Go ask Paul
Got a question to ask Paul Theroux? Email hello@paultheroux.com and we’ll do our best to answer your questions in this space.
Q: I just read "The Happy Days of Oceana". My wife and I have visited many islands of the South Pacific (twice) by sailboat. In fact, we were there on our first voyage during the same period that you were. We are astonished by your low esteem for the people and their culture. We found them generous and kind, to say the least. Yes, alcohol corrupts the males horribly, as you can see in New Zealand, but generally they are wonderful people. You seemed to be caught up in your then current personal problems quite a bit, and may have projected your troubles onto others. It is sad that you could not see the true Polynesians [sic].
Tom Hill
A: Thank you. The actual title is “The Happy Isles of Oceania,” a book recounting my year and a half paddling my kayak among the islands of Melanesians, Polynesians, New Zealanders and Australians. I had just left my marriage, and at the beginning of the trip I felt gloomy. But I found my smile and, as I wrote, I enjoyed meeting these islanders. I might add that I was traveling in 1990-91, at when email, Facebook, and the Internet had yet to violate these islands. A travel book is a piece of history – personal history, and the history of the land the traveler reports on.
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Q: I just finished reading Deep South. Wow, I found it fascinating. Being called "Mr. Thorax" cracked me up! I'm curious if you spent any time in Tupelo, MS. Specifically, if you spent a night at the Trace Inn. It's very near the Natchez-Trace Parkway, which is how I found myself there one night in 2001. My friend and I were riding our bikes on the parkway. There were so many odd things about the hotel. One was a huge portrait of Nathan Bedford Forrest hanging in the lobby. Another was that my bed was a Murphy bed. Another was the unattached U-shaped complex of rooms on the property that seemed to be, at that time, poverty lodging for locals. Everything was in various stages of decline. The white middle-aged woman working at the desk in the evening was curious and frightening at the same time. A night spent at the Trace Inn would have been worthy of a page or two in Deep South. Thank you so much for writing it.
Lisa Paulos
Cedar Rapids, IA
A: Thank you. I’m glad you like “Deep South.” Yes, I did pass through Tupelo, and even visited Elvis’s child-hood home, that “shot-gun” shack. I didn’t stop at the Trace Inn, though it’s the sort of place where I often stayed. Interesting that there’s a portrait of Nathan Bedford Forrest in the lobby. He of course was a general in the Confederate Army and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and is much admired by some southerners – the sort who disliked my book. But I must say most of the folks I met on my trip were good people, and my road trip stays in my mind as one the most enlightening I’ve ever taken.
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Q: Dear Paul, we have been studying your text about your trip to Paris in our A-Level English lessons in Bedfordshire, England.
We have been tasked with exploring the way you use voice to present your experience, and whilst we have ideas and have attempted to infer, after finding your email address on your website, we thought it would be better to ask you yourself. How was your experience in Paris, and what did you do in your writing in order to try and show the reader that you felt this way?
Thank you and Kind Regards,
Daniel Thompson
A: Thank you. I think the human factor is the key to understanding a place. Making a friend, understanding the difficulties that people face, getting to know a local person is more useful than visiting a museum or a historic ruin or perhaps even a gilded church. I am still in touch with many of the people I’ve met and written about in my travels.
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Q: I am a historian researching the life of John Ehrlichman. In your book, Sunrise with Seamonstners, I note your reference to John and your relationship with him.
At a time convenient for you, or via email, I would like to connect and get your thoughts and recollections on John. A major focus of my research is on John’s life before and after his years in Washington. The historical narrative on John ignores him in totality and instead focuses on his few brief years in Washington, and then turns him into a scheming villain.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Joe Strupek
A: While John Ehrlichman was still in prison, he wrote me a letter saying that he was reading and enjoying my novels, and he intimated that he had literary ambitions. At the time I was writing about ex-president Nixon, and Ehrlichman wrote with helpful suggestions. After he was released from prison and had remarried, he visited London and we had a pleasant lunch. I found him personable, highly intelligent, well-read, and chastened by incarceration – humbled. (He had been portrayed as Nixon’s attack dog during Watergate.) Beyond these few observations, I really don’t have anything more to add.
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Q: Dear Paul - I don't usually write to authors of books I read. In fact I haven't ever done that before. But I did want to write to congratulate you for “On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey”.
I lived in Mexico for a year or two - over a three-year period - around 2012 - 2014 - my initial motives were to pursue a decade long UK relation with my Mexican partner back in 'her' country so as to see things from her perspective.
So much that is written about Mexico is from the gringo's rather shallow and egotistical point of view. I must admit the first 90 pages I found hard going and dull! But I then really began to appreciate how deep you dug into the contradictions and strange underside of Mexico that most tourists (and even many Mexicans) don't ever quite uncover. I really respected the humanity you described towards people and your traveller's sensitivity to the very strange under culture. It was very moving to read of your attention to the political and to the mish mash syncretic belief system as well as the clientelistic political governance.
I ran across some of these elements in Morelia (Michoacan) where I lived and nearby Patzcuaro (where el dia de los muertos is almost an art form complete with 'Elvis Lives' statues!). And I also could never figure out the clientelistic system where in order to get paid for my work at a university a friend of a friend had to get a chit from a local garage! The numbers of disappeared children (rumoured to have been kidnapped for their organs for wealthy foreigners) and the vigils outside at UNAM university and north of the Zocolo in Mexico City were familiar features. But also the resistance and political awareness - particularly among indigenous groups – was often astounding both in St Christobal de las Casas and in northern Michoacan.
I was lucky enough to be involved in some of the development work in Cheran (see my very brief article for Red Pepper) - a highly indigenous area where at that time they were building on Illich and Friere's work https://www.redpepper.org.uk/cheran-the-secession-of-a-mexican-village/ and my rather optimistic hopes from an exciting student movement https://www.mikeaikencamino.com/Blog/Entries/2012/6/27_YoSoy132.html
Oddly, I managed to walk across the border to Guatemala on foot, as there was no-one on duty on the border post south. I waited an hour or so and no-one came, no car passed, so I just walked on! But later the (rather kind and organised El Salvador officials) said I had to get a visa and they helped direct me to where I could get one. I discretely offered a bribe and the woman official was shocked ‘You're in El Salvador now. You don't need to do that. Just pay the [small] fee for the visa, and I will give you a receipt.'
After all the corruption in Mexico, I later also found my visits to Cuba a simple joy. It is no paradise, but what an achievement.
Anyway, enough rambling. Thank you for writing such an honest and thoughtful book. I also enjoyed your insights about attending Spanish classes where I too was always the older guy having to explain what my Dad did for a living.
If you are ever doing a study tour or a lecture series in the UK I would be pleased to attend.
Best wishes and Venga!
Dr Mike Aiken (Brighton, UK)
A: Many thanks for your letter and good luck in your endeavors.
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Q: Hello Mr. Theroux, I'm writing to you from London. I hope this email finds you well. I've been a big fan of Graham Greene's since Uncle Percy gave me a copy of The Ministry of Fear many, many Christmases ago. I have subsequently read all of Graham Greene's novels. Your travel books are a recent discovery. I listened to The Great Railway Bazaar as I circumnavigated the Iberian peninsular researching my latest travel guide, Hidden Beaches Spain.
I'm reading The Pillars of Hercules. I was delighted when you went in search of Mr. Greene's flat in Antibes. You mentioned a previous meeting with him. Imagine, two of your favourite writers sharing a glass of whiskey or two on the French Riviera. Did you write about your time spent with Graham Greene? If so, where can I read about your encounter(s)?
By the way, I recently visited Albania. I found the country in a much better state of health than you left it.
