Blue Road

Review by Philip Blazdell

Do not, under any circumstances, read this book in a public place.

Do not read it on a plane, a train, a bus or a boat. Do not read anywhere where uncontrollable laughter might attract attention as this book is truly hysterical. I laughed so much when I read this wonderful book that I often had to put the book down, dry my eyes and try to compose myself.
After 'liberating' the school chemistry lab with a box of matches and Bunsen burner, the young Windy does what many of us have dreamed of doing and runs off to sea with the Merchant Navy. But Windy is not alone on the rusty hulk which is to take him to Australia and we meet such colourful characters as NotNorman ('You must be Norman,' I smiled. 'And you must be Mistaken,' he said, smiling back with a certain edge. 'If you start calling me Norman, I shall set fire to you.'), The Famous Dick Wrigley, Benny the Dog, the stoned and surreal SmallParcel and the engineers MegaWatt and KiloWatt.

What follows is a blissful series of misadventures. Windy undergoes an initiation ceremony upon crossing the equator for the first time (which has to be one of the funniest passages ever committed to paper), falls in love at least once a chapter, has meaningless, mindless casual sex, details the etiquette of masturbating on a ship, is fooled into searching for an electric hammer and motor-trikes across the sand-dunes of Barbados. He also finds time to attend church on Christmas Day (buy the book just for this story alone!)

Windy writes about his exploits with such a deftness of touch but he also captures the awful jobs, the claustrophobia and the difficult conditions under which he works (pursuit of the non-existent by the clueless armed with the unworkable...) with both humour and dignity.

This book works well both as a travel book and as a memoir of a young man's right of passage. Windy writes beautifully and captures the moment or describes characters in a way which enthrals the reader. Windy is equally adept at describing the beauty of Pacific Islands as he is as describing the sexual exploits of the crew and there really is not a bad sentence in this book. Windy, unlike most other writers, can be both moving, profound and hysterically funny in the same paragraph and once you finally stop laughing (it may take some time) you will realise what a profoundly moving book this is.

If you only read one travel book this year then read this one. Then buy copies for all your friends and share the pleasure of this wonderful, wonderful book.

• Blue Road by Windy Baboulene