Rating: 
Summary: You can't help but be jealous, can you
Review: Oh, to be Paul Theroux - get an idea about where you want to travel and know that a publisher will pay you for whatever you write about your trip. Or something like that. The Pillars of Hercules tells a travel tale about the area on Earth that has probably generated the most travel writing in history - the Mediterranean. That said, Mr. Theroux comes at it from an original angle - the historical monuments and great past of the area that usually dominates writing about the Med, he only mentions in passing. What he is interested in is the people - and not just the famous; he annoys the people around him, asking their opinions about their travels and homes. What results is a fantastic travelogue that encompasses many different travel experiences - Theroux goes from a $1,000-a-day cruise (that he didn't pay for) to a cheap (for him) boat load of Turkish holiday goers within a short period of time, and manages to make the Turkish boat sound as interesting as the ritzy cruise ship. This is not a travel guide. Nor is it an in-depth look at Mediterranean history or culture - there are plenty of other books out there to choose form if that is what you are looking for. In his own words, Theroux describes his travels as: "I had set out to be on the Mediterranean, without a fixed program. I was not writing a book - I was living my life, and had found an agreeable way to do it." I am glad that Theroux decided to share his travels with us, because it makes for an entertaining and interesting read, as well as a view of the area different from most you will find on bookshelves today.
Rating: 
Summary: Hysterical travelling
Review: Other writers cite the grandeur of Spain, Paul Theroux saw only a series of greasy spots. The rest of the book goes pretty much the same way. The critique of people and nationalities often borders on racism. The greek speakers of southern Italy are an example, these people have been "yacking away in greek" for two thousand years while the others were "speaking" italian. There are also great gaps unforgivable for someone who is a self professed culture afficionado. There is no mention in this book of the influence that the Arabs had on the region. Seven centuries of Arab ascendancy had a profound effect in the Mediterranean. This is glossed over or explained away in a way that suits the author,so he decrees, for instance, that greek food is really turkish food, when in fact they are both influenced by the Arabs. In all the book is an often hysterical self centered description of the Mediterranean and its people which really has very little contact with reality. As the contradictions of fact in the book itself show. Greece produces nothing, says the author. A few pages earlier, interviewing an Italian fisheries expert, we read that "Greece of course has hundreds of fish farms" where presumably they produce something. For those that know the area and its history this book will be a series of inexplicable inaccuracies. For those that do not it will be a very poor guide.
Rating: 
Summary: This Mediterranean travel commentary is a very good read.
Review: Paul Theroux has been travelling across the face of this earth for decades. His acid wit has disparaged dozens of cultures. Those treks seemed to seek out low roads and those who kept to them. With this new book I am happy to report Mr. Theroux is in his element-taking a literary hadj about the Mediterranean coastline .So that one doesn't get bored with the likes of Robert Graves and Carlo Levi-he visits war ravaged Croatia and paranoic Albania.He pays a clandestine visit to Syria and both sides of a divided Cyprus.His prose is masterful. His mood is almost benevolent. It seems that the air on this particular path has lightened his spirits. One reluctantly finishes the book wishing the journey to continue
a while longer. Thank you Mr Theroux for a road well taken
Rating:
Summary: a brutal but honest tour of today's Mediterranean
Review: Paul Theroux has produced a stunning book here, his recounting of an ambitious tour along the Mediterranean coastline, starting at Gibraltar and ending in Morocco across from "the Rock," along the way visiting just about every place in between, including Spain, France, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, mainland Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Albania, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus (both sides), Israel, Malta, Syria, Egypt, and Tunisia. He tried to visit Lebanon but was unable to, and was warned off from visiting Algeria. He never seriously attempted to visit Libya. Vowing never to take a plane, he travels along the coast and to the various islands by train, bus, taxi, ferry and cruise ship (both luxurious such as the $1000 a day Seabourne to the more decrepit, workaday Turkish vessel Akdeniz). Though Paul seems at time a romantic, quotting descriptions of places from epic poetry, the Illiad, or modern works of fiction, time and again he finds something different, and often that is a great deal more gritty, spent, or to use some of his massive vocabulary, enervated, melancholy, moribund, or lugubrious (I had to use a dictionary several times in reading it, but hey, I learned something). Though some of it comes off as depressing, some quite depressing, I wouldn't have it any other way; he tells it like it is, describing the places he really saw and the people he really met. Avoiding the tourist's Mediterranean, not wanting to just see ruins, castles, and pretty beaches, Paul shows us in this work how the people live, work, and play in the countries of this great "Inner Sea." Expressing "traveller's guilt" at times for being