Theroux takes Ghost Train to Eastern Star
STEVE POLLICK
To state that Paul Theroux wrote "The Book" on travel writing,
showing us how it should be done, is no mean exaggeration.
The year was 1973. Nearly penniless at 32, he bargained an advance
from a publisher, essentially abandoned a young family in London, and
embarked on a 28,000-mile journey of many months from Europe through
Asia and back, mostly by train.
In one sense the journey was a big mistake. Theroux's extended
absence and lack of responsibility led to his wife abandoning him for a
lover and a new life.
But his resulting work, The Great Railway Bazaar, brought him a
guaranteed life income and made his bones as a travel writer, something
his critics contend he never has achieved as a fiction writer despite
nearly 30 attempts. (Personally, I really enjoyed The Mosquito Coast,
among others.)
In any event, Bazaar amply delineated the gulf between tourism and
travel: Tourists follow the beaten paths, herded like cattle by bus and
plane from gourmet meals and historic art to architecture and amusements
on the usual if-this-is-Tuesday-it-must-be-Belgium schedule. Travellers,
on the other hand, immerse themselves quietly, ghostlike, into a culture
they already have studied; they observe, they think, they experience,
and they reflect.
They take months, not days or weeks.
Theroux did all that and more in Bazaar, and readers responded by
snapping up 1.5 million copies in 20 languages. It became a classic, and
other fine traveller/writers followed suit with books of the same genre.
Theroux had set the standard and he never worried again about being
penniless.
Now comes the author at age 65, bent on retracing his steps,
following the rails east for a look-see through eyes matured by three
decades more of living. Thus he presents us with Ghost Train to the
Eastern Star.
This one is not going to be another Bazaar. The author's critics
(Theroux can be crusty and combative, especially with other writers of
his stature) already have seen to that. They complain of too much
posturing in Eastern Star, and of too many tired and tiring passages
amid flashes of literary brilliance. (The man can write.)
So keep the foregoing in mind as prologue when you delve into Eastern
Star.
Follow Theroux's rails to the end of the line before making your own
judgment. Meantime, along the way you will receive an education from a
canny, critical, educated observer on great chunks of the globe that
most Americans know little about, save for superficial snippets and
sound bites.
Equipped only with a briefcase and a small bag, Theroux leaves London
ruminating on his ruined marital past as the train clatters through the
city. Arriving in Paris via the English Channel tunnel, he sets the
stage for what he plans for his readers while he waits to change trains
and begins retracing the route of the now-defunct Orient Express.
He describes coming upon a round of French labour demonstrations
against the government and is immediately drawn to the protest scene,
which has brought the city to a halt. "Perhaps something to see -
certainly a rowdy mob was more of a draw than anything I might look at
in the Louvre."
Theroux tells you he doesn't like cities, preferring the hinterlands.
People are where he sees life. You will find him among the poor and
downtrodden, watching them slurp soup and gobble chunks of bread. You
will find him riding the cheap-seat, grim local trains, not the
neat-and-clean tourist expresses.
He also apparently has discovered that sex workers are great to
interview to learn about the street scene in any given locale, from
Istanbul to Vladivostok, because his meanderings often gravitate to
them.
He cannot this time ride across Iran, his visa denied. But he detours
through the Caucasus, crosses threatening borders between Turkmenistan
and Uzbekistan, and flies over Afghanistan to India.
He elbows his way south through the abysmally overcrowded
subcontinent to Sri Lanka, one of his favourites, where among other
things he is able to visit the great Sir Arthur C. Clarke (who died
earlier this year).
Sir Arthur is one of a handful of internationally acclaimed authors
Theroux is sure to rub elbows with in his railway re-run. And he
delights in letting you know it.
His commentary through Southeast Asia is engrossing and educating, if
bittersweet. Time and again Theroux is helped by kind and generous
little people - the ones who do not have enough for themselves.
He gives us an uncommonly perceptive view of Japan, all the way to
the northernmost sub-arctic tip of Hokkaido at Wakkanai, where you can
see Siberia. It takes 459 of his 496 pages to get us this far; then
Theroux gulps down all of Russia and goes home, galloping on the
Trans-Siberian Express, in a mere 37 pages. Perhaps it is an accurate
sign of travel fatigue, reflected in his waning enthusiasm for attending
to details as he had done so well in earlier pages.
His last long paragraph is not a bad summary of life on earth, though
it tends to pessimism.
The most upbeat lines are these: "Most people I'd met, in chance
encounters, were strangers who helped me on my way. And we lucky ghosts
can travel wherever we want."
At that point Theroux should have used the last word in his preceding
paragraph: "Done."
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