EQUATOR: A Journey

by Thurston Clarke ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 18, 1988

This is the season for books on circumnavigation of the globe. In Living Dangerously (reviewed below), Ranulph Fiennes does it by shivering across both Poles; Clarke (Dirty Money, The Last Caravan) does it here by sweating his way along the equator from 1984-87. Equatorial regions, according to Clarke, breed superlatives: ""the largest atoll and heaviest rat, the widest river and longest snake. . ."" His three-year eastward trek through this strip of excesses begins in French Guiana. From South America he hops to Africa, starting with Libraville, whose slum dwellers ""distinguished themselves. . .by the quality and quantity of the garbage they used to construct their homes."" Africa comes off as squalid, dangerous, crazed, squashed into weird psychic shapes by cruel leaders and horrible heat. He visits Schweitzer's hospital at Lambarene (and steals a paperclip from the Doctor's desk); the Congo, where gorilla forearms and elephant trunks can be purchased in the fetishist market; Zaire; Uganda; Somalia. Then on to moralistic, ugly, successful Singapore: Sumatra with its clean mountain cities; Pacific atolls; back to South America, and home. The writing is brilliant: seething with vitality, swarming with portraits of unforgettable equatorial inhabitants--from a batty Ecuadoran professor who writes books about the equator to diminiutive President Bongo of Gabon. Remarkable in many respects: in its panther-sleek prose; in its teeming jumble of steaming landscapes, demented souls; and in its effect--for unlike most travel books with their scented come-ons, this powerful volume leaves one with the desire to avoid the equator at all costs.

Pub Date: Oct. 18, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Morrow

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1988

Categories: NONFICTION