a "voyeur," Paul observed often times the sorrows, tragedies, and miseries, but also the joys and the friendliness, of the inhabitants of this part of the world. Paul does not romantize any of the countries he sees. He describes in detail the desolate look of the Spanish seacoast in winter (Paul deliberately traveled in the toursit off season), of all the English-language signs, cheap hotels, billboards, shops selling cheap souvenirs, trailer parks, all waiting forlornly for the summer hordes of tourists, a vacation mecca that was more English than Spanish. He goes into considerable detail his efforts to understand the bloody spectacle that is the bullfight in Spain, talking to Spaniards everywhere and even attending a few (and watching some in smoky bars in Spain), but never develop a true comprehension (or liking) for it. He visits war-torn Slovenia and Croatia, sharing dirty hotels with desperate refugees, worried about snipers, harrassed by police at border checkpoints, looking at bullet and mortar holes in ancient structures. His time in Albania is surreal, a land of screaming and whining beggars, virtual starvation, a land that just recovered from one of the most xenophobic dicators in history, one that mandated everyone has his own bunker and not even own his own car - his description of Albania alone was worth the price of the book. Northern Cyprus he spent some time in, a ghost-town, a phantom nation, one that doesn't exist except in a legal limbo, cut-off from the rest of the island by the Green Line, forever a truncated failure of a country, in reality an expensive Turkish colony. He referred to Greece as "the ragged edge of Europe," a poor country that was basically a slightly better Albania as it were, a nation that was not really modern and an EC welfar state, and despite its rich cultural history, the people of that nation today - he writes - are not really truly aware of or part of the heritage of Aristotle, Pericles, and Archimedes. I could go on at length here, but suffice it to say his portraits of each country are fascinating. Some are a bit brief; he doesn't spend that much time in Slovenia for instance (not as much as he did in Croatia for example), and I got the impression in Morocco he was just glad his trip was finally ended. The book is not perfect though. Some of the locations I thought he would spend more time on, specifically Jerusalem, Istanbul, and Venice, but perhaps if he did the book would be massive. At the very least in Istanbul there were political and terrorist problems, thus complicating his stay. All in all though I found this book quite worthwhile.
Rating:
Summary: A thoroughly enjoyable trip
Review: Paul Theroux is the penultimate observer. His intrusions into the hospitality of those he meets make the reader squirm and yet listen intently for the response. I was mesmerized by the first half of the book where he takes on a pilgrimmage which is both tantalizing and dangerous. By his own observations, he is experiencing the world in a way that is unavailable, or at the very least ill-advised, for a woman. Suddenly and abruptly in the middle of the voyage, he is drained and needs to refuel. So, he goes home. But when he comes back, he is on a cruise ship that cost $28,000.00 to join and is keeping company with blustering egotists with more money than sense. I found this part of the book disappointing, but apparently the weary traveler regains his perspective and after leaving the cruise, re-joins his "Grand Tour" still in progress. I enjoyed thoroughly his detached observations and acute witticisms. It is my intent to read every author and book that he references within this one.
Rating:
Summary: Theroux changes location, but not his spots
Review: Paul Theroux maintains the detached, somewhat morose mien
which has carried him around the world. However, by not
becoming involved with his surroundings and the people
which inhabit them, his views and opinions seem more real to
me. The first part of the book is definitely the more
interesting, perhaps because he feels less alienated when
he's travelling in western countries than he does in the
former Yugoslavia, Albania and the Mideast. This book is
not as adventurous as some of the others, and seems more
introspective to me. I liked it a lot, however, and suaggest
that reading it with a good map of the region at hand is a worthwhile endeavor.
Rating:
Summary: Indeed a Grand Tour
Review: Paul Theroux tackles the beautiful, crusty, cranky, ancient, tacky, peaceful and war-like Mediterranean with gusto in this travelogue.
At times his natural cynicism gets the better of him, but his writer's eyes and ears leave us with beautifully rendered descriptions of the places he visits and the people he meets.
My favourite chapters include his hauntingly beautiful descriptions of the mountainous terrain and secretive people of Corsica; his chronicles of the aching destitution that is Albania; his comparisons of cruise-bound Turks and land-bound Israelis; and his coming to terms with Alexandria.
Thank you Mr. Theroux for a thoroughly enjoyable, thought provoking, and ultimately funny romp of a read through the Mediterranean.
Rating: 
Summary: It put me off
Review: Started the book and realised that Mr Theroux has a keen eye for uglyness. His trip around Spain is really sad. I am sorry he couldn't find any of the wonderful towns and people on this coast. For his satisfaction, I can reassure him, he would be able to find his translated work not only in Barcelona, but in other coastal and inland cities and towns in Spain. Sorry to contradict, but there is not a bull fight on TVE everyday. I have found these chapters so misleading that I couldn't carry on with the book.
