Book of the Month: Surviving Paradise, by Peter Rudiak-Gould

It's an iconic fantasy: Plop yourself down on a reef-fringed atoll in the middle of the Pacific and live the vie dorée of the artist-castaway. Robert Louis Stevenson did it. Paul Gauguin did it. And I had a few idyllic moments during a recent visit to Aitutaki when such a romantic notion beckoned. But of course, as anthropologist Peter Rudiak-Gould reveals in his entertaining and enlightening new book, Surviving Paradise: One Year on a Disappearing Island, plant your palapa under the palms and before long paradise turns out to be anything but.

Rudiak-Gould's version of paradise is Ujae, in the Marshall Islands. Located 2,500 miles west of Hawaii, 3,000 miles east of the Philippines, and 120 miles from its nearest islet neighbor, Ujae is a volcanic speck fecund with palm, pandanus, breadfruit, papaya, and banana trees, flanked by a sandy, limpid lagoon and the rocky, roiling Pacific. A pond-dotted palm forest lies in its center, ringed by fish-abounding waters.

Still, as our narrator quickly discovers, Ujae is "more paradox than paradise." This isolated island-village of 450 souls is noisy with bawling babies, squabbling siblings, barking pets, and improbably amped-up music. There are ants and flies everywhere. Belying the bountiful surroundings, the menu consists only of rice and breadfruit. The way the parents treat their children is profoundly unsettling. And if, as for Rudiak-Gould, your mission is to teach the spectacularly unprepared and uninspired local children English, it's best to hunker down for an emotional typhoon.

To his considerable credit, as his year-long teaching stint unfolds, Rudiak-Gould learns the local language and customs, forges friendships with his fellow islanders, and makes peace with his own preconceptions. He immerses himself in Ujae life—from spearfishing and atoll-exploring adventures, to festival celebrations, to birth and death commemorations. Observing closely and thoughtfully, he happily depicts his own humorous fumblings, and reflects with a grounded eloquence. The result is an extraordinarily engaging diary-portrait of a 21st-century castaway uncovering the everyday riches, enduring frustrations, and confounding contradictions of life in a South Pacific paradise.