Rating: 
Summary: The End of Elephants?
Review: A continent in crisis
REVIEW BY LYNN HAMILTON Don't be misled by the title of Paul Theroux's newest travel book. Dark Star Safari is about neither hunting nor the dark-hearted white hunter made mythic by Joseph Conrad. "The word 'safari,' in Swahili, means 'journey'; it has nothing to do with animals," Theroux writes. Theroux lived and taught in Africa in the late 1960s as a Peace Corps volunteer. In Dark Star Safari, he returns to a very different continent after an absence of 30 years-one that's been ripped apart by AIDS and violent political upheaval, and mercilessly stripped of its natural beauty. In search of the real Africa, Theroux takes his readers on a trek down unpaved roads. He rides on ferries that are prone to sink. He doesn't believe in making reservations, which lands him in smelly, mosquito-infested, three-dollar-a-night hotels. And he frequently has to wait days for a visa. In the process, this deservedly acclaimed travel writer gives us an eye-opening view of Africa. Tribesmen murmur that elections are rigged. In some countries, almost every grown man has served time as a political prisoner. Though it is illegal, the trade in ivory is thriving, and Theroux predicts the imminent extinction of the Ethiopian elephant. What makes his report even more heart-breaking is that Theroux sees all this with a sort of dual focus. He revisits the haunts of his youth, remembering the optimism of a newly independent Africa in the '60s. Where there were forests and exotic wildlife, now there is desert. Where there were lovely stucco and tile houses, now there is urban sprawl characterized by make-shift shacks. Poverty has no pride and begging is routine. Theroux is the thinking man's travel writer; in a seemingly casual, wandering fashion, he delivers a complete portrait of a continent's people, politics and economy. And what he finds in Africa is a continent in crisis.
Rating: 
Summary: SOMETIMES SELF-IMPORTANT & OFFENSIVE, BUT AN AMAZING JOURNEY
Review: Having traveled over seven years now to various regions of Africa mainly to work in rural villages with various volunteer organizations and occasionally to sightsee, I have always been a voracious reader of autobiographical works about overland African journeys. "Dark Star Safari" does not disappoint although one must first become accustomed to Theroux's pompous style of relating his experiences. It initially might be difficult for some readers to accept Theroux's often arrogant opinions of fellow travelers whom he describes in one passage as "those plump, rich, amphibious-looking people for whom travel is an expensive kind of laziness, spent in the company of other idle people to whom they relate details of their previous trips." In some passages he attacks other less analytical travelers for being rather shallow and asking questions of the local guide such as "how on earth did the ancient Eqyptians move those big things?" (I think we have all known a relative who perhaps does not have the opportunity to travel as much as Paul Theroux...who is just happy to be in new surroundings...who is not researching material for a book...and perhaps is only superfically involved in the educational aspect of an historical tour. People make journeys for different reasons...there's no reason why they should be held up to so much scrutiny and criticism.) Theroux's opinions on tipping likewise confound me. "It is bad enough," he writes, "that people expect something extra for just doing their jobs." It doesn't seem to occur to Theroux that tipping often times is the majority if not the totality of some worker's wages in this world. Even as he dismisses other traveler's experiences, Theroux himself writes the first few chapters of his tale with such dead seriousness and earnestness, it is as if he is already anticipating an epic and life-altering journey before it has even unfolded. As if to negate other's superficiality, he wanders across the great continent reading "The Heart of Darkness" a few dozen times and sometimes responding to those he encounters along the way with quotes from English poets. There is much drama in this journey. If one can get beyond the occasional pompousness however, there is ultimately an amazing journey here for the most part. It is impossible to do the trek which Theroux made and not have a great deal of material to compile for a fascinating story. The overland travels through the relatively unknown and seldom written about Sudan and Ethiopia are especially memorable. What makes all of these experiences life-altering are always the colorful, sometimes generous, occasionally unscrupulous characters one meets along the pathway of life. It is the humanity of this tale, not the historical detail, which makes this Dark Star Safari a memorable ride.