Rating:
Summary: One man's journey...
Review: THE PILLARS OF HERCULES by Paul Theroux is a record of one man's journey around the Mediterranean. The journey took several months and included two separate phases. Theroux tells of days of hiking, traveling by train, sailing a night steamer in a storm-tossed sea, and crusing through the sunny Greek islands on a fancy yacht. He travels light with a change or two of clothes in a backpack. He washes his clothes out by hand in the B&B's and cheap hotels he frequents. He grabs meals here and there. Along the way he notes the writers who have passed before him, Robert Groves who lived at Deya with his WHITE GODDESS, Lawrence Durrell who knew Gaul well, the ancients including Herodotus. He stops to talk with living writers and reflect on the conditions of the areas he visits. Theroux has written about his travels in many parts of the world, and though I've read some of his other works, I enjoyed PILLARS the most--probably because I am familiar with some of the places he describes along the coast of the "sea in the midst of the land" and I maintain a connection to the area. Beginning in Cadiz Spain, founded by the Phoenicians 4,000 years ago on the Atlantic--where the real Pillars of Hercules probably existed--Theroux follows the coast from Spain to Italy to the Dalmatian Coast onto Greece the Levant, Egypt and then across North Africa. He relates his pleasure with one of the modern pillars of Hercules--Gibralter--the huge limestone rock jutting from the coast of Spain into the Straights of Trafalgar. Hundreds of British sailors and marines from the Napoleonic Wars are buried on this little spit of land England bought with blood and Spain wishes to reclaim. Theroux takes the train up the Spanish coast, catches a ferry past the islands of Mallorca and Corsica and onto the Italian coast. He continues by train along the Italian coast which he notes becomes progressively more sordid as one travels southward toward Naples. On the Dalmatian Coast, he travels by car (taxi) for a while and notes the thriving stolen automobile business. He passes by the pillboxes built for war and abanoned that now serve as housing for the poor Albanians. He comments on Hoxha's ruthless abuse of the Albanian people. He passes through Thessalonika, an ancient Greek city where hundreds of Jews lived for centuries before the rise of facism in Italy and the creation of the death camps. He leaves the Mediterranean for a while at this point, and when he resumes his journey he is on a yacht to Istanbul--the fabulous port once known to the Romans as Constantinople. Finally, he is on land again, in the Levant, traveling by bus through god-dominated and god-forsaken areas fought over since the dawn of time. On his long trek through Turkey, Lebanon, and other war-torn terrain he notes a huge Crusader fortress that still stands almost a millenium after it's constuction, Palestinian refugees, Israeli roads paved with U.S. taxpayer money, and the grinding poverty on all sides in spite of oil wealth. His journey through the Muslim dominated countries of Western Asia and Northern Africa are difficult and at times dangerous. He skirts Libya and moves onto Tunisia. Theroux's writing is reflective, even sardonic at times. He a critical observer, but not untruthful. Most travel books are designed to advertise the countries, places, cities they describe--and therefore by nature dishonest. Theroux is not selling the places he visits. No, this is not a travel book in the strictest sense, but it is a book for the armchair traveler who wants to know the world a little bit better. Given the ancient history of this area and the relevance of this part of the world this is not a book to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: Sour grapes and bitter lemons
Review: The Pillars of Hercules is disappointing; what a pity that such an accomplished travel writer as Paul Theroux should have wasted his talent and such a literary opportunity for the sake of displaying his contempt for almost everyone he meets on his journey. Theroux obviously did his homework: he alludes to such forerunners as Lear and Waugh and sprinkles his narrative with a few references to the history of Antiquity and more recent events, but this, apparently, is merely a blind designed to persuade the reader that this is in fact a work of travel literature. The real purpose of this work seems to be the fulfillment of Theroux's desire to denigrate the people he despises, who appear to include any other traveller (who are mere tourists, unlike Theroux), Israelis (real or supposed), Eric Newby (whom he probably resents for having written an excellent and informative account of the same journey) and anyone else who may fall within the range of his spittle. The Pillories of Hercules would probably be a more apt title for this mediocre and rather dull account of the meanderings of Theroux's mind whilst he happened to be travelling through one of the most interesting areas on earth. Indeed, having read this extended screed, I can only conclude that my idea of hell would be to travel across the Mediterranean in the company of Evelyn Waugh and Paul Theroux. And does Theroux really believe, self-obsessed, pompous and arrogant as he is,that anyone really gives a toss about whichever girlfriend he calls from a telephone box? Lovers of the Mediterranean, travel literature and admirers of Theroux's other works should refrain from reading the Pillars of Hercules in the assurance they will derive far greater enjoyment from Newby, Leigh Fermor, Durrell, Miller and Lawrence.
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