Regards
John Weller
A: Thank you. I was a reader of Greene’s books from an early age, and he became a sort of role model, as novelist, essayist and traveler. I met him in 1976 in London and we met again over the years and stayed in touch. I have written extensively about him – have a look at my pieces about him (under the heading “Greeneland”) in my essay collection, “Fresh Air Fiend.”
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Q: I have just finished reading your book "Deep South". Nothing else I have read in recent memory has so moved me to tears, indignation, frustration and outrage as your descriptions of the third-world nation this country has been and remains in large parts.
One phrase in particular has haunted me since I read it. As you enter each derelict Southern town with its bordered up storefronts and decaying structures you wrote of the "lovely bones" you perceived beneath the rot and noted "much of [their} elegance [has been] strangled by poverty."
As you can see by the address below, I live in Philadelphia, the poorest big city in America with nearly 26% of its population living below the poverty line. During the last few years I have wandered throughout the city photographing its good bones in all of their mournful dignity, all the while keeping in mind a line from Howard Nemerov's poem "A View from The Attic Window'':
"I cried because life is hopeless and beautiful."
Those individuals you met and described during your southern sojourns, who against all odds and with scan support from powerful individuals and institutions whose efforts are directed at Africa rather than at home, forcibly reminded me of hopelessness and beauty. They persist in their efforts to help themselves and their neighbors when faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Theirs is the best of the human spirit, but, alas, one cannot help feeling dispirited at the deepening gulf between economic haves and have-nots and the intractable racism that still prevails in America.
Ours has become a phony nation espousing democratic ideals while mostly suppressing their realization, resurgent voter suppression being the most egregious example. Although six years have passed since "Deep South" was first published, its impact as far as I can determine has had little effect in ameliorating the dire circumstances of the rural South. That is a lot to ask of any author and I don't imagine you set out with that goal in mind; however, it's clear from the book you found the problems staring you in the face at every turn and not only did you never avert your eyes, you kept going back for more.
I am vicariously aware of the plight of the rural poor in the South having for many years taught the history of photography (and thus having considerable knowledge of Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans and the FSA among others) and having read (or better yet struggled through) "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" among other works by Agee. If nothing else, your book has reminded me the desperation of black Americans in general and the rural poor of all races remains the greatest problem of ours or any age.
Tom Goodman
A: Thanks for your heartfelt message. I have looked at your website and am greatly impressed with your photographs – and anyone perusing my own website and seeing this message is certain to be fascinated by your images.
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Q: Thank you for your books. I love reading them. I’m a doctor & mother of two little boys in a sea side town in Tasmania, Australia. I just finished reading Millroy the Magician. I loved it! You were ahead of your time with what you wrote in that book about diet and disease! Do you follow a whole food plant-based diet?
Yas Hughes
A: Thank you. I was in the midst of figuring out a healthy diet when the character Millroy appeared in my imagination, and a novel based on his enthusiasms. I saw him as a character with many interests beyond being a magician at a carnival. But the charismatic leader is complex – and such people appeal to me for their complexity – Allie Fox, the father in my “Mosquito Coast” is another, inventive but also with a dark side. Millroy’s diet, however, is really healthy!
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Q: Hello - one of the things I love most about your writing is all the great books I learn about because you mention them. For example, I'd never have picked up Granite Island if I hadn't read The Pillars of Hercules. So I was wondering, don't any of your fans keep lists online, that you know of? I just finished Plain of Snakes and returned it to the library, but I know I missed some good ones.
Thanks very much for all the fantastic reading over the years.
Sincerely,
-Marjorie Kaye
Constant reader
A: Thank you. Yes, in all my travel books I’ve mentioned the literature of the places I wrote about, hoping that the reader would take a hint. Carrington’s “Granite Island” about Corsica is a wonderful book, and I was luck to have met her in Ajaccio. Lucky also to have met Paul Bowles in Tangier – also a great writer. Mexican literature is rich and not well known in the US, but well worth finding – yes, “On the Plain of Snakes” has a whole chapter about Mexican fiction.
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Q: Dear Mr. Paul, I first came across you as a teenager in the early nineties, when I found and inhaled Riding the Iron Rooster, liberated from my father’s bedside table to my own. Since then I have followed your progress, leaping at your travel books as I found them new and used and seizing upon your fiction in second hand bookshops. I have read, reread and read them again, much as I do Jane Austen, for comfort and clarity.
As a adult, and not until I became a parent myself, I have enormously enjoyed the work of your son Louis, seeing a common thread of curiosity and open minded clear thinking, insights and moments of the realest absurdity.
My question is this: so much travel, so much time away when your children were young. Impossible for me to imagine doing so – my children are such a responsibility, more, such a huge and inescapable fact of my life. Almost every bloody thought revolves around them, from logistics to love. I couldn’t have done it.
There’s no hostility in my question, only interest. How did you do it? And in the end, do you think your children are better for the example of authenticity you showed? I have the greatest fear that the settled, ordinary life we have given them might not be the best example for living Mary Oliver’s wild and precious life.
It’s no doubt obvious that I am a mother, not a father. Is that where the rub lies? Why should it?
Regards
Carly
A: Thank you – this is a really important question, and I wish I had the answer. When I took my first long trip, which I recounted in “The Great Railway Bazaar”, I had a camera – and when I looked at my photographs afterwards a great many were of small children, the ages of my children then (3 and 5). I missed my two boys terribly! I think I was compensating by photographing children in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Burma and so on. My children also missed me, of course. So, yes, travel writing involves long absences. The plus side is that a full time writer nearly always works at home – as a consequence, when I was home I was in the house all day and accessible in a way a working parent rarely is. My children, Marcel and Louis, are travelers, writers, and makers of documentaries and I’m very proud of their work.
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Q: Thank you for 'The Mosquito Coast' Paul. I first read it about 30 years ago as a teenager and it was the first time I ever felt truly understood.
It infuriates me to read opinions of this novel describing it as unrealistic. Just tells me how lucky they were to not have a family dynamic like this.
I lived in the tropics, on a boat, oldest of 3 children. Allie was like my father, the mother was like my mum and the children were like my brothers and I. I was the oldest, and like Charlie tried to convince mum to leave one day. She didn't. I used to dream of being on the beach at the end, finally free.
The Mosquito Coast has survived all of my book culls over the years, along with The Bell Jar.
I'm just one person but I wanted to let you know how much this book affected me, helped me feel less alone and in a manner told my own story in terms of the family dynamics and fear.
Thanks, Jody
A: Many thanks. I’m glad my book resonated with you.
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Q: I recently re-read a piece of yours, published some years ago in Smithsonian Magazine, about biography. In the intervening 10 years, no autobiography has emerged, as you predicted it would not, though it's my opinion a David Copperfield or two has come out.
The writers you mentioned - Greene, Trollope, Pritchett, Nabokov. Whether or not biography or autobiography did them any favors, the world was made inarguably richer through the works that explored their lives. If I'm reading your essay "A Love Scene After Work" correctly, was not part of your inspiration to chuck in the day job and write full-time Trollope's Autobiography? Had you not done that, I doubt I'd be sitting here today, having done exactly the same thing two years ago after reading your Patagonian Express.
Since then, I've spent many happy hours within the pages of your work. I know I'll spend more, each re-reading as valuable as the first, as valuable as those aforementioned readers your writing has directed me to. But if the world isn't to see a Paul Theroux autobiography, I hope there can be a path to having a Paul Theroux biography. Of course, neither of us will be on the earth forever. I hope our meeting won't be left to chance, as so little can be these days.
All the best,
James R. Patterson
A: Many thanks. As I’ve written in several essays, I am not keen on anyone writing my biography, nor have I any intention to write an autobiography. I would like my work to represent me and not what Kipling called “the higher cannibalism” of biography. I am a reader of literary biographies, and it amazes me to reflect on how selective – indeed, inaccurate – many biographies are, as though the biographer is creating a character. Of course, my life is in all my work – the important parts of my life. I mentioned this in my essay on the New Yorker website, “Facing Kaena Point: Reflections on Turning 80” – which might clarify the issue.