Rating:
Summary: A Curmudgeon Drops Out
Review: This journey by Paul Theroux constitutes a great achievement, traversing Africa north-to-south by land. The spirit of this journey is to escape from the constant irritation of instant Western communications, and drop out into the dark heart of Africa, where American "problems" like stock prices and political scandals are indeed insignificant. While traveling by rickety train, dilapidated car, or overcrowded bus, Theroux comes face-to-face with the real-life Africa. And as one of the best travel writers, his insights into real people and the real problems of their nations are always insightful and illuminating. In the process Theroux unveils the hypocrisy and unreality of the safari tourist trade that caters to obnoxious rich tourists while protecting them from the real Africa. His greatest revelations involve the horrific failure of decades of Western aid and charity to the poor African nations, which have made bad situations worse, especially through the enrichment of corrupt politicians and the encouragement of laziness and feelings of entitlement in the populace. Theroux's direct experience with these issues avidly illustrate this social disaster, and he recommends several solid books dealing with the phenomenon. Unfortunately, Theroux's crankiness gets the best of him as the journey progresses southward, perhaps showing the sheer hardship of the journey and his increasingly dark political outlook after seeing so much poverty and misery. Common Africans that were previously described in friendly terms become beggars and street urchins by the time he gets to Tanzania. Theroux is greatly disappointed by his return to Malawi, where he had worked in the Peace Corps 40 years before. This country's deterioration inspires Theroux to take it out on the natives in a round of name-calling and condemnation - for example, he calls the president a "gap-toothed fatty in glasses." Later he gives very one-sided coverage of the current political struggles in Zimbabwe and South Africa, mostly from the whites' perspective. Most telling is his theological debate with a young woman missionary in Mozambique, which he carries out politely and intelligently in person, but then bad-mouths the girl in his narrative. This book presents the details of an incredible journey and mostly offers rewarding observations and travel coverage by one of the best in the business. Just watch out for Theroux's emerging curmudgeon.
Rating:
Summary: Re: Clueless Reviewer from LA
Review: The reviewer from LA who gave this book one star is obviously not only clueless, but biased. He admits he's never been a Theroux fan and that's probably the only honest thing he had to say. As for the rest of it, the drivel about the beauty and wonder of other cultures...well, how do you respond to something like that? Theroux, who has not only lived in Africa, but who has traveled and written about more of this earth than most people have seen from an airplane seat, is, I think, much better qualified than the LA reviewer to offer his opinion on the situation in Africa.
Rating:
Summary: Africa,a 2003 reality check.
Review: Once again,a personal,meaningful, sensitive and intensely provocative review revisiting central Africa,besides a fresh honest look at the Nile,Islam,Ethiopia and finally South Africa. New ideas,seeing whats happened in 40 years and to me AT LAST honestly asking what,how,even why 'FOREIGN AID'needs to be re-evaluated? It takes courage to do what he did to make this book possible,
and it is an important,timely and valuable review for us here who forget the gap between 1st and 3rd Worlds is rapidly widening. Well Done,Paul!
Rating:
Summary: Thought Provoking and Entertaining
Review: Having lived in Egypt as a poor student and travelled to East and Southern Africa as a rich tourist, I thoroughly enjoyed this extremely well written book (notwithstanding Theroux' predictable carping about tourists who only see game parks and not the real Africa). The reader from Los Angeles who gave the one star review who says Theroux doesnt like Africa must have read the book while in a coma since his love for the continent and its peoples comes through clearly in his writing. He asks all the hard questions anyone with a half a brain asks who travels through Africa (e.g., how did things get this bad and why). It certainly is an open question if the billions in dollars in aid poured into African countries has helped or ultimately hurt those countries. Even though I send money to some of those aid organizations, I'm beggining to wonder if that aid is paternilistic and creating beggar nations. Theroux as usual is witty, erudite, caustic, sometimes maddening, but always perceptive and entertaining. He tells tales of trips most of us don't, or won't, take, and that's why we read him.
