Holidays in Heck

Title:

Holidays in Heck

Author:

O'Rourke, P. J.

Personal Author:

O'Rourke, P. J.

ISBN:

9780802119858

Edition:

1st ed.

Publication Information:

New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, 2011.

Physical Description:

xvii, 265 p. ; 24 cm.

Contents:

Introduction: a former war correspondent experiences frightening vacation fun -- Republicans evolving: The Galápagos Islands, April 2003 -- Monumnetal [i.e. Monumental] generations: The national World War II Memorial, Washington, D.C., June 2004 -- Round on the ends and "Hi!" in the middle: Ohio skiing, February 2005 -- Riding to the hounds versus going to the dogs: Britain after the hunting ban, March 2005 -- My EU vacation: reading the European Constitution on a French Beach, Guadaloupe, May 2005 -- On first looking into the Airbus A380: Toulouse, June 2005 -- If you think modern life is awful, you haven't seen modern art: Venice Biennale, July 2005 -- My wife's got a gun: Brays Island Plantation, South Carolina, February 2006 -- A freedom ride through China: Spring 2006 -- Side trip up the Yangtze: June 2006 -- A horse of a different color: Kyrgyzstan, July 2006 -- Sweet-and-sour children and twice-fried parents to go: Hong Kong, December 2007 -- The big stick, or Why I voted for John McCain: USS Theodore Roosevelt, April 2008 -- White man speak with forked tongue: The Field Museum, Chicago, May 2008 -- The decline and fall of tomorrow: Disneyland, June 2008 -- A journey to-- let's not go there: Summer 2008 -- The seventy-two-hour Afghan expert: Kabul, July 2010 -- Capital gains: Washington, D.C., August 2010 -- Home unalone: New Hampshire, March 2011.

Abstract:

A follow-up to "Holidays in hell" collects classic travel pieces written throughout the author's post-retirement years, a period marked by his haphazard journeys with and without family to such regions as China, Kyrgyzstan, and America.

Personal Subject:

O'Rourke, P. J.-Travel-Humor.

Subject Term:

Vacations -- Humor.

Travel -- Humor.

Geographic Term:

United States -- Politics and government -- 2009- -- Humor.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Westover Hills	Book	818.6 O74	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

P.J. O'Rourke is one of today's most celebrated political humorists, and has been hailed as "the funniest writer in America" by both Time and The Wall Street Journal . Two decades ago he published the classic travelogue Holidays in Hell , in which he traversed the globe on a fun-finding mission to what were then some of the most desperate places on the planet, including Warsaw, Managua, and Belfast.

In Holidays in Heck , P.J. embarks on supposedly more comfortable and allegedly less dangerous travels--often with family in tow--which mostly leave him wishing he were under artillery fire again. The essays take O'Rourke on a whirlwind of adventures, beginning at the National Mall in Washington, which he describes as having been designed with the same amazing "greatest generation" aesthetic sensibility that informed his parents' living room. We follow him as he takes his family on a ski vacation (to the Aspen of the Midwest--Ohio--where the highest point of elevation is the six-food ski instructor that his wife thinks is cute). And later he experiences a harrowing horseback ride across the mountains of Kyrgyzstan.

The result is a hilarious and often moving portrait of life in the fast lane--only this time as a husband and father.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

Holidays in Hell (1988). Having retired from the hazards of war, O'Rourke (Don't Vote--It Just Encourages the Bastards, 2010, etc.) faces the challenge of learning to travel for leisure with his family: "What is this thing called fun? To judge by traveling with my wife and daughters it has something to do with shopping for clothes." Many of the essays are unabashed paeans to the pastimes of wealthy, middle-aged Republicans: The author visits ski resorts, hunting preserves and even a tour of the Galpagos Islands. Unfortunately, despite lovingly described meals and leisure, these serve as excuses for O'Rourke to rail against uptight liberals who love perverted art and oppressive government and hate guns, hunting, the outdoors and good times. This predictable rhetorical structure reaches its nadir in an irritating essay on the 2005 Venice Biennale, where O'Rourke expresses a strange anger towards the entire edifice of contemporary art: "The Guerrilla Girls are too young to remember what a babe Gloria Steinem was[and] too old to realize how beside the point their point is." The problem here is not the author's conservative views, but rather that his writing has become increasingly sour and lazy. The better pieces are built more around straightforward reportage and observation, such as two essays narrating his trips through the new economic powerhouse of China. He also provides colorful, earthy descriptive passages regarding stag hunts in Britain, extreme horseback riding in the wilds of Kyrgyzstan, a poignant look at his bout with cancer and a brief jaunt to Kabul, Afghanistan. Red meat for his fans, unlikely to convert new ones.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.