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Q: Hello, Mr. Theroux, I was born and raised in Brazil. I still live here. When I turned 20 I spent a year traveling through Europe and a little in the US. I wrote to my father many letters of all the experiences I’ve had during that time, all written in longhand. I still have them all to this day. I’m 54 now. My father passed away last April.
In my forties I’ve worked on a publishing house, Objetiva, for many years. It was the early 2000. I was responsible for the commercial department at the São Paulo branch. The main office was and still is in Rio de Janeiro. In that time I released some of your books translated to Brazilian Portuguese: Great railway bazaar, Dark Star Safari, The Mosquito Coast, Ghost train to the eastern star, The elefanta suite and A dead hand - a Crime in Calcuta. I read them all.
To tell you the truth, Great railway bazaar changed my life because I could experience in your sentences the doubt, excitement, fear and an observatory eye the same kind of travel report I wrote to my father many years before. I thought they were simple letters. Nevertheless, you did in a masterly way what I did in a simple and ordinary way.
No to bore you with my letter I became a writer myself three years later. And in many ways thanks to you. I write crime novels, have 4 books published and a contract to adapt the first to the big screen. I’m busy now doing research for my fifth novel.
I just read On the plain of snakes and Old Patagonian Express. Great books, indestructible, and started Under the wave of Waimea on audio.
Forgive me for the mistakes I made in English – it’s not my primary language – and for not asking a question, but this is a brief letter of gratitude that you somehow, and without knowing it, have shown me the way. I’m dancing on your footsteps.
God bless you.
Um abraço from Brazil.
Paulo Levy
A: Many thanks – a welcome letter! I look forward to reading your work.
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Q: First of all, Mr. Theroux, I really enjoyed the [Mexico] book, and was enthralled as always by your observations and the questions you pose to the people you meet.
I was recently describing to my son the feeling I often had that "this will be the chapter where he runs into some really bad people and they threaten to cut him into very small pieces and steal his beautiful car". I explained to Max that this never happens and he said, "what is he, Mr. Magoo?", which I hope you think is as funny as I did.
Kudos for your entire oeuvre: though I usually fall short, I try to keep in mind your idea of travel when abroad in the world.
Mike Dyer
A: Thank you. I laughed at your son’s response.
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Q: Greetings Paul, I hope all is well with you. I am Mychal A. Bryan - a 29-year old professional Astrologer and broadcast journalist from The Bahamas, now residing in Brookline, Massachusetts, with my partner Daniel.
I'm writing to let you know that Millroy completely changed my life. I read your book Millroy the Magician when I must have been 13 or 14 years old, and it completely transformed everything about my trajectory, my relationship to food, bodies, and everything that I've grown to become.
As a result of the Day One Diner, I opened both my first yoga studio (Cosmosis Yoga Suite) and my school Oraculos School of Astrology. Clearly, I'm a vegetarian; partly because I grew up in a family where vegetarianism was a thing (Seventh-day Adventists just like Missy McClung with her Chick-Chops, page 26), but also partly because in coming into yoga, I found ample room for my desire to eat purely. Millroy was always a guiding light in that regard.
I discovered my first copy of the book in a box of give-away books that my mother inherited from her ex-boss William F. Naughton. It has travelled the world with me, until it could no longer withstand the road, and now I travel with another copy, that is sadly going down the same path. No worries. I'll buy myself another one. Millroy goes with me everywhere I go.
Your writing has planted the seed of something extraordinary within my life beyond belief. Millroy was the best, so I too became the best in my field amongst my generation of peers and even beyond that. I've built a school of people similarly girded with the same passion to be the greatest at what they do. And it's all because of a fictitious character that you created.
While I'm not a nutbag, I actually have built my life in the image of Millroy. Uncannily, I now find myself living in Boston. And I remembered Millroy when I found myself driving to Cape Cod to make my way on a ferry to Martha's Vineyard. I dodged a very near encounter that almost rerouted my life to Hawai'i. But isn't it curious, how all these things come together in the end?
Maybe your book is a prophecy of the life that I now lead. Maybe I've crafted my life so that it took the shape of what existed in your book. Either way, I am grateful. Whenever I lose touch with my body, I read Millroy again to remind myself of what's most important in my life: my health, my practice, and my calling.
Thank you for creating the person who has become my greatest friend in the world.
With love,
Mychal A. Bryan
professional astrologer | journalist | hypnotherapist"
A: Many thanks. I’m glad you liked “Millroy”, and I wish you well in your endeavors.
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Q: I'd just like to say thanks since I finished reading a book of yours for the first time. I picked up a copy of the Old Patagonian Express in Bariloche, forgot it in a Cusco hotel, bought another copy in Bogota, then took it with me on a drive from Columbus, Georgia to Somerville, MA. I was in grad school at Tufts last year, and didn't get around to finishing it until today. We're moving in a week, but it seemed fitting that I should end the book here after doing the inverse of the journey I've been reading on for the past year and a half.
Looking forward to your other works.
-Allan
A: Thanks – and by the way, I grew up in Medford, not far from Tufts, and one of my jobs in high school was working at the supermarket right near it, in West Medford, bagging groceries and stocking shelves. I turned that experience into a short story “Stop & Shop” which appeared in an anthology a few years ago.
Q: It’s a funny old world where I discovered you through Dark Star Safari and your train travels… I’m a Missouri boy, but ended up living in China, NOLA, Ghana and now settled and married in Singapore…
The ugly story has the CIA and (crazily) Josh Hawley getting me out :/
I’m re-reading your works and find hope in every word…
I’ve also spent many days at the Hana Hotel Maui, which I rebranded years ago and regret…
We miss your voice in Asia.
Your connection and voice could make my life better…
CONTACT
MARK MASTERSON
A: Thanks for your message and invitation. I regret that, owing to work and responsibilities – and a need for privacy – I can’t be in direct touch. But I’m happy to answer your questions here.
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Q: Hi Paul, my name is Giovanna and I work at Cousins Library at Gosforth Academy, in Newcastle upon Tyne (UK).
For the display in support of World Book Day I would like to ask you some questions:
What is your favourite book and why?
Why do you think reading is important?
Thank you in advance and I look forward to hearing from you.
Best wishes,
Giovanna Gentile
A: Many thanks. The clearest answer to your question about reading is in my essay “On Reading” which is included in my collection “Figures in a Landscape” – do have a look at that. I am often asked “What’s your favorite travel book?” To answer that question I compiled a list of the books that I loved and I turned that list into a book, “The Tao of Travel,” which I recommend – more than 300 books!
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Q: I am reading Dark Star Safari, and you are an incredible writer, Paul! However, I was saddened to read about how hopeless you feel all the NGO and government efforts have been to improve life in most countries. And in the past, you were certainly right – handouts usually don’t work.
My question is – Have you been back in the last 10 years, and what do you think of the “new model” of creating savings groups? In this model, there are no handouts, but just a “hand-up” to create self-financed (not donor financed) banks and savings institutions – with an accountability to and by each member of the savings group. Many aid groups are adopting this model, and it “seems” to be more sustainable and encourage more ownership – at least so far. Thoughts? Thanks.
David
A: I agree that microloans have made a difference in helping to lift people in Africa out of poverty and that they are preferable to many other programs. But there is another issue: I am really dismayed when I read of the great numbers of nurses and doctors, educated and trained in Africa (or India, or elsewhere) emigrating to Britain or the USA to work, because the salaries are better. And so the donors (say the Gates Foundation) provide American nurses or doctors to those countries that have lost their recents graduates. Teachers, too, are poorly paid – yet politicians are well-compensated – a Kenyan member of parliament earns $78,500, which is 97 times more than Kenya’s GDP per capita ($1710) – these are World Bank figures.
