The Mosquito Coast

Watched the tv show first and then read the book. The TV show was exciting and I was so upset that the show wasn’t renewed. Thought the book would be like the show but it wasn’t.

Really just a very interesting novel about power within a family. Different in many ways from the Amazon series, though readers will see the father, Allie, in a similar light. I found this to be a real page-turner, gripping and interesting. I’d consider it a must-read.

All great books bear the mark of a Greek tragedy - man struggling in a hopeless fight and achieving greatness by losing. Mosquito Coast had an excellent chance to join the long list of great books - and missed it. Allie, a self-taught Jack-of-all-tech-trades, cannot abide living in the stultifying morass of American capitalist consumer society that emasculates all males. So he abandons everything that modern civilization stands for and takes his wife plus four children to the wilderness of Honduras. There he plans to build his new Eden, pure, wild, self-sufficient. Is Allie someone you might want to know? Definitely not! He is obsessed with his own greatness, with his contempt for those he perceives beneath him. His obvious talents, greatness, drive, stamina, are marred by his relentless philosophizing, sententiousness, petty viciousness, disregard for the comfort, love, safety of his family - etc, etc. The story is told by his oldest son thirteen at the beginning and fourteen towards the end of the book. His perception of his father gradually and mercilessly changes from admiration, worship, practically unrequited love - to hate, disappointment, and terror. Allie is indeed a genius - he can take apart any machine and put it together to work better than ever. He can design a practical paradise in the middle of nowhere. He can charm and terrorize all those around him and make them work for his dream. He is a born leader and tyrant. But his ego screens him from reality - and relentlessly leads to his downfall. And it is the story of his downfall that marks the failure of Paul Theroux in turning a very good novel into a masterpiece. Instead of making Allie a doomed giant who takes on the WORLD (!) and magnificently fails, he makes him a small-time terrorist of his own slaves, his family. What's particularly missing, is the personality of Allie's wife, and the implied clashes between her as a mother and protector of her four children and her egomaniac husband. Another Greek tragedy needlessly waylaid. A pity

Paul Theroux is a popular American Novelist and travel writer and controversial author whose publications span an epic era from 1967 ("Waldo") to 2012 ("The Lower River'). He was born Paul Edward Theroux in 1941 at Medford Massachusetts. Some of the fictional works of Theroux have been made into feature films; in 1986 the "Mosquito Coast" stared Harrison Ford in the part of Allie Fox.Theroux has described himself as an "angry and agitated young man" in his early 20s when he felt he had to escape the confines of Massachusetts and a hostile U.S. foreign policy, when he joined the Peace Corps and went to Africa. (Interview with Eleanor Wachtel, CBC Radio, 30th International Festival of Authors, Toronto, October 25, 2009). It is arguably notable that Theroux's angry disposition contributed to the themes of his fictional works like `Mosquito Coast" featuring an angry Allie Fox who sees mankind's advancements in science as mostly garbage; innately defective, confirmed to failure. This future apparition leads to Allie's decision to pack up his family and leave an America that he saw as doomed to failure and ultimate destruction for the remote jungle of Honduras.The adventure of Allie Fox together with his wife and four children is narrated by Allie's oldest child, Charlie, a teenager. The story is contrasted by Charlie's innocence, naive understanding and primal fears with those of Allie's brilliance, overstated confidence and fearless disregard. It is not too long into the tale that the reader harbors a feeling that Allie suffers from some psychosis- deceptions of reality. As the story progresses, the reader finds a distinct dichotomy developing between the science that Allie swears he is leaving behind with that which he brings to the remote region of the Honduras jungle utopia that he founds in the settlement of Jeronimo. In addition to devising a settlement with many of the creature comforts that he left behind, Allie's most profound accomplishment is the construction of a giant absorption ice machine named Fat Boy - a prophetic name derived from the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The machine becomes the epitome of a delusional mind that somehow can justify ice in the jungle as necessary and important but cannot conjure the likes of a rope swing for the children to play on. Like Melville's Ahab, Allie cannot see his destructive obsession even in the midst of failure, which he stubbornly insists was his plan all along; until Allie's fate drags him under like Ahab on the white whale.This is a terrific novel adventure and captivating look at the iconoclast Allie Fox and his family as they struggle to survive in a utopian world devised by a deranged but brilliant mind.I highly recommend this novel be added to your reading list and would rate it memorable.

