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A review by cmprs
The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas by Paul Theroux
2.0
One of the top reviews for this book reads "someone said that they liked the descriptions of this travel novel but would hate to have to go anywhere with this author." It's incredibly apt. I picked this book up out of interest for the trip, but it soon became apparent that Theroux thinks very little about both the people and the places around him. During one of the first interactions he has with someone, either on his way to or just after leaving Chicago, he immediatley shits on a friendly comment made to him by another passenger on the train, and it really sets the tone for the rest of this book.
To cut a long book short, this is about a so-called continuous train journey between Boston, Massachusetts and Esquel in Patagonia (although he doesn't always take the train to get there, plot twist) undertaken by an arrogant and deeply unpleasant man. Be warned: he doesn't like black people, he doesn't like his fellow tourists or backpackers (and asserts that he is neither, but rather a purer, higher form of White Person Travelling Abroad; don't you know he's a writer?), he doesn't like anyone who enjoys a comic book, he doesn't like the hot, he doesn't like the cold, he doesn't like the landscape, and listen, he hardly even likes the trains.
A couple of quotes:
"After three blocks the town didn't look any better, and wasn't that a rat nibbling near the tipped-over barrel of scraps? It's a white country, a man had told me in San Jose. But this was a black town, a beach-head of steaming trees and sea-stinks."
"'It is easier to go over [the mountains] than through them. You take the morning train to Lima. You get a plane ticket and, bam, you are in Cuzco.'
'I thought only tourists took the plane.'
'But you are a tourist.'
'Not exactly.'"
I'll give it two stars because I did indeed like his prose and the structure of this travel book. At the beginning, he describes his frustration about reading other travel writing and finding that they begin halfway through the story, and I agree with him. I too am interested in the entire tale, which he gives us here. I also agree that not all travelling is fun-in-the-sun and that some places truly are terrible and should be written thus, but Theroux paints an exceedingly negative picture of almost everywhere that he goes, with perhaps two exceptions. This book could have been good, but it featured too much of Theroux's blatant condescension, arrogance, and misanthropy. He may be able to write well, but his personality shits all over his literary skills. A shame, really.
To cut a long book short, this is about a so-called continuous train journey between Boston, Massachusetts and Esquel in Patagonia (although he doesn't always take the train to get there, plot twist) undertaken by an arrogant and deeply unpleasant man. Be warned: he doesn't like black people, he doesn't like his fellow tourists or backpackers (and asserts that he is neither, but rather a purer, higher form of White Person Travelling Abroad; don't you know he's a writer?), he doesn't like anyone who enjoys a comic book, he doesn't like the hot, he doesn't like the cold, he doesn't like the landscape, and listen, he hardly even likes the trains.
A couple of quotes:
"After three blocks the town didn't look any better, and wasn't that a rat nibbling near the tipped-over barrel of scraps? It's a white country, a man had told me in San Jose. But this was a black town, a beach-head of steaming trees and sea-stinks."
"'It is easier to go over [the mountains] than through them. You take the morning train to Lima. You get a plane ticket and, bam, you are in Cuzco.'
'I thought only tourists took the plane.'
'But you are a tourist.'
'Not exactly.'"
I'll give it two stars because I did indeed like his prose and the structure of this travel book. At the beginning, he describes his frustration about reading other travel writing and finding that they begin halfway through the story, and I agree with him. I too am interested in the entire tale, which he gives us here. I also agree that not all travelling is fun-in-the-sun and that some places truly are terrible and should be written thus, but Theroux paints an exceedingly negative picture of almost everywhere that he goes, with perhaps two exceptions. This book could have been good, but it featured too much of Theroux's blatant condescension, arrogance, and misanthropy. He may be able to write well, but his personality shits all over his literary skills. A shame, really.