intelligently and beautifully. This book sure doesn’t read like the repurposed and expanded journal entries of a 21-year old after reflection of only a few years – but that’s basically what it is. Is Rudiak-Gould the James Frey of travel writing, perhaps? No, we will concede there are young, smart, introspective, curious, good writers out there – and Peter Rudiak-Gould’s Surviving Paradise is a case in point.
Beginning today, you can buy Suviving Paradise in bookstores. Stay tuned to Mindful Tourist because we will be posting an exclusive interview with Peter Rudiak-Gould in the days to come!
[...] able to sit down (virtually) with Peter Rudiak-Gould, author of Surviving Paradise, a memoir we recently reviewed right here on this site. We talked with Peter about his new book, his experiences on Ujae, and [...]
When I was young I use to love freadfruit. And not am in utah I can eat that anymore ha lol.