Q: Dear Mr. Theroux -
Let me first assure you that I am not asking for anything. My purpose in writing is just to thank you for helping me through 2020. I find it odd that, although I have loved travel and literature for decades, it took me forty-two years to become acquainted with your work... and it could not have come at a better time. My wife and I have become avid travelers in the six years we have been married (not necessarily in the 'deep end of the pool' approach to travel that you embody, but adventurous in our own right as probably the first generation of our families to have or regularly use a passport). When the travel restrictions hit I felt as though we had lost a close friend. But you have taken me from Cairo to Cape Town, to Honduras, on a train journey across Europe and Asia, and as though that were not enough you introduced me to your friends. Camus took me to Algiers, W. Somerset Maugham took me through Southeast Asia, and Nadine Gordimer took me to South Africa... all through your introduction. Authors (I believe) introduce us to people and experiences, sometimes fictionalized, sometimes not, but the truly talented ones not only leave us wanting more but give us the roadmap on how to find more. The introductions you have given me to other great works (obscure as they may be for my humble background) are invaluable.
I have loved literature my whole life, but never once thought it appropriate to write to an author. Not that I thought it would be inappropriate, but what could it possibly accomplish? Certainly, you do not need my accolades. I can't imagine you losing sleep at night wondering if Christian Galloway in Pollock, Louisiana finds your work worthy of his time. But I noticed in several of your pieces you mention writing to authors whose work you admired, so I suppose this letter is one more emulation of you.
I hope this letter finds you and your family healthy and safe. If you ever find yourself in central Louisiana, please look me up and it would be my honor to take you to any one of the dozens of horrible restaurants that our fair city boasts.
Yours Truly,
Christian Galloway
A: Many thanks for your message. I am really pleased that my work has inspired you to travel, and also I’m delighted that my mention of books and authors has motivated you to read them. It was reading that turned me into a traveler, and in this pandemic it is reading and writing that have kept me content.
Q: Hello Mr. Theroux. I just finished your absorbing account of Mexico, “On the Plain of Snakes”. In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, I spent five summers among the Tzotzil Indians and learned the Zinacanteco dialect, and traveled almost exactly the roads you described in the rest of the country. I was startled to find either you or an editor had cribbed a speech by Mike Pompeo in your gratuitous diatribe against China on pp.408-409. I can understand some of your jaundiced view based on the 2013 timeframe of your last visit to Africa. But that was the year the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was announced. A mixed Chinese record before, evolved into a series of fundamental infrastructure and industrial projects not at all governed by obtaining “ivory, gold, bauxite, oil, and much else,” leaving the countries in “debt slavery”. This is a fair description of Western exploitation of Africa, colonial and post-colonial. For contrast, look at the Chinese role in building the SGR in Kenya and the Djibouti-Abbas Ababa railway in Ethiopia; and the financing of the feasibility study for the Transaqua Project, to lift water from the northern reaches of the Congo River basin into watercourses that would replenish Lake Chad 1,000 miles away.
I don’t think China’s achievement in lifting 850 million Chinese out of extreme poverty in the last 30 years, in economic dynamics opened by 20,000 miles of high-speed train, the South Water North water project, a premier drive to develop nuclear fusion and a robust space exploration program, is unrelated to more recent years’ activity bringing the BRI into Africa. The “million Uighurs imprisoned to be brainwashed in Xinjiang” is a standard trope of zealous neocons bent on poisoning cooperation between the U.S. and China and pushing us into military confrontation – and possible nuclear war - , but doesn’t hold up to impartial scrutiny.
I hope you will give the matter a re-think.
Sincerely,
Timothy Rush
Leesburg, VA
A: Thank you for your thoughts, regarding what you take to be China’s altruism. If you look closely, nearly all China’s efforts at building infrastructure in Africa is self-serving, the concentration in oil-rich countries (Angola and Sudan), or in ore rich countries (Zambia, South Africa, Uganda). The Chinese role in the illegal ivory trade is well-proven, and their take-over the copper mines in Zambia is classic neo-colonialism.
They have shown no interest in building hospitals or staffing schools – no visible profit in that. As for your assertion of lifting the Chinese people out of poverty, look no further than Tim Cook and his Apple investment in China, and Gates and many others, who have poured money into China, to make their products.
Your gibe about the Uigurs is hardly worthy of a response. The genocide, the brain-washing, the separation of Uigur children from their parents are monstrous examples of a country with a heavy hand on its people - and by the way, Hong Kong is a victim of the same tyranny. My novel “Kowloon Tong” I believe was prescient in this regards, as “Riding the Iron Rooster” showed the oppression that became the massacre in Tien an Men Square a year later.
I am no fan of Mike Pompeo. However, I think the autocratic and immovable Xi Jinping would love your message.
Q: I'm writing to thank you for your work over the years and to let you know how much your writing has meant to me.
I'm a 22-year-old student from Darwin, Australia. I had been traveling and studying abroad for most of the past four years since I graduated from high school. However, like most people, I returned home last year at the height of the pandemic and have since been studying online.
Coming back to my childhood bedroom, I started re-reading all the books of yours I have on my bookshelves and I realized how important they have been for me in my life.
I never really read much until I was 13. But when I picked up a copy of Happy Isles of Oceania I was immediately hooked. My parents and I lived in Fiji when I was younger and I loved your descriptions of the Pacific. Within a few months I had read all your travel books, essays, and a few of your novels.
I remember feeling connected to your outlook and interests and I was inspired by your love of literature. Because of this, I began broadening my reading to novels and history books. I haven't looked back since.
Since then I have been travelling and studying. I became fascinated by Indian history after reading the Great Railway Bazaar and Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. Inspired, I spent six months there learning Hindi . I also spent a year of my degree studying abroad in Beirut learning Arabic. I recently graduated with a degree in International relations and history.
I had not really realized until recently but I can trace most of these interests back to those first few books of yours I read. Your work helped make me curious and passionate about the world, so I thank you.
I hope you and your family are safe and well.
Best wishes,
Maxwell Lowe
A: Thank you for your message. As I have said above, books often motivate a reader to travel. But even if travel isn’t possible (as in this pandemic), the reading experience itself is transformative.
Q: I recently finished reading “Deep South” and loved it. I learned so much from that book.
A friend and I just decided to plan a trip to “the South” in the next year or so- and i will use some references from this book to help plan my end of the trip. Do you have any other suggestions for places to visit/resources regarding southern history and culture that are not mentioned in the book?
Thank you,
Laura
A: Thank you. There are so many themes to pursue in the Deep South – the Civil War battlefields, the varieties of southern cooking, the music – bluegrass, jazz, the Blues Highway (route 61 in the Delta). I was interested in life on the back roads – the farmers, the factory workers, the people just-getting-by, and I think the theme of “Deep South” was The Overlooked – people who are seldom written about.
Q: I am currently at work on an essay about Richard Burton's Brazilian days, and the changing landscape of the Sao Francisco river, which he paddled - one of his many uncelebrated feats.
In your book The Tao of Travel, you make several Burton references, some referenced, some not. The unreferenced ones I am interested in come from Chapter 8 (Fears, Neuroses, and Other Conditions): “Men who go looking for the source of a river are merely looking for the source of something missing in themselves, and never finding it," and "Travellers, like poets, are mostly an angry race."
From one paddling enthusiast to another (and on the topic of a third), I'd appreciate you pointing me in the right direction so that I can use these excellent quotes myself.
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
J.R. Patterson
A: There are three excellent biographies of Richard Burton: the best is by Fawn Brodie (“The Devil Drives”), Byron Farwell’s is competent and worth looking at, and a comprehensive dual biography of Richard and Isabel Burton is “A Rage to Live” by Mary S Lovell.
Q: I am a great fan of Ghost stories and especially during the Christmas time it's a perfect time to read them.
