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Are You Experienced? (Paperback)

by William Sutcliffe (Author) "'This seat doesn't go back properly.' ..." (more)
4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (68 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Hamish Hamilton Ltd (28 Aug 1997)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0241137810
  • ISBN-13: 978-0241137819
  • Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 13.5 x 1.7 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (68 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 436,232 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #10 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > S > Sutcliffe, William

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk
For anyone with the slightest curiosity about travelling, or even if you've been, William Sutcliffe's tremendously funny Are You Experienced? will have you in stitches. The protagonist is Dave, a 19-year-old Londoner on a gap year before starting university. He had no intention of leaving Europe, until his best mate James, who's about to go on a trek through the Himalayas, challenges him. "Do you want to learn Fwench David? Something pwactical for your CV?" he taunts when he hears Dave is going to be a waiter at a Swiss ski resort.

Admitting his fears, ("Suffering, danger and poverty are all fine by me, but dirt and disease are two things I happen to hate") Dave is determined to prove he's not a coward and accepts an invitation to go to India with James's girlfriend Liz (in anticipation of consummating their burgeoning relationship). But by the time they get on the plane it all goes downhill. Bickering constantly, their adaption to India couldn't be more different. Liz embraces it--hugging beggars and wearing saris, while Dave's dry-humoured rants, scepticism and fear of the unknown eventually drive her away in search of her "centre".

The characters the pair meet along the way draw upon all the old hippy-traveller stereotypes, but there's also a few new ones in keeping with the times. There's Ranj--a British-born Indian who hates Indians; Jez--a public-school-educated undergraduate whose travels are being funded by daddy; and Caz and Fee who experience the side-effects of "Intimate Yoga".

While this story is ultimately a funny piece of fiction, it also addresses more serious considerations, such as cultural stereotypes, peer pressures and making life-changing decisions.

This book is irresistible and seasoned travellers will empathise with the situations Dave finds himself in, (his graphic description of a bout of Dehli-belly is guaranteed to make you feel sorry for him, and nauseous too). Be prepared to laugh out loud. --Angela Boodoo --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Description
Dave travels to India with Liz hoping to get her into bed. Liz travels with Dave wanting a companion for her voyage of self-discovery. This novel is a satire about backpackers.

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Customer Reviews

68 Reviews
5 star:
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4 star:
 (22)
3 star:
 (6)
2 star:
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1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (68 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Most accurate book on backpacking across India available!, 19 Jul 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Are You Experienced? (Paperback)
'Lonely Planet', eat your heart out! If there is one book to sum up travelling the Indian sub-continent, it is this. Coupled with a compelling story of one mans struggle with the woman in his life, this novel exceeds all the 'travel novel' limits, previously set by 'The Beach'. Having travelled the same region as Dave did in the book, I find his descriptions and feelings uncannily accurate. He ridicules the attitude of the self-congratulatory 18-year-old who have taken a year out (to 'find' themselves), and the 'getting at one with his karma' hippy-traveller with true humour. It is refreshing to read a book that is lighthearted but compelling reading. This man had done his research! If you are ever considering travelling East, then this is the book to read.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Light and dark and in short, brilliant, 27 Jul 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Are You Experienced? (Paperback)
My girlfriend gave me this book as a humorous alternative to the dark stuff that I normally read, so I was expecting some in-your-face, smart-aleck pulp that a reviewer somewhere thought was trying to be funny. I started reading it at 11 o'clock at night, and I have to say that by the time I finished it, four hours later in the wee small hours, I was pleasantly shocked to discover that it was actually very funny in a cynical sense, and overall a deeper and more insightful read than I had first expected.

