what do theroux's fans have in common?

Diana L Boeckmann

thoughts on this subject??

whitezulu · Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2005 7:38 pm Post subject:

An interest in travel? Travel experience?
An expat background or a wish for it?
A tendency for dark mind and brooding?

Lance Kirk · Joined: 16 Jun 2005 Posts: 3 Location: Singapore

I agree with whitezulu. I'm an avid PT reader and collector.

An interest in travel? Travel experience?

I've travelled extensively and spent time in Israel, Portugal, Netherlands and Singapore

An expat background or a wish for it?

Been living abroad (Singapore) for 8 years now.

A tendency for dark mind and brooding?

No comment

LK

Diana L Boeckmann · Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2005 10:35 pm Post subject: dark mind and brooding

how bout me; i'm not really a dark brooder. I'm a middle-aged blonde, mother of four, living in Iowa. I've only traveled in the U.S. I actually find many of the comments on this website quite annoying, yet I realize I must have much in common with all of you who love reading Theroux as much as I do.

I guess this is in the nature of doing research. I am a literature-and-the-environment professional, and will probably write about Theroux at some point.

keep those comments comin'!

Di

jeff · Joined: 14 Jun 2005 Posts: 2 Location: Toronto, Canada

I have been reading Theroux since the Great Railway Bazaar. I work at a university in Toronto, Canada. I like travelling and reading. Theroux really sparked my interest in reading many years ago and a new Theroux book is a big event still for me. I also like Paul Auster, Ian McEwan, Bill Bryson, Russell Banks, Lisa St.Aubin de Teran and many others. I like the fact that Theroux always explores different idea in his books and I would love to see him do a book about travelling the US by train.

drchris · Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 11:43 am Post subject: Absolutely

The characterization offered of PT readers in the first cell is right on. I have travelled to every continent save one, and worked throughout Latin America. To me, the real attraction of his work is that he points out things we have all observed at some level, but which other writers are afraid to mention. I also love the fact that his works have never fallen prey to political correctness!

sandykayak · Joined: 28 Jun 2005 Posts: 2

hi, all..newbie here...i googled PT to get a complete list of his travel books..I must have at least half...but I have a love affair with Amazon and ordered a bunch of travel books, including some of Bill Bryson's (highly recommend him as well.)

Ref PT not being PC, when I read The Happy Isles of Oceania (I love reading kayaking narratives as well), I thought....He must be PNG (persona non grata) here....I think it was the bit about being "attacked" by the young boys. (Forgive the vague reference, but it's been about 5 years since I read it).

I recently read that pseudo autobiography/fiction book and I didn't like knowing what was biographical.

The beauty of travel narratives is that you can pick them up and re-read them for the sheer beauty of the trip.

sandy in miami

M.L.Johnson · Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2005 9:26 pm Post subject:

Except for one vacation trip to Maui, I have never been off the North American continent. Never been to Mexico. Until I was married, I never traveled out of the Pacific Northwest. Not outgoing, not a good traveler, but voraciously interested in truthful accounts of other cultures.

Dark mind and brooding? Possibly. I know I enjoy Mr. Theroux's sense of humor. I place him on the shelf next to my beloved Graham Greene.

For me, it's vicarious travel with a jaundiced eye. I love it. I wish he would train that eye on the American hinterland, although it might not be nearly as interesting a trip for Mr. Theroux.

Paint me as a travel coward, especially in this century...

Steve Rowe · Joined: 07 Jul 2005 Posts: 3 Location: Saudi Arabia

I've travelled quite extensively over Europe, Asia and the Far East, but I'm by no means an accomplished traveller. I saw the inside of bars mainly. My favourite kind of travelling is in an arm chair with one of the great authors in the genre, Theroux, Rabaan, Chapman, Morris, Moorhouse, Naipaul. Sometimes, I've combined armchair travelling with the real variety. Once, I was in the Grand Hotel in Calcutta, reading Naipaul's "India" in the early hours of the morning. He was describing a market which, overnight, trasforms itself into an abbattoir where thousands of chickens are slaughtered, all within yards of a luxury hotel. I looked out of my bedroom window to see dozens of wide but shallow straw baskets full of trussed up chickens being slaughtered at a terrific rate. That was a magical moment for me. It's not often that, by pure chance, you can be reading about something and witness it simultaneously. But all my reading in the travel genre was sparked off by The Railway Bazaar.

Dark and brooding I most certainly am. I also love Graham Greene's books and during the same trip to Calcutta, I borrowed all of those available in the British Council Library and read the lot in rapid succession accompanied by Johnny Walker Black label whisky.

M.L.Johnson · Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2005 3:33 pm Post subject:

Graham Greene and JWB? Almost essentially consumed in tandem with one another...

What's your favorite Greene?

Steve Rowe · Joined: 07 Jul 2005 Posts: 3 Location: Saudi Arabia

I think, Our Man In Havana because I find it hilarious. For dark and brooding I like The Power and the Glory

M.L.Johnson · Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2005 7:41 pm Post subject:

I can't pick just one--Our Man in Havana was brilliant, and so was Travels with My Aunt--but I've read The Commedians twice so far, and loved The Quiet American and Power and the Glory, and A Burnt-Out Case, all the usual suspects. Each time I get part way through a novel or essay, I have to have a moment where I put the book down and say, "This stuff, this mind, this heart is just amazing!"

Part of what I love about Theroux is how he reminds me of Greene. Right now I'm devouring Dark Star Safari--I agree, if I were ever to travel anywhere, it would've been inspired by Great Railway Bazaar--or possibly Kingdom by the Sea. However I fear those places he's described--judging by some of the disappointments he's talked about in Dark Star--are gone forever, never to be seen again.

But that ephemeral quality is some of the draw, isn't it?

Steve Rowe · Joined: 07 Jul 2005 Posts: 3 Location: Saudi Arabia

I've been lucky in that I've read most of PT's books at the time he's written them. They don't usually inspire me to visit the places he writes about, quite the opposite sometimes. But I love reading about his experiences during his travels. I was naive when I first came across the travel genre and I believed that they were verbatim accounts, but now that I know that "the process of fiction has been at work" during the writing of them, I enjoy them no less.

Davidyong · Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 4 Location: Gold Coast Australia

Yeah I know what you mean, in the Iron Rooster I remember he quoted someone as saying they would'nt mind going to China as long as they could return the same day.
I went to china four months ago and I think he went lightly on it in some ways, we'd found feces wrapped in toilet paper on our balcony. However as in his book i've found the people are worth meeting and are quite interesting to talk to if they speak english and you have the time.
I will go back again but maybe to Gulin or something to see a tree without a concrete surround for a change.