It was only recently that I came across your story "A Christmas Card". The German publisher Kampa did a re-release. But I didn't actually buy that copy but searched for the true first edition from 1982instead that has those great black and white Illustration in it.
For me it was such a great read with an absolutely special atmosphere to it that I had to read it to my children, too, and they liked it also a lot.
Since I am also a bit of a collector I was wondering if there was a way to get a signed and inscribed bookplate or Postcard to make my copy a special one.
Would be really nice hearing from you.
Stay healthy, Greetings
Björn Craig
A: Thanks – I’m glad you liked “A Christmas Card”. I regret to say that I am unable to provide a signature for your book.
Q: I'm currently enjoying your trip around the Mediterranean, so many parts of which are familiar to me.
I have visited Zadar on a few occasions and have friends there so I was really interested to read your section on arriving there. Your mention of staying at the Hotel Kolovare, full of refugees, twigged something in my memory. Last time were in Zadar, we watched the Croatian National Football team reach the final of the world cup, spearheaded by their captain Luka Modric. We discussed his background a lot during this time. He would have been one of the refugee children at the Hotel Kolovare during your visit (he had lived with his grandfather in a cottage in the hills which was burned to the ground by the Serbian Krajina mob, his grandfather executed).
I just wonder if some of the refugee kids you saw outside the hotel were playing football in the car park? It's nice to think you were there as Luka started his path from shepherd/refugee to one of the world's greatest players, both for Croatia and Real Madrid.
I guess it just tickled me.
Regards
Iain Stewart
Denmark (Scotland originally).
A: I am fascinated by what you say, because indeed when I was in Zadar, the only recreation I witnessed among boys (old and young) was kicking a football, and it is highly likely that one of them was Luka Modric.
Q: Back in 1981, when I was 12 years old, I was an avid reader. Ours was a literally omnivorous household. We consumed printed word in all of its shapes. The house was full of messy bookshelves: Classics, trashy bestsellers, battered issues of Reader’s Digest, coffe table books on painting, etc. All of those had one thing in common: They were pretty worn out. You see, everyone read at that house. It was five of us: My father, my mother, my two brothers and me. By the time any of those volumes (most of them paperbacks) had made the full tour of all family members, it was practically falling apart. Most of these books we loved and wanted to have around, so by the time they were almost completely atomised, we would buy a new one, borrow it from the library (we all had cards), or find a new copy at one of the many book exchanges in my neighborhood (I knew them all).
A reading list for any given year in my teens would include works as disparaging as I Claudius by Robert Graves, A Clockwork Orangeby Peter Burgess, The boy who invented the Bubble Gun by Paul Gallico, Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Boulgakhov, Catch 22 by Joseph Heller, Papillion by Henri Charriere, Flash by Charles Duchaussois and a myriad of short stories by the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, Howard Phillips Lovecraft (and his whole unholy circle of correspondants), Rudyard Kipling, Jorge Luis Borges, Woody Allen and Stephen King, and so on and on.
These are just a few names that spring to mind right away. I now realize that I effortlesly remember the titles, covers and even paragraphs of many of these books. Maybe because I tended to reread a lot. And not just twice. You can pretty much say that they all left a big mark on me, each for its own reasons.
And it was in 1981 that I read a book that changed my life forever. The cover itself was fascinating: Under a blue diaphanous sky, stood an ancient looking black and red locomotive (later on, to my utter excitement, I found out that the particular engine on the photograph was the actual Viejo Expreso Patagónico, or La Trochita) The name of the book was Pasajeros en los Trenes de América, by Paul Theroux. The name in English was even more fascinating: The Old Patagonian Express.
It turns out you can sometimes judge a book by its cover. The book delivered what the cover promised. I finished it in a couple of days. And then I read it again. And again. Would it be redundant to say I was fascinated and enthralled by this book? Changed my life forever, is, if anything, and understatement.
Maybe it was because we lived close to the railroad tracks, and also because by that age I started doing some of my first non-family travels: Camping trips as a cub scout and later on as a boy scout. Theroux’s book had everything I craved for, the mysterious landscapes, the characters, the intriguing stories. But I think I was mainly seduced bt the concept. You could walk a few blocks (four in my case) to the railway station and plunge into a different world: Meet new people, hear crazy stories, experience discomfort and bliss and finally end far, far away from anywhere and anyone you knew.
No, I didn’t hop on a train and suddenly become a tragic runaway child. But the book definitely did something to me.
The book made me, for good or for bad, who I am today. No pressure on you Mr. Theroux! I don’t want to bore you with my life story. I previously said the book made me who I am today, but it would be more accurate to say it made me the many persons I was during different times in my life: An even more avid reader, a tireless backpacker, an early explorer of Patagonia, a somewhat impatient student of anthropology. Different stages of my life & different incarnations of myself, but somehow all of them motivated by those stories. As my english skills improved, I had access to more stories by Paul Theroux. More travels, other continents a lot of chronological jumps, as I was not reading them in order. I read whatever I could find in second hand bookstores in Argentina. Most of his works were not edited in my country, but I always managed to get my hands on one I didn’t have. Then I discovered his fiction works, which I loved even more. The Mosquito Coast, now that is what a I call influential. That is how Mr. Theroux became a friend for me, one who I would perhaps never meet but on whom I could travel with and visit whenever I wanted just by opening any of those books.
As new stories and articles appear, I keep on reading. Your stories keep fueling my wanderlust. Please keep them coming.
So, from the bottom of my heart: Thank you! Muchas gracias!
P.S. I feel extremely self-conscious about sending this letter, considering that you are my main literary hero and English is not my native language. I am aware that it is indeed very far from perfect. I hope it doesn’t hurt your eyes too much to read my inept scribblings. My apologies for that.
The alternative would be not to send it and forget the whole thing. The thing is I really owe you a thank you note after all these years enjoying your work.
Agustín Calvetti
A: Thank you for your wonderful letter!
Q: I have almost finished your Dark Star Safari and feel rather sad the country has gone down hill so badly. We were in Malawi from 1967 till 1970 and although I didn't like Dr Banda making rules that affected me, like wearing long skirts only we enjoyed our time there. My youngest child was born there which had its moments. Is it any better today?
My husband worked as an Engineer there working in water supply. At that time there were no African engineers. In fact for some, it was still a colony and the way they behaved towards the Africans was upsetting. We had previously lived in Borneo where race wasn't a problem.
On finishing our contract we drove south to Capetown which was quite a journey with three small kids in the back of the car.
There were not many, if any NGOs or charity groups there as far as I was aware. Years later I recall seeing White Landrovers in Cambodia with locals skeptical of their use. We now live 8n New Zealand.
Regards Ann
A: Thank you for your letter. Your mention of Dr Banda (who deported me from Malawi in Oct 1965) reminds me that on his death he had amassed hundreds of millions in Swiss bank accounts, as most Malawians were living in extreme poverty. I have not been back to Malawi for about ten years, but as soon as I am able to travel I intend to return to Malawi – my first experience of the real world.
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Q: I am almost finished reading ozone.
And my first question is- is Paul still alive? And what does he think of his prediction?
I saw a question which answered my other question, when is it set- 2020!! So I’m glad to be incidentally reading it in 2020. Before I knew it’s time setting I thought it was set in 2000 because fizzy reflected on a garrison in the nineties.
A: Yes, I can confirm that I am still alive. I wrote “O-Zone” in 1986, imagining what life might be like in the USA in the year 2020. I am not a prophet but various aspects of the novel have proven to be true. And I was utterly wrong about other things.
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Q: I am currently reading Dervla Murphy: The island that dared. Journeys in Cuba. I know from your Tao of travel book that you are an admirer of hers.
