Thursday, June 9, 2011

Mosquitos

I'm reading "The Traveller's Tree" by Patrick Leigh Fermor, a reprint of his 1950 account of a voyage through the Caribbean. Staying at the Hotel des Antilles in Guadeloupe, he was besieged by insects, even under mosquito nets, and wrote,

Joan's plan - still, alas! as I write, no more than a plan - of sleeping chained to a chameleon seems to be the only practical way of neutralizing the unceasing siege of the insect world. With this alert little basilisk camped on one's bosom, suitably camouflaged to melt into the slumberwear; prepared, at the faintest buzz in the surrounding ether, to fire half a yard of tongue at the foe, and swallow it without blinking an eye, one might snore the night peacefully through. Not otherwise.

Delightful book, so far, but contemporary readers might be a little put-off by the author's attempts at amateur ethnology.

4 comments:

Guffaw in AZ said...

Did you get the idea of reading this book from Ian Fleming?
Just windering...
gfa

Turk Turon said...

No, I saw a review of it somewhere. But this guy and Fleming were contemporaries and may even have met, since Fleming moved to Jamaica in the 1950's.

Guffaw in AZ said...

Fleming even wrote of James Bond reading that book (In Live & Let Die, I believe.)
gfa

Turk Turon said...

GFA: I'll have to check that out. I have LALD around here somewhere...