Rating:
Summary: You Are There
Review: Toward the end of this wonderful book, Theroux visits the South African author Nadine Gordimer, whose work he has read. Here, he observes that her novels make "Johannesburg seem like a city I was returning to." Thereafter, he provides what is probably his goal for "Dark Star Safari", as well as an accurate description of the compelling narrative power of this tour of 11 African countries. "For an author," Theroux writes, "there is no greater achievement than this, the successful re-creation in prose of the texture and emotions of a real place, making the reading of the work like a travel experience, containing many of the pleasures of the visit. How nice it would be, I thought, if someone reading the narrative of my Africa trip felt the same, that it was the next best thing to being there." Excellent and enjoyable work!
Rating: 
Summary: A study of Africa written by a self-satisfied prig
Review: This is one of the least sensitive, least perceptive, and most complaining books I have ever read about Africa. I happened to be traveling in Africa about the time the author made his trip, so I am not a disassociated critic. Theroux harps and harps on the horrors of Africa, how unlike the sanitized West it is, how failed it is ... on and on. His remarks are often correct, but they are almost never balanced and placed in perspective by an appreciation of the uniqueness of African cultures, and the greatness of so many qualities in them. Theroux bashes blacks, whites, Christians, Samburu tribal dress, tribal beliefs, tourists, black cheats and thiefs, on and on.
It is a vile, self-regarding recitation. In reality, the people he feels most comfortable with are white over-achievers like himself. The book describes correctly many problems and tragedies in Africa, and such things also exist in many cultures world-wide (including our own). But, he has no feeling, no real heart and true openness for the unique character of African peoples, whose ancient cultures and world-views are rich, profound, and entirely different from our own. Theroux got very physically sick at the end of his trip. It is a fitting end to a trip filled with so much attack, irritation, criticism, and bile. One one hand, he is very valiant to have made an extremely difficult trip; on the other, his stalwart attitude hardened him to the mystery and beauty of the cultures who were his hosts. A thoroughly irritating, brutish, and unconscious book. Theroux is, in last analysis, merely a boring defender of his own culture and values. I have never been a fan of his, but I read this book because of my own recent travels in many of the places he visited. He's a really dull and pompous guy.
Rating:
Summary: Theroux Commits Suicide
Review: Dark Star Safari is the story of a man who kills himself to stay alive. Paul Teroux seeks to slip out of a world of florescent midnights, step off the beaten path and disappear. Theroux arrives in Africa weary with the ease and convenience of the modern world. The feeling that everywhere from Hong Kong to Ecuador are slowly being reigned in to the widening suburbia of North America and Europe. He is bored with being the person he has become. The solution? Africa. A place were the ceaseless beat of marketing has yet to be heard. A place where bad people are really bad...people, and not just people who don't vote for the same political party as you. A place that is filthy and pristine simultaneously. Theroux takes you on this journey, not just through Africa, but through his past and Africa's. It is enlightening, exciting, sorrowful, remorseful, exotic, dangerous, disgusting, and hopelessly beautiful. This is a three dimentional portrait of a continent that has one foot firmly planted in the last century and the other in the last milennium. A great read. You end up wishing that you had been able to tag along. This is one embittered globetrotter who should win the Nobel.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome/Bummer
Review: But only a bummer because the wait between Pillars of Hercules and Dark Star Safari was so long (the book of previously released material doesn't count as a book, as far as I'm concerned.) When you buy a travel narrative by Paul Theroux, you are buying misery, sour grapes, irritation, and depression, and this one certainlly doesn't disappoint. And having spent a lot of time in chicken busses in the backwoods of Guatemala and El Salvador, it's comforting to know somebody else feels the same way when he's stuck out in the middle of nowhere, not that he (or me for that matter) would rather be anywhere else. I can't wait to read it again.
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