My questions are: Have you ever visited Cuba? And also have you ever considered writing a travel book about the Caribbean? I know from your Mother Land book that you lived in Puerto Rico in the early 1960’s. I enjoyed your The happy isles of Oceania and could imagine a kayaking adventure in the Caribbean.
Many thanks,
Darren Larner
A: Thank you. Yes, Dervla Murphy is a great traveler and a really wonderful human being. I have never been to Cuba but hope to go one day. Apart from Puerto Rico and the Bahamas, I have seen very little of the Caribbean. I have a wish to visit Trinidad, because of my friendship with V S Naipaul and my admiration for his work. After I wrote “Sir Vidia’s Shadow” – which was about our friendship, and the end of the friendship – I planned to visit his ancestral home, but never got around to it. We met again in 2011 and became friends once again, I am happy to say, and I remained close to him until the end of his life.
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Q: Hi Paul, we meet twice briefly at readings, a pure admirer of your tales. My question is related to kayaking rivers and sea, I’ve recently felt this to go back out there and paddle. Was wondering with your knowledge and paddling experience do you have a noteworthy list of books, people or stories I should check out kinda in the vein of your Tao of Travel? Casey Mowery
A: Thanks – as you may know I have been a kayaker since the mid 1980s, when I needed some exercise in winter months on the water. You’re always nice and warm paddling a kayak! I can’t name a book about paddling rivers, though I’m sure there are many. I want to recommend an amazing paddling book, “The Pacific Alone” by Dave Shively, which is an account of the kayaking voyage of Ed Gillet, who paddled from San Diego to Maui – a brave feat by a modest man.
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Q: On the Plain of Snakes was such a fulfilling book for so many reasons, too many to mention in this short inquiry. I read it after finishing Bones, which was a stunning read, so it was gratifying that you mentioned it as one of the best books on modern México and the narcos. Your telling of meeting with the Zapatistas was very moving; it’s a sign of hope that a small group of people have been able to change their lives in significant ways. That leads me to my question: have you been back to visit, have you taken the subcomandante’s invitation to return? As an aside, I have been a constant traveler since 1972 when I took my first trip to a foreign nation across the ocean. I returned from a month in Cambodia in February 27, 2020. This is the longest period in my life without travel, without using my passport. Friends are constantly concerned about my lack of travel, but like you, I have very much enjoyed the experience of my home. I experienced a journey of cooking by trying 65 new recipes this year! Next book on my list is your book of essays. All the best for 2021!
Kitty Hughes
A: I have been back to Mexico several times since finishing my book, but not to Chiapas. When this pandemic ends I intend to make a visit. Mexico remains for me one of the great destinations for a traveler.
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Q: Not a question - just a thank-you. I have only recently read Deep South, after belatedly coming across a very complimentary article in the Literary Review over here in England. As a long-time lover of the US, with family in NYC, Massachusetts and Maine, and fortunate to have enjoyed much traveling around a great country, I revelled in this portrait of an area I have not been fortunate enough to visit.
And I gained another fortuitous benefit - I read your account of William Faulkner, and subsequently have acquired Malcolm Cowley's single volume anthology. So I find myself, at the age of 78, suddenly exploring Faulkner's New World - and loving it. Admittedly his style does take some getting used to, but re-reading pays off, and I'm revelling in the diversity of his imagination and then, amidst his complexity, the sudden clarity and simplicity which shines through in, for example, A Rose for Emily - a sheer delight to read, along with Ad Astra and others. Hemingway he ain't, but his style is in its own way quite unique, as is Hemingway's, and just as much to be treasured.
So - back to Old Man - and thank you again for opening the door.
Regards
Anthony Bainbridge
Wiltshire, England
A: Thank you. I might add that one of the benefits of reading a travel book (and writing one) is that it introduces you to lots of new writers, who had something to say about that particular place. I read many books before I went to Mexico, and many afterwards. These are mentioned in the book itself, “On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey”
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Q: I was looking up the meaning of the word "dietrologia" and found your New Yorker article that was published in November 2020. It seemed like you use the word differently than how many online definitions categorize it, which is essentially treating it like "conspiracy theory-esque." Instead, you use dietrologia in a less heavy-handed way, almost like "hindsight is 20/20." Or like Sal was coming to a deeper understanding of events in his past, years later.
I'd like to know how you define dietrologia. Did you mean to veer from the conspiracy theory definition, and is there any reason for that?
Thanks and best,
Diana
A: Thanks – yes, the word is a neologism and as such it is subject to interpretation. Its definition is “behind-ology” – seeing hidden motives. Rather than conceive this as paranoia I took the positive view, that Sal in the story has developed a gift for “seeing behind”. It’s also possible to look at him as a fantasist, I suppose.
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Q: I'm a big fan of your books, although I haven't read them all. Because I don't really know English (I even write this text using a translator :) I only read what I could get in Polish.
As I am particularly passionate about raw and ascetic places on our planet (in theory, because I'm not a traveler), I have a special affection for fragments of "Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China" about western China. The above work was created in the eighties of the twentieth century - if I remember correctly.
My question is whether you have visited western China since then, including Sinkiang, Qinghai and, of course, Tibet (because the Polish edition of the book ends with a "prayer" - "May I come back")?
Sincerely
Artur Kalbarczyk
A: I have been back to China a few times but not to Xinjiang. I am very keen to take the train from Golmud to Lhasa. You might recall that I wrote in my book that the Chinese government was unlikely to build such a railway. But – as usual, full of surprises – the railway was built! I long to ride it.
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Q: Don Pablo,
I have always enjoyed vicarious travel through your writing, but it had been a while.
Recently, the current world situation has rekindled this appetite in a big, shall I say necessary, way.
You thoroughly fascinated me with Dark Star Safari and its return journey to Mesa Verde. You let me down with The Pillars of Hercules, and you totally won me over with On The Plain of Snakes which is now my all time favourite travel book of yours. In my humble opinion, you have managed to strike a perfect balance between using wisdom acquired through experiences few have lived like you have, and still keeping a childlike view around you, as in exercising boundless curiosity unsullied by prejudice.
Moreover, you let me see a Mexico that I still know so little about, even though it has always held a special place in my heart. As an American, you might understand that for the Canadian that I am, Mexicans are like distant cousins at opposite sides of your borders.
A number of years ago, I took a road trip (I do love those) from the Yukon, where I lived then, to Baja California. Best road trip ever in my limited book of travels. After a lifetime of dealing with beaters, I had splurged at last on a new Jeep Liberty, which was indeed a perfect automotive luxury for exploring the backroads, if one can call them that, of the northern world around me.
It was also the perfect vehicle with which to leave snow behind one spring and go find the sun amongst other things. I aimed for the East Coast of Baja California which remains largely undeveloped and hugs the Sea of Cortez with a network of predominantly dirt tracks. The Jeep was perfect, dependable, surefooted and trustworthy for the largely wilderness experience I was seeking. (I stopped clear of La Paz and purposely avoided the Cabo circus).
Now, Baja California is not quite Mexico. To locals, the main part of Mexico is more like what we northerners refer to as Outside when thinking of either the Southern parts, or the Continental U.S. for Alaskans. If I were to drive across Mexico as you did, my instinct would have told me to take my old beat-up Mazda pick-up truck when I still had it, in some sort of working order. Thus, my practical question to you: What did you drive?
It does seem like a trivial question (that had no place in your narrative) but in truth it is nothing but trivial when spending an inordinate amount of time and miles in it, navigating unknown country. I am not talking about reliability as much as targetability. Thieves are one thing, but cops, as you so chillingly evoke, are another. Did it increase your sense of safety or vulnerability? Knowing what you do now, would you have stuck to it, or picked another?
But then, had we rhetorically met as some forlorn roadside cantina and eyed each other’s exotic license plates, I sure hope we’d have soon found a better terrain of conversation than merely car talk.
My best to you, Don Pablo, and my gratitude for your travel spirit.
