- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: GROVE/ATLANTIC; Reprint edition (Jun 1 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0802137016
- ISBN-13: 978-0802137012
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 13.9 x 2.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 340 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #223,214 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
No doubt about it: P. J. O'Rourke has a bizarre sense of fun. "What I've ... been," he writes in his introduction to Holidays in Hell "is a Trouble Tourist--going to see insurrections, stupidities, political crises, civil disturbances and other human folly because ... because it's fun." Forget Hawaii or the Poconos--O'Rourke gets his jollies in places like war-torn Lebanon where he is greeted at the border by a gun barrel in his face, or Seoul, just in time for election-day violence. Wherever he goes, however, O'Rourke takes his quirky sense of humor, laser eye for detail, and artful way with words: a Philippine army officer is "powerful-looking in a short, compressed way, like an attack hamster," and the Syrian army is described as having "dozens of silly hats, mostly berets in yellow, orange and shocking pink, but also tiny pillbox chapeaux.... The paratroopers wear shiny gold jumpsuits and crack commando units have skin-tight fatigues in a camouflage pattern of violet, peach, flesh tone and vermilion on a background of vivid purple. This must give excellent protective coloration in, say, a room full of Palm Beach divorcees in Lily Pulitzer dresses."
O'Rourke's flip, sarcastic style isn't for everyone, of course; the concept that anyone could find sightseeing in the Beirut or El Salvador of the 1980s fun might prove offensive to more than a few readers right off the bat. But love him or hate him, P. J. O'Rourke knows how to tell a good story, and if you like your travel writing laced with more than a little cynicism, Holidays in Hell could be just the book you've been looking for. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
'The first few pages of this book made me laugh so much I dropped it on my month-old baby... Holidays in Hell is a splendid read' EVENING STANDARD
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
I've been working as a foreign correspondent for the past few years, although "working" isn't the right word and "foreign correspondent" is too dignified a little. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
I've been working as a foreign correspondent for the past few years, although "working" isn't the right word and "foreign correspondent" is too dignified a little. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
mailed paperback copyof O'Rourke book,
By
This review is from: Holidays in Hell: In Which Our Intrepid Reporter Travels to the World's Worst Places and Asks, "What's Funny About This" (Paperback)
I was completely satisfied with the O'Rourke book mailed to me. It arrived in a timely fashion and, as a used paperback, was in the condition advertised.Quite happy with the whole process. Bill Casselman
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hilarious and heartbreaking,
By
This review is from: Holidays in Hell: In Which Our Intrepid Reporter Travels to the World's Worst Places and Asks, "What's Funny About This" (Paperback)
This is a dazzlingly brilliant collection of articles written about some of the world's worst trouble spots. Nobody else writes like O'Rourke, managing to vividly conjure up the awfulness of the places he visits, yet at the same time managing to make you laugh as well. The tone of the articles ranges from the horrific 'Christmas in El Salvador', to the purely comic 'Weekend Getaway: Heritage USA' which describes a bizarre visit to a Biblical theme park. He describes how his girlfriend attempts to go shopping in the park and returns with "a dazed, perplexed expression, like a starved Ethiopian given a piece of wax fruit". I know the feeling, Disneyland Paris had exactly the same effect on me. In 'Mexican Border Idyll' he asks the question "What makes a Mexico a Mexico? What makes a United States a United States? And what the hell are we supposed to do about it?" 'The Euro-Weenies'is a bit painful to read if you are one, but funny all the same and 'In Whitest Africa' written a few years before the ending of apartheid, is absolutely fascinating. 'The piece of Ireland that passeth all Understanding' is perhaps the best article of all, funny and tragic by turns, so much better in every way than the trite, banal piece Michael Moore wrote about Ireland in 'Dude, where's my country?'In the introduction to this superb book O'Rourke ponts out that military intervention is never going to stop trouble because "It will always be more fun to carry a gun around in the hills and sleep with ideology-addled college girls than to spend life behind a water buffalo or rotting in a slum". Who else could have written that, O'Rourke is incomparable.
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Innocents Abroad" for the 20th century,
By daveklein222 (New Brunswick) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Holidays in Hell: In Which Our Intrepid Reporter Travels to the World's Worst Places and Asks, "What's Funny About This" (Paperback)
Hilarious, insightful and succinct. No word is wasted, and even the smallest throwaway jokes will elicit a chuckle. Even when faced with the most dire situations in the most foreign of lands, the author resists the impulse to grandstand or pander. O'Rourke is the 20th century's answer to Mark Twain or H.L. Mencken, but less of a blowhard than either of those two. This book is a seminal work of gonzo reporting and modern non-fiction, and should be required reading for anyone wanting to be a foreign correspondent.
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