With the arrogance of Paul Theroux and the comic abrasiveness of David Sedaris, Gary Buslik has, in A Rotten Person Travels the Caribbean, written a collection of “travelers’ tales” that is both crude and offensive. On the other hand, except where there are dips into near-racism, these accounts are mostly very funny extended jokes (sometimes at the expense of the author's wife, but more often the locals) about an American’s adventures in the Caribbean.
What are we meant to make of these tales? Are we supposed to believe that the author encountered Idi Amin in a Mustique nightclub restroom (spraying piss on his sandals) and that the old despot danced with and then stalked his wife? That the author was arrested for parking illegally in an empty mall parking lot while making an emergency cat food run? That he bought a miracle (volcanic eruption) from a late-night TV evangelist in order to avoid a trip with his wife that conflicted with the Super Bowl? No, probably not. At least, I don’t think so.
In fact, much of Rotten Person belongs to a genre that I might call “exaggerated semi-non-fiction” - literature that doesn’t have any of the characteristics of fiction (like plot) but obviously isn’t exactly true either. At least it’s so clearly not true that the author isn’t going to be accused, like James Frey, of faking bits of his memoir in order to represent a greater "truth." This whole thing is mostly fake, and the reader who believes otherwise wouldn’t make a very reliable witness in a lawsuit, so what’s the harm?
The saving grace is that this stuff is funny. Even when it’s somewhat offensive, it’s still pretty funny. The reader may be put off by racial and national stereotypes, by Spanish rendered as unintelligible baby-talk, by the general tone of condescension toward locals and Europeans, or by turning cultural differences into comedy. (The author does claim to be a Republican and Bush supporter, which might explain his ugly-Americanness.) Or perhaps none of these things will bother the reader in the least, because Americans really do tend to behave badly overseas (never mind here at home) and it’s pretty amusing to read about someone who is even more arrogant, insensitive, and grumpy than they are. I’m not so bad after all, they might flatter themselves; look at this guy!
And “this guy” is full of complaints about the locals, the transportation, the accommodations, the bugs, the service, the food, his wife, his work. All of which is at least partly the point. The title, after all, is A Rotten Person Travels the Caribbean. We aren’t being led to believe the book is about a nice guy who has tips for intrepid travelers. Furthermore, the cover of the book includes what is either a warning or a subtitle: “A grump in paradise discovers that anyplace it’s legal to carry a machete is comedy just waiting to happen.” So there’s no false advertising here. I wonder if Buslikis familiar with John Krich’s Around the World in a Bad Mood, a book with which it shares a grouchy outlook: travel-griping for fun and profit.
Article comments