¡Vaya con Díos!
Didier Delahaye
A: Thanks for your reminiscence! To your question: I was determined to drive my own car – for the freedom of it, and because people said “Don’t do it!” I decided to avoid a car that someone might wish to steal, such as a shiny new Toyota 4Runner. I chose a 2011 Nissan Murano, All Wheel Drive, which served me well – indeed, I am still driving it! I would return in it to Mexico anytime. Just pray for this pandemic to end.
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Q: My book group in Ottawa, which has been meeting since 1995, has a 2020-2021 list of readings aligned with the theme of ‘journey.’
For this month, we each could choose whichever Theroux book appealed to us, though the focus remained on non-fiction. This was the 2nd time we had a Paul Theroux book on our program. Years ago we enjoyed a lively discussion around "The Happy Isles of Oceania.”
Here’s my question: Based upon my choice of “Figures in a Landscape: People and Places--Essays 2001-2016” — how did PT choose which essays to include, given their range of subject matter, and how did he determine the order of the essays?
It’s a fine collection, which I have supplemented by a ‘lite' reading of “The Tao of Travel.”
We meet on January 26. I will share whatever response you are able send, whether I receive it in time for our virtual session or not.
Thank you. Be well,
JC Sulzenko
Ottawa, Canada
A: I'm glad you're reading my essays, and supplementing that reading with my "Tao of Travel."
The order of the essays: I did not puzzle too hard; I tried to vary the subject matter - Thoreau and then Elizabeth Taylor, and Graham Greene, and so forth, so a reader would not be oppressed by seriousness. Many of the pieces were written for magazines, or as introductions to books - in other words, I was asked to write them. The writing of them paid my bills. But just as often I felt I had a good idea and I wrote a piece off my own bat, such as the ones about my geese, and about autobiography. The piece that took me the longest to write, because it was dear to my heart, was the one about my father "Dear Old Dad." It was also the most satisfying to write, because I wanted to understand him - and I loved him. By the way, he was very proud of having Canadian ancestry - my grandfather, Eugene Theroux was born in Yamaska, Quebec in the last 19th C.
"The Tao of Travel" I think of as a "bedside book" - read a few pages, or a short section, think about it a bit, then drop off to sleep.
My most recent travel book is about Mexico "On the Plain of Snakes." My new novel "Under the Wave at Waimea" comes out in April.
I wish you and your book group the best of luck.
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Q: Hello Favorite Writer,
I feel so lucky to have read every one of your books, and sincerely loved them and enjoy “traveling with you!” But I confess that, as a Dane, I’ve been anxiously awaiting your trip to the “Cold World” you promised your loyal readers. Please remember to keep your ears warm and you’ll stay healthy!
Charlotte in California
A: Long ago, I planned a trip from the village of my ancestors – Yamaska, Quebec – heading west through Canada, to Alaska, across the Bering Straits, to Siberia and onward through Russia to Scandinavia, then perhaps Iceland and Greenland, ending up in Labrador. A great itinerary! I hold this journey in my heart. Maybe someday…
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Q: Not a question, but more of a thank you. I have read the majority of your travel books during the last year while in quarantine (first introduced in an anthropology class in college reading your Oceania book during a class). They have been a nice escape for me during this time and I wanted to thank you for that.
I have looked for a collected set of your travel books but do not see one. Does this or will this exist?
Best
Nicolas Intagliata
A: Thanks – there is no “collected edition” but I am happy to report that all my travel books are in print.
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Q: I am having great moments with your “The Pillars of Hercules”, confined in the alps...
Your great chapter on Carlo Levi repeatedly mention him as being from Florence. It is a mistake. He was a Torinese, from Piemonte, and all his approach on Aliano is closely related to that...
Sorry being impertinent, but, I think should be corrected. Put sand on the flow of such a nice lecture
All the best and thank you
Antonio Gerbase, MD, former WHO staff
A: Thanks very much for this correction. Yes, Carlo Levi was indeed born in Torino in 1902. He wrote “Christ Stopped in Eboli” in Florence when he was released from his banishment. He died in 1975 in Rome and was buried in Aliano, as he wished. I can say that “Christ Stopped in Eboli” is one of my favorite books – about exile, about rural Italy, and Levi’s great humanity.
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Q: I am an anthropologist who has spent a long time in Bundibugyo over the last 25 years. In particular, I have worked with the 'pygmies' in the Semliki valley. I have read all of Paul's work in which he refers to part of Uganda. I was wondering how long he spent there himself and how often he visited? I was also curious as to whether he might have any photographs of the area that he might be willing to share. At the moment I am trying to piece together a photographic history for the area he seems to know well.
Many thanks,
Stan Frankland
A: Thank you for a question I have never been asked. I lived and worked in Uganda for four years – 1965–1968. I was a lecturer on the Extra Mural Dept of Makerere University in Kampala but the emphasis of my work and organizing was in rural areas – among them, Fort Portal in Western Uganda, and in distant Bundibugyo. Most of my students in the latter area, were Bwaamba people, though I got to know many of so-called pygmies, who tended to be shunned or isolated. I wish I had pictures from that time. I did not own a camera!
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Q: Which travel books that Paul has written are his favourites in rank order so I can compile my reading list of Paul Theroux books?
Thank you very much
Danny Alba
A: Thank you – a hard question! You might consider reading the books in chronological order, and that way you will see how my way of looking at the world has changed – I think, changed in significant ways. As for “favorites” – actually the more difficult trips are the ones I think of, in particular all the paddling in my kayak in “The Happy Isles” and the long and often dangerous Cairo to Cape Town trip in “Dark Star Safari”. My most fulfilling trip was certainly “On the Plain of Snakes” because it inspired in me a great fondness for Mexico and Mexicans.
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Q: Hello Paul,
I just wanted to let you know that I'm re-reading Ghost Train to the Eastern Star now, and really enjoyed the part where you checked into the Thiri Myaing Hotel and was recognized by Mr. Bernard's son after all those years. (I also read The Grand Railway Bazaar.)
I live in Yangon and this incident in your book inspired me to travel up north by train again, to Pyin U Lwin and east to Hsipaw - something I haven't done since 2010.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed that part with Mr. Bernard's son.
Take care,
Ryno Sauerman
A: I greatly enjoyed meeting Mr. Bernard in 1973, and it was a real thrill to meet his son 30-odd years later. One of the pleasures of writing a travel book is in knowing it has inspired a reader to take a trip in the same spirit.
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Q: Hello, I'm a huge fan of your work ('My Secret History' is my all-time favorite book). I remember you mentioning that you were planning a book about the "Cold World" - travelling through Canada and Scandinavia, I believe. I wondered if this was still being planned? I thought it would be especially interesting as I believe you have Canadian heritage. Also, Canada seems to be so often ignored by writers.
Many thanks for all you works!
Michael
A: It’s true, some years ago I was planning a trip from my ancestral home in Yamaska, Quebec, heading west – across Canada, Alaska, Siberia (and the rest of Russia) and Scandinavia. This trip is still high on my bucket list, but like you (I imagine) I am confined to home by the pandemic and have no travel plans – I am finishing a novel, which will come out next spring. Title: UNDER THE WAVE AT WAIMEA.
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Q: I’ve enjoyed Theroux’s books for a while now, years gone by, but never before have they been so powerful for me. You see, I love to travel, and my curiosity rivals Theroux’s. Well, rival, wrong word, comes close let’s say. In this time of lockdown, hate the word, Theroux’s world of travel, and his engagement with the people, brings us to these places, we feel them, the sorrow, and the community, the hopelessness, and the unfairness of life, as well as the magic of it all.
I was sure I had read in one of the last books I’ve read, Deep South, Dark Star Safari, and now On the Plain of Snakes (I read it with a map close by, traveling along in Mexico) that Theroux was writing, or had written a sequel to Dark Star Safari. Googling it I find nothing. The book begged a sequel, I’ve read it twice now, is there a s sequel to Dark Star Safari?
