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Summary: perceptions during train travel
Review: a journal of train travel through the americas ---north, central and south. i cant say that i loved this book and at times felt myself skipping through it
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Summary: Cranky
Review: Although some of the author's anecdotes were enjoyable, I became tired of his cranky observations of Latin America...
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Summary: An obnoxious but fun book.
Review: As a venezuelan I thank god that there is no train to my country and that Paul Theroux didn't stop in Venezuela because almost everywhere that he went , including part of the U.S.A, he had the ability, the gift to find only the negative things. So you should ask me, then why did I give this book 4 stars, because its fun to read. Paul Theroux, a young writer in the seventies, one day decides to leave his wife and kids in their home in London, go back to his parents house in Massachussets and from there take a train to the Patagonia: the farthest south that he could go. Sounds fun for an adventurous man, but all the time, all the places he keeps bitching about everything: The people on the trains, the people in the cities, how he misses his family, what is he doing there, about the food, about the hotels. Well you name it, but in the middle of all this bitching you can almost find yourself in the forest, in the middle of a civil war, in the top of the mountain, meeting Borges, every day completely different from the other.Paul Theroux can be real obnoxious, but he sure can write.
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Summary: This is the book that got me hooked on travelling
Review: First book I read by Paul Theroux and was blown away by his refusal to play the all-too-easily-pleased and polite traveller/tourist. Theroux is a thinking traveller not afraid to mix it up with the locals or allow people to make fools of themselves. I just wished he had taken another route home and written another book about that.
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Summary: start slow
Review: Having read a few of Theroux's books, this one starts very slow...almost plodding along. It's very hard to read until he makes it through Central America. The characters (people) he meets from the time he leaves Boston until he reaches South America don't seem to add to the story. In fact, the author treats them in a seemingly condescending way. Once he reaches South America, however, the book becomes eminently more readable. I didn't enjoy this one nearly as much as "Riding the Iron Rooster", but interesting in it's own way.
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Summary: start slow
Review: Having read a few of Theroux's books, this one starts very slow...almost plodding along. It's very hard to read until he makes it through Central America. The characters (people) he meets from the time he leaves Boston until he reaches South America don't seem to add to the story. In fact, the author treats them in a seemingly condescending way. Once he reaches South America, however, the book becomes eminently more readable. I didn't enjoy this one nearly as much as "Riding the Iron Rooster", but interesting in it's own way.
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Summary: Travel adventure in the comfort of your home.
Review: I loved this book. Having read most of Theroux's books this did not come as a great surprise, as far as being an eye opener. That is exactly the reason one should read travel journals - to go without going. The endless humour, the details and understanding of human nature is what makes PT a great travel journalist. He is at times a little bit naive about the way the world works but this is to be expected by an American. One should never expect a normal world view from an American. Knowing that going in, makes his books do their magic to me. The chapters on Central America were pure MAGIC. When is PT going to visit Iceland and write about that very strange place?
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Summary: Theroux hits the mark
Review: I very much like Theroux's writing. To me his sometimes acerbic observations get towards the truth of a place AS HE PERCEIVES IT. When I read travel books I likt to hear the author's point of view. That may or may not accord with my own or others'. I like also to compare them to other writers' experiences of the same place, whether it somewhere I will travel to by aircraft or mind's eye via the armchair only. How does Theroux strike up conversations with such odd collections of people? Partly because he travels alone, and partly because he is open to hearing the stories of others. Either he hits on the most interesting people in every place, or he endures more mundane conversations than anyone in order to cull the best! He must keep assiduous notes - really WORK at travelling to be able to relate in such detail. I know he gives us glimpses of his working modus operandi -references to the books he is reading, and the note-taking. A few times on the train I wished he had looked up longer i9n order to be able to tell us a little more about what was a bit further away from the track.
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Summary: Mean spirited at times
Review: It would be interesting for mr. Theroux to make the journey again, 25 years later, to see what has changed and what has not. Altough it makes an interesting read, and occasionally he is quite insightful (in his observations about the Argentinians), one is never sure if he is excited about the places and people he meets or if he is just irritated. His opinions on Mexico were a bit unfair, same as in Panama. And his impressions about Peru, a country in decay, despite being relevant to some extent now, are not exactly accurate (the country in the 90's experienced something of a revival). Same thing goes for Ecuador and Colombia. And his beloved Argentina? he would not recognize it right now, since it resembles the other southamerican nations (poverty, corruption, you name it). And by the way the meetings with Borges confirmed the widespread opinion in the spanish speaking world, that he was a anglophile snob that can hardly be considered a Latin American writer (but that snobbery was then a defining factor of the argentinian people); and also a right winger (the general Videla he praises was invloved in the murder of 30, 000 people).
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Summary: Don't be such a whiner Paul!
Review: Jesus, man! Are you always this annoyed with life? I liked your book but only because you met Borges and were Poe-obsessed throughout the entire trip. But my suggestion is to GO HOME next time you write a complaint filled travel book.
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