Some have called the storyline pointless and the characters 2-dimensional, but that is the point of the story: it satirises the latest PC fad. Anyone who says it is pure pulp cannot have read the part where Dave encounters a Reuters journalist, a passage where the author's intent for the novel is laid bare. With Liz and Dave, Sutcliffe accurately depicts the two main types of traveller swarming into the lesser regions of the world: the self-obsessed type who make out like everything is 'karmic' and 'spiritual' without the first clue of what that means, and the type who travel and 'experience poverty' just because everyone else is doing it and they can put it on their CV. It is very fitting that, whilst following Dave around India, we learn next to nothing about the country, and likewise, with Liz on a spiritual quest, we get about as spiritual as who she's sleeping with. Add to this some very accurate portrayals of travelling (such as how when you return home, everything seems strange), and some weird and wonderful (and morally corrupt) supporting characters, not to mention all manner of bizarre situations, and it's a riot.

Don't believe the nay-sayers. You can read this novel as pulp if you want, because the humour and free-flowing storyline make it truly difficult to put down, but between the lines it is a dark and bitter diatribe to the culture of the traveller. Only the ending with its 'nosy-parker' humour lets the story down. But it shows that none of the travellers learned anything from travelling, despite their claims to the contrary. So it succeeds in its point. So buy it, now.

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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Close to the bone, 28 Aug 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Are You Experienced? (Paperback)
This is the first book to make me laugh out loud in a long time - mainly because it was so close to the bone, parts of it were painful. I am constantly amused by my friends and acquaintances who think that spending a couple of months on a sanitised, whistle-stop tour through a country means that they can truly get to know and understand it. Sutcliffe has picked up on this patronising attitude, and gently mocks it in a very, very funny way. The characters are very realistic (I defy anyone in the 18-30 age bracket to say they don't recognise the characters in this book), as are the situations and, indeed, the observations Sutcliffe has on the tangled web of relationships that form the basis of the plot.
'Are you experienced' is short, but definitely un-put-downable, and most of the people I have recommended this book to have read it in a single sitting.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Will knock the stuffing out of pretentious 'travellers'
As someone who never felt any great desire to camp out in a mud hut in Bangalore with raging dysentery because 'it's an expeeeeeerience! Read more
Published 23 days ago by Smurfy

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Read
I read this book in January when the weather was poor and rattling against the window and there was not much to look forward too - it fair cheered me up - I could not put it down... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Fiona M. Quinn

3.0 out of 5 stars OK, nothing special
Amusing in places for sure, I'm not qute sure what age group this book is aimed at. If I'd read it aged 17-20 I'm sure it would have had me in stitches, but lets not forget that... Read more
Published 14 months ago by DJ Bez

2.0 out of 5 stars When in India...
I read this whilst backpacking in India and it did help kill the boredom on some long sweaty train journeys. But that's about all it's good for. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Matt Wilson

5.0 out of 5 stars Great
Very very funny and insightful look at the world of young backpackers in India.Whether you have travelled there or not its well worth a read and makes for a great present.
Published 21 months ago by J. Leggett

4.0 out of 5 stars Extremely amusing
I spent a significant amount of time laughing my way through this book. It was really, really funny. Read more
Published on 21 Mar 2007 by Net

2.0 out of 5 stars Not impressed
I'm going through a bit of a 'travel writing' stint at the moment and this book came up in my Amazon recommendations so I thought I'd give it a go. Read more
Published on 16 Jan 2007 by Sarah Marx

5.0 out of 5 stars Read it before, during and after you trip
I first heard of this book from a couple in a campsite near Venice when i was inter-railing before uni started. Read more
Published on 30 Aug 2006 by O. Charlesworth

5.0 out of 5 stars BRILLIANT, JUST BRILLIANT
I gave this book to a friend who was extremely nervous about taking his finals at Oxford the next day. Read more
Published on 4 Jan 2006 by barneyslondon

5.0 out of 5 stars absolute must for anyone travelling to india!
My friend who reads a lot gave me this book as I was off travelling to India. I'm not the worlds fastest reader but I found it so completely hilarious that I read the whole... Read more
Published on 21 Dec 2005 by Ms. A. F. Vedder

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