Fatu Hiva (book) - Disillusion

Disillusion

Initially, the Heyerdahls found life on Fatu Hiva to be idyllic, what with the abundance of fruit trees and readily available unpolluted river water. The charm soon wore off, however, as they had to face the reality of elephantiasis-bearing mosquitos, as well as other unfamiliar tropical diseases. Eventually, also, Thor and Liv found it impossible to live among the local people and ended up sheltering in a cave, anxious to get home.

The book begins with Heyerdahl's optimistic idea that paradise could still be found. By the end of the book, Heyerdahl bitterly concludes:

There is nothing for modern man to return to. Our wonderful time in the wilderness had given us a taste of what man had abandoned and what mankind was still trying to get even further away from. Progress today can be defined as man's ability to complicate simplicity. Nothing in all the procedure that modern man, helped by all his modern middlemen, goes through before he earns money to buy a fish or a potato will ever be as simple as pulling it out of the water or soil. Without the farmer and the fisherman, modern society would collapse, with all its shops and pipes and wires. The farmers and the fishermen represent the nobility of modern society; they share their crumbs with the rest of us, who run about with papers and screwdrivers attempting to build a better world without a blueprint.