Thank you for your attention to this, stay well, and together in heart and soul,
Jane McClaren
A: Thanks for your comments. The sequel to DARK STAR SAFARI is my 2011 return to southern Africa and the book that followed, THE LAST TRAIN TO ZONA VERDE
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Q: I am doing a presentation on Subterranean Gothic for a travel writing class in the Johns Hopkins MA Writing Program. A couple questions:
- In your essay, you conclude that the subway needs sufficient investment or else the city will "come closer to looking like dear old Calcutta." Do you think the mission of preventing that outcome has been achieved, or do the subway and the city continue to teeter on the line.
-Assuming you have been back to the NYC subway since your essay, what improvements have you seen? What situations have become worse?
Thank you for your time,
Christoph Pearson
A: Thank you. The chaotic and dangerous New York City of the 1970s and 1980s does not in the least resemble the New York City of today. And the subway is vastly better – cleaner, safer, more efficient. The investment in the subway infrastructure reaped benefits – and as I said in my long-ago (1980) piece in the NYT, it’s impossible to maintain a big city without efficient and affordable mass transit. Yes, I have been back to NYC many times. The downside of all this investment and building and improvement? Confident wealthy people took up residence, rents and housing costs went up, and the city – now safer and more salubrious – became expensive and unaffordable for many.
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Q. Here is my question for Paul: My name is Jonathan - I love your work and your life story, Mr. Theroux. What is your perspective on strategy for being a writer in 2020? Here we are in the brave new DIY era with less dependence on lit agents/publishing houses - in some ways that’s empowering, but in others, I feel like it’s an extra burden on artists.
Now, in addition to being great at the craft of writing and putting in the time to produce good pieces, it seems we must also become experts at our own digital marketing. Agents/publishers want 80K instagram followers and high traffic blogs.
My own POV has been to still focus most time on getting better at the craft of writing / producing work, but I worry that with tech changes, writers now must dedicate much more time to running other aspects of their “creative business.”
Thank you,
Jonathan
A: My usual advice for an aspiring writer. Leave home, travel, get a job (not related to writing) which will allow first-hand experience of the real world – live, observe, keep a journal, above all become a passionate reader and at some point you will have something worthwhile to write about.
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Q: Recently I have been asked by several of my (remaining) Malawi IV Peace Corps (PC) colleagues for the "full story" surrounding my termination in February, 1964. As I pulled together documents and my previous research, it seemed that sharing my story might shed a bit of light on that early PC era and the unusual experience we both seem to have shared.
I have attached a photo copy of my PCV "Termination Statement" so that you might appreciate the commonalities and uniqueness of our Nyasaland/Malawi PC history.
Several years ago I was considering writing up this history for my kids. I went through my photos and letters, as well as the collected papers of James E. Blackwell archived at the Amistad Collection at Tulane. Unfortunately, my historical write-up has yet to achieve completion. Ah well.
I will look at my materials again, but I came away with perhaps fifty pages - much marked "Confidential" - of Blackwell's letters to Sargent Shriver ("Dear Sarge") describing in detail the PC and political "issues" in Malawi at the time.
We are both mentioned directly by name in the Blackwell letters which also reveal the PC paranoia (and policy) surrounding the (supposed) CIA infiltration and spying. This concern led to much that was fabricated to support that narrative. My "Termination Statement" was created in this context.
Sorry to made this a fairly brief, unedited and somewhat cryptic note. Perhaps we might swap some thoughts and stories?
Best!
Sam Korper
A: Thank you. As you indicate I was terminated from the Peace Corps in Malawi about two months before my tour was to end. I wrote about this in my essay “The Killing of Hastings Banda” – in my collection SUNRISE WTH SEA MONSTERS. I knew James Blackwell as a very responsive rep in Malawi, though I disagreed with him on one directive he issued – that we were forbidden to travel to South Africa (this was 1964-65). I wish I had been able to see the stark cruelty of apartheid. To me, a writer and traveler has a crucial role as an eye-witness.
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Q: Watching the pandemic news coverage reminds me of your Ozone novel: the ascendency of the .1 percent, the widespread use of masks in public, the oil glut, the surrender of privacy and freedom of movement for a marginally safer existence. How long will it be before we see designer face masks? 2021? Sooner, I’d guess. Maybe a prequel to Ozone is in order.
Wishing you and your family well,
Greg Peek
A: Thank you. I have been meaning to reread my novel O-ZONE, primarily because though I wrote it in 1986, the setting of the novel is 2020. I was going to call it “2020”! Some of what I wrote I am sure might have been prescient, and some completely mistaken. But I’m proud of the book.
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Q: I am currently reading THE KINGDOM BY THE SEA and note the continuities (naff seaside resorts, spoilt landscapes (more recently wind farms)) but the changes (decent hotels, weakening class divides) and wonder in the light of Brexit (interesting in itself) whether you would consider a sequel?
I don’t believe you have tried this before?
Thanks
Patrick Mallon
A: Thanks – actually I love revisiting places and writing about the changes that hve taken place. GHOST TRAIN TO THE EASTERN STAR was a return to the landscapes of my RAILWAY BAZAAR. I have no plans to circumambulate Britain, as I did in 1982, but I would love to do so, even if it was not the whole coast but parts of it.
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Q: One thing I really enjoy is your ability to draw people out while traveling. You get authentic observations from locals. I have a few questions about that.
1) To what would you ascribe your talent for engaging strangers? A kind of scientific curiosity? A gift of the gab? A fondness for people?
2) What percentage of these chats don't make the final draft? And is the worthiness of a conversation for the larger book not obvious to you until you are back home and writing it out?
3) Finally, how would characterize what you do as different from journalism, especially where it concerns talking to locals? Or is it the same?
I've gone over my limit. If you were to only answer one, make it number three. Looking forward to the Mexico book.
All the best,
Julian Friend
A: Thanks. I grew up in a big competitive and talkative family, a version of which appears in my novel MOTHER LAND. So I am used to the big family skills of negotiating and engaging, and this serves me well when I am on the road. I don’t make notes when talking to someone, but I write down the dialogue very soon after – so the details are accurate and I hope vivid. The ability to write dialogue is helpful in writing fiction, but there is a great difference between writing a novel – a work of the imagination (but of course based on reality), and the scrupulous task of writing a travel book.
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Q. I am from Germany, my name is Johannes, I am 41 and come from Freiburg, the black forest area. I just like to ask if you have been there too and what is your feeling and connection to Germany if you have any?
With my very best regards from Siem Reap (this time around).
Sincerely and thanks again for all your books!
Johannes
A. Thanks. I’ve been to Germany many times always with pleasure. But not to the Schwarzwald. My German publisher is Hoffmann und Kampe.
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Q. My wife and I have lived in Mexico for five years now. We loved Paul’s book very much and thought that it was the happiest of all his many books. One question, though. The greatest living travel photographer takes pictures for the book, and there’s no mention of Steve McCurry in the book, no acknowledgement, no forward, nothing but the glorious photos? Did Paul and Steve have some kind of falling out? Two geniuses combining to produce a work of art. It seems there ought to have been some acknowledgement of McCurry’s contribution to the work.
James McDaniel
San Miguel de Allende
A. We are delighted that you are enjoying On the Plain of Snakes. Steve McCurry and Paul Theroux have been and are lifelong friends. Acknowledgements of Steve’s work are on every page of his images in the book as are the pictures of Michael Sledge. No need to worry, but we appreciate your concern. We hope you keep reading Mr. Theroux’s work.
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Q: Was Ms. Bunny Arkle based off of Fancy, the star character in Reba McEntire’s hit circa 1990?
A: No - don't know that particular song.