Holidays in Hell (Book Review)

"Holidays in Hell: In Which Our Intrepid Reporter Travels to the World's Worst Places and Asks What's Funny About This?". By. P. J. O’Rourke. Atlantic Monthly Press, #0871132400, c1988; 257 pages; $12 (reprinted and now available from Grove Press, # 9780802137012; c2000; 272 pages; $12).

This is not really a "travel book", as in a work of travel literature, though that is how it was promoted and reviewed. "Holidays in Hell" is a collection of P. J. O'Rourke's 1980's writings for Rolling Stone Magazine. Though, allegedly, he began as a liberal, post-1970's O'Rourke was a conservative satirist who started with "National Lampoon" and later freelanced his humor and political commentary and was featured in the best magazines in North America. His fame was solidified when his work for Rolling Stone became immensely popular.

Send a smart, bored, angry and really sarcastic man to desperate, illogical, violent places, and you might not expect comedy to be the end result (assuming you think violence and/or misfortune can be funny). Nevertheless, that is what O'Rourke consistently delivered from his stint as a foreign correspondent. This collection of writings doesn't quite live up to the moniker of "foreign", but his visits to the Epcot Center, Harvard University, and Jim and Tammy Bakker's Heartland USA, are all included since they seemed like they were better suited to some other planet.

Perhaps more so than his other writings, this collection is crude, crass, conceited, conservative - and often more perceptive than much of his later work. He decided to holiday in hells when, as he claimed, he realized that really bad places are much funnier than anything he can make up: "What I've been is a Trouble Tourist -- going to see insurrections, stupidities, political crises, civil disturbances and other human folly ... because it's fun." He takes seriously one of his humorous prior political observations, namely that if you want to know what is going on in a country the last thing you should to is ask their politicians there since he will surely lie to you no matter what is really going on or their role in or against it. This starting point, and a gift for wisecracking, are what he takes on the road to the worst places people direct him.

Though not the focus of the book, he spends some serious time in the Latin world, with stops on the U.S.-Mexican border (and finds that apparently no one in Mexico really knows why Mexico is poor), Panama, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. The opening line of the chapter on Nicaragua: "There are probably more fact-finding tours in Nicaragua right now [now being September, 1987] than there are facts". It is relatively easy to string together insight and complaints, if a government is going to give out official titles to someone who will in turn give out to humorists fodder like: "They [La Prensa] accused us of suppressing freedom of expression. This was a lie and we could not let them publish it" -- via Nelba Blandon, Director of Censorship, Interior Ministry, Sandinista Government.

Sarcasm and plight rarely go well together. After all, what does wisecracking add to any analysis of starvation or a police state? However, coupled with insight it can work when one is there, surrounded by the contradictions, bad decisions, & pathetic excuses, - and those responsible for them. Though perhaps not always completely well informed, O'Rourke is a keen observer and can tell a story like few other people. Twenty years later this collection seems even more confrontational as anything written at the time. Reading 250+ pages of often vicious sarcasm in places where hope is increasingly uncommon takes some effort. As noted at the outset, this was not intended to be a book-length work, and these original essays are fairly short and came out over the span of years. This book is a collection of pieces written by O'Rourke across much of a decade. Politically correct he is not (are there politically correct humorists who are actually funny?). Since he is now one of the most-quoted writers in political commentary, there is no reason to offer snippets here. Love him or hate him (he manages to sell books to both sides), this is arguably his best work even though more recent efforts have resulted in countless more sales and fame,

The table of contents cover the "hells" O'Rourke holidayed in: The Innocents Abroad, Updated; A Ramble Through Lebanon; Seoul Brothers; Panama Banal; Third World Driving Hints and Tips; What Do They Do for Fun in Warsaw?; Weekend Getaway: Heritage USA; Post-Marcos Philippines — Life After One Year of Justice & Things Like That; Christmas in El Salvador; At Sea with the America’s Cup; Intellectual Wilderness, Ho — Visit to Harvard’s 350th Anniv. Celebration; In Whitest Africa; Through Darkest America: Epcot Center; Among the Euro-Weenies; Thirty-six Hours in Managua—An In-depth Report; Through Darkest America, Part II: The 1987 Reagan/Gorbachev Summit; Mexican Border Idyll; The Holyland—God’s Monkey House.

*** O'Rourke is also the author of: "National Lampoon's 1964 High School Yearbook Parody" ; "Ferrari Refutes the Decline of The West"; "Republican Party Reptile" ; "Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Tries to Explain the Entire U.S. Government"; "Give War a Chance -- Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer"; "All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty"; "Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics"; "Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism"; etc. This work is often mentioned in the same vein of Tony Wheeler's recent effort, "Bad Lands: A Tourist on the Axis of Evil" - but the books are not really comparable as they have different theses, perspectives, and intended audiences. ***