The Cauliflower Chronicles - A Review

I've been wanting to write a review of Marshall D Carper's book 'The Cauliflower Chronicles' since finishing it earlier this year, following a recent re-reading I'm finally getting round to it.

I've heard it said before that what makes a good travelogue is that the author puts as much of themselves in to it as they do the place that they're writing about. Norman Mailer wrote that a good memoir allows the reader to put themselves in the shoes of the writer even though they may never have been in similar circumstances. With 'The Cauliflower Chronicles' Carper does both these things and more.

The book begins with Carper having broken up with a serious girlfriend and moving to Hawaii to study, heal his heartbreak and most importantly, for the book and for me, to train with Jiu Jitsu/MMA legend BJ Penn and earn his Blue Belt from the man himself.

Joined by a colourful cast of supporting characters – fellow students, grapplers, locals and others – Carper falls in love with the island rather than a girl and by the end of the book it's difficult to imagine a Hawaii that's anything other than the one he describes. Visiting some of the most notable spots on The Big Island, lava flows, waterfalls, cliffs, beaches Carper takes us to the idyllic side of Hawaii. In the background, however, Carper is always cognisant of the tension that exists, with good reason, between indigenous Hawaiians and 'Haoles' or White people, giving the reader a useful potted history of Hawaii and it's exploitation/colonisation/oppression by the USA that nicely contextualises some of the sentiments that he encounters.

It's Carper's personal journey that makes this book though – his quest for the Blue Belt, falling in love with the Big Island and it's people, struggling (with himself as much as with others) for acceptance at BJ's gym and trying to get to roll with the man himself. All told with good pace and in self deprecating entertaining language that stops the right side of maudlin and betrays the insight that the author has in to himself and his own life.

For the Jits player or MMA fighter there's plenty of training insights. Particularly nice are the descriptions and appreciations of how the others in the gym fight, their style, strengths or how they teach. This is especially interesting when Carper talks about rolling with Charuto or Gunnar Nelson or any of the Penn brothers (this makes a particularly intriguing comparison). 

Best of all for me it gave me the kick up the backside I needed to get back on to the mat after an absence of over two years. Did it re-ignite my love of grappling? Let's just say that the first session in nearly three years back at the gym was a submission grappling class.......