The Saddest Pleasure : A Journey on Two Rivers

by Moritz Thomsen, Paul Theroux

Release Date: 01 February, 1990

Edition: Paperback

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Life as it is, not as it should be

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 leaving the Corps, he remains in Ecuador and scrapes out a living on a farm. 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.

Stop it, I love it !

I had heard neither of book nor author when I unexpectedly received this book from a friend. She mentioned its being a book which presented a strong sense of place. It is indeed that, but rather more as well. Moritz Thomsen lived in Ecuador for a number of years, but then, for various reasons, launched on an extended voyage around Brazil, from Rio up the coast, around to B�lem, and then along the Amazon to Manaus. The real voyage, however, was along the twisted, frazzled byways of his soul, a journey so painful that no physical hardship could rival it. Thomsen is no doubt a good writer, because the ultimate picture we get is exactly the one he saw---peering out at Brazil through the miasmic forests of his excruciating memories. We meet a few strange or pathetic characters---but very few, mostly other foreigners---we view Brazil through his jaded, pessimistic lens, and most of all we delve into his past. He takes us along two rivers---the Amazon in a boat, and a jungle river in western Ecuador in his mind---but there is no retrieving him from the tangled mess of an awful life. The book is excellently constructed, it is honest in the style of Tobias Wolff, it has riveting descriptions of nature and of a life among poor Ecuadorians that few outsiders, save Peace Corps Volunteers, might ever have known. Thomsen understands and describes very accurately the deep exploitation of millions of people in Latin America, an oppresion that is nearly impossible to break, given the policies of rich countries. But ultimately, how you like this book is going to depend on your own personality, your own taste in tragedy. Thomsen starts with a quotation from Paul Theroux about travel being the saddest of pleasures. I felt that Thomsen did not prove the point. He is a man who spent most of his life rejecting everything that he could have been, everything that his arrogant, abusive father wanted him to be. He accomplished very little, made a total mess out of his life, had no (visible)lasting relationships, and at last came to a vague realization in his sixties that he was a 'writer'. I doubt if he can ever escape from the clutches of his long-dead father---will he ever be able to write anything beyond that endless battle ? Describing his life was no doubt the saddest of his pleasures and reading it, for some people, may be labelled a close second. In a way, I wish I had not read THE SADDEST PLEASURE. I prefer my pleasures separate from my tragedies and while such separation is not always possible, I do not savor the juxtaposition.