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A review by ben_smitty
Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle by Daniel L. Everett
4.0
As interesting as it was frustrating. Everett's got a bit of beef with Chomsky, and his attempts to disprove Chomsky (which takes over like 1/3 of the book?) is a little distracting when it comes to understanding his theory on how cultures can limit the emergence of language that serve no practical purpose.
Still, Everett's a talented storyteller, and his retelling of the struggles he went through with his family as missionaries are raw and difficult to read; he doesn't glamorize the sufferings he endured. There is no "silver lining" when his family almost dies of malaria with no doctor in town. I suspect his refusal to reassure his readers that everything will be okay stems from his abandonment of his faith, but I've never read an account so real without any attempts at abstracting away the difficulties of living life as a missionary.
Still, Everett's a talented storyteller, and his retelling of the struggles he went through with his family as missionaries are raw and difficult to read; he doesn't glamorize the sufferings he endured. There is no "silver lining" when his family almost dies of malaria with no doctor in town. I suspect his refusal to reassure his readers that everything will be okay stems from his abandonment of his faith, but I've never read an account so real without any attempts at abstracting away the difficulties of living life as a missionary.