2008.08.09: August 9, 2008: Headlines: Figures: COS - Malawi: Writing - Malawi: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel : Bill Glauber reviews Paul Theroux's 'Ghost Train'
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2008.08.09: August 9, 2008: Headlines: Figures: COS - Malawi: Writing - Malawi: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel : Bill Glauber reviews Paul Theroux's 'Ghost Train'
Bill Glauber reviews Paul Theroux's 'Ghost Train'
There are several cringe-worthy items in the book. Such as, Theroux meeting with Turkish writer Orhan Parmuk, a Nobel laureate, and writing: “I smiled when it dawned on me that he reminded me of myself — evasive, goofy, slightly moody, ill at ease in a crowd, uncomfortable at formal occasions.” Author Paul Theroux served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malawi in the 1960's.
Bill Glauber reviews Paul Theroux's 'Ghost Train'
Following his tracks
Theroux retraces epic train journey
By BILL GLAUBER
bglauber@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Aug. 9, 2008
Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar. By Paul Theroux. Houghton Mifflin Company. 512 pages. $28.
Traveling 28,000 miles with Paul Theroux is a lot like traveling the world with a long-lost friend. He's witty and worldly, but he also can be cranky and judgmental. Theroux is perfect company then for another epic travel adventure through Europe and Asia.
“Ghost Train to the Eastern Star” is a sequel, of sorts, to Theroux’s first great travel book, “The Great Railway Bazaar.” With a few detours thrown in, he’s determined to retrace his first grand journey, three decades later, seeing sights both familiar and unfamiliar. The world has changed and so has Theroux. He’s older (gout can be bothersome) and he wears the scars of the lonely writer’s life (the first trip blew up his first marriage).
“Older people are perceived as cynics and misanthropes — but no, they are simply people who have at least heard the still, sad music of humanity played by an inferior rock band howling for fame,” he writes. “Going back and retracing my footsteps — a glib, debunking effort for a shallower younger, impressionable writer — would be for me a way of seeing who I was, where I went, and what subsequently happened to the places I had seen.”
There are several cringe-worthy items in the book. Such as, Theroux meeting with Turkish writer Orhan Parmuk, a Nobel laureate, and writing: “I smiled when it dawned on me that he reminded me of myself — evasive, goofy, slightly moody, ill at ease in a crowd, uncomfortable at formal occasions.”
Or, Theroux in Jodhpur, sidling up to a rope line to meet with Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall. Theroux introduced himself to the prince and said, “You came to the premiere of the film of my book ‘The Mosquito Coast’ in London 20 years ago. I’m sure you don’t remember.”
And the prince responded, “Of course I remember.”
But at his best, and for long stretches here, this is what Theroux gives the reader: He’s brilliant, giving us sights, sounds and smells of still far-away lands. The clash of old and new in India, the sadness of Burma and the transformation of Singapore, the “safe, very tidy, highly organized, and generally unfree city state . . . ”
He gives us people, men such as Oo Nawng, a bicycle rickshaw driver in Mandalay, who is the same age as Theroux but whose legs, and livelihood, are sure to give out in a few years. “What future? I’m old!” the driver says.
And he gives us great lines, such as, “The gray sprawl of Tokyo was an intimidating version of the future, not yours and mine, but our children’s.”
The journey hits some potholes, drags a little bit, too, with too much Theroux and not enough of the world. But in the end, you’re glad you made this journey.
Bill Glauber is a Journal Sentinel reporter.
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Headlines: August, 2008; RPCV Paul Theroux (Malawi); Figures; Peace Corps Malawi; Directory of Malawi RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Malawi RPCVs; Writing - Malawi
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Story Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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