The Cannibals Book

When I sent emails about it, which turned out to be a lot of times, I called it “The Cannibals Book,” but our discussion book for May 2018 was really called The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific, by J. Maarten Troost. The book elucidated some sexual habits and attitudes among the natives of the islands of Kiribati and the city/atoll called Tarawa, and briefly mentioned some historic cannibalism; but most of the book narrated the adventures of a couple who lived and worked there for 2 years in the late 1990s.

Morna, who nominated and presented the book, brought some photos of the main city where the couple lived. She described the photos as “…both beautiful and terribly disgusting.” This seems a good summary of what the couple found on the island. If you want to see tropical paradise photos, search online; and, likewise, you can see photos online of the overcrowding and proliferation of trashlike junk on the islands.

Morna thought the author found a lot of humor in his time on the islands, and she expected our group to experience a lot of chuckling as we read. Some of us did: (1) The author’s first swim in the beautiful turquoise ocean, when he encountered the native habit of using the ocean as a toilet, (2) the almost constant blasting of the song, “La Macarena” by many natives until the author played Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” very loudly, thus silencing the playing of “La Macarena,” (3) the inability to change the responsible party’s name on the electricity bill for the house the couple was using, because “Mary,” whose name the bill was filed under, had left and could not ask in person for her name to be taken off the billing; and more.

Some of us were overcome by the problems of government apathy and mismanagement; overcrowding; drought; and advantages taken by individuals visiting the islands, those living on the islands, and other neighboring islands’ governments; such as when shipments of supplies arrived mistakenly at the wrong countries and were absorbed, thus causing shortages in Tarawa. These readers found pathos rather than amusement in the mishaps represented in the book. I found the episodes amusing but only with the distance I had from the situation. Had I been there, I would NOT have been amused.

Thanks to everyone who sent messages about the discussion. Your notes very helpful in creating this blog post, even though I didn’t specify many individual comments.