I'm not going to lie, I can't see why people like this book.Okay, so where to start? You know those "Alaskan Wilderness Men" reality-tv shows that are on at the moment? The ones where they have to survive in the wilderness, building tut, and catching animals? Well this book is like that, except it's set in what is now Eastern Nicaragua(ish). And the leader of the family (the father, Allie Fox) is an arrogant fool, and racist to boot.Fox drags his family to The Mosquito Coast from Maine, because he's convinced that American society is on the verge of collapse, a race war, or nuclear war (so he's like one of those people too, all we needed was a purpose built air raid shelters in a basement, and the Mom being an extreme couponer to have the reality show trifecta). Once there he sets up an ice manufacturing enterprise (because, of course, that makes sense), with the idea that he'll work with the shiftless locals to get it set up (because he thinks, of course, that only the white man can get them organised). He starts with a bang, but as the book progresses, the wheels come off, as his communistic ideas, and racism, come face to face with reality.Another thing that had me thinking was the similarity to Jonestown, and the People's Temple mass suicide/killing. In that, Jim Jones convinced 1000 people to go and live in Guyana for similar (if more religious) reasons. The big difference here is that I'm assuming Jim Jones had some charisma. Fox has as much charisma as a Wet Wednesday in Whitby. Oh, and his wife is about has no agency. Absolutely none. We don't even learn her name. Fox pontificates from on high, and his wife should know her place.To make matters worse, I'm a townie. I can just about tell the difference between a sheep and a goat, and tend to view the countryside as the place you drive through to get somewhere. In short, I don't know much about rural ways of life. This said, I spent most of my time reading the book thinking "Why are you doing that there?", and "There's a reason the locals don't do that there." If an out and out townie can be picking holes in some of the Science Fox was using, most people are going to be thinking "You're a special sort of silly, aren't you?"So all, not good.p.s. I know those reality shows are staged, mostly.

It took me a while, but I finally finished Mosquito Coast. Some say it’s Theroux’s best novel. It might be. I’m not sure. It’s certainly very different from Saint Jack and My Secret History. However, there are similarities with The Lower River, although I would say the Mosquito Coast is much more elaborate than the Lower River. It’s probably the best of the five or so Theroux novels I’ve read. Theroux’s writing is uncluttered and fluid, and often excellent, but it’s his storytelling that really shines. What an imagination. The main character, Allie Fox, as seen through the eyes of his son, Charlie, is an unforgettable literary figure. Without going on and on, this is great read. For about 10 years now, or since I read The Great Railway Bizarre, Paul Theroux has been one of my favourite authors. Five stars.Troy Parfitt is the author of Why China Will Never Rule the World

Really easy to read. I felt compelled to move on to the next chapter. Brilliantly written. Seems to give a good view of the Miskito Coast which runs along the eastern border of Honduras and Nicaragua.The insight of Charlie, the eldest son of the family, into what is happening as his father moves them to Honduras to escape the destruction than he predicts of the US and his persecution complex is brilliantly written. The conflicting emotions of Charlie and his observations of his mother and siblings reactions as he is both frightened by and loves his father are fascinating.You end up wishing for the death of the father as you feel he will destroy his family and feel he is saving them.Although it never mentions directly that Allie Fox (the father) is mentally ill, the descriptions of his behaviour make that evident in both his genius and his delusion.You feel hot, humid and dirty just from reading of the life in the swamps and jungles.

Poor print quality! The ink has diffused too broadly into the paper (a bit like blotting paper), resulting in blurry print which is hard to read. The paper surface is rough and uncoated - apparently the cause of this problem. At the same time I ordered The Pillars of Hercules, also by Paul Theroux in Penguin, which is a publication of similar quality, but the print quality in this book is better, sharper and much easier to read. So I think this is a problem with the particular print run. What to do? Exchange it and I would probably get the same quality again. Kindle? Nah - I prefer a real book. So I ordered a used hardcover version in the hope of getting acceptable print quality. Poor quality control - what do Penguin say?

Read this book over 30 years ago - and l enjoyed it now